But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. Voting for the representatives was mostly done by Confederate soldiers from Kentucky and Missouri.[93]. The convention declared the state offices vacant, and appointed a Unionist interim state government. The Confederacy had no plan to expand, protect or encourage its railroads. Some high officials escaped to Europe, but President Davis was captured May 10; all remaining Confederate land forces surrendered by June 1865. The South was following the dominant currents of the American economic mainstream, but at a "great distance" as it lagged in the all-weather modes of transportation that brought cheaper, speedier freight shipment and forged new, expanding inter-regional markets. [149] European travelers visited and wrote accounts for publication. Yearns, W. Buck and Barret, John G., eds. Confederates slowed the Yankee invaders, at heavy cost to the Southern infrastructure. [53], The secession ordinances of the remaining two states, Florida and Louisiana, simply declared their severing ties with the federal Union, without stating any causes. [147][148], Nevertheless, the Confederacy was seen internationally as a serious attempt at nationhood, and European governments sent military observers, both official and unofficial, to assess whether there had been a de facto establishment of independence. The legislative vehicle was the controversial Twenty Negro Law that specifically exempted one white overseer or owner for every plantation with at least 20 slaves. This website can also be searched by the name of a soldier. Outright recognition would have meant certain war with the United States. The highest point (excluding Arizona and New Mexico) was Guadalupe Peak in Texas at 8,750 feet (2,670m). In March, President Lincoln notified South Carolina Governor Pickens that without Confederate resistance to the resupply there would be no military reinforcement without further notice, but Lincoln prepared to force resupply if it were not allowed. This is an index to a collection of unofficial rosters of soldiers from Virginia who served in the military forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. The British had stocks to last over a year and had been developing alternative sources of cotton, most notably India and Egypt. Railroads tied plantation areas to the nearest river or seaport and so made supply more dependable, lowered costs and increased profits. Many planters kept growing cotton, which piled up everywhere, but most turned to food production. Advocates sought to ensure future generations of Southern whites would continue to support white supremacist policies such as the Jim Crow laws through activities such as building Confederate monuments and influencing textbooks to write on Lost Cause ideology. After some success against the Union blockade, in March the ironclad CSS Virginia was forced into port and burned by Confederates at their retreat. Some historians have referred to the Confederacy as a form of Herrenvolk democracy. The Texas delegation was seated at the time, so it is counted in the "original seven" states of the Confederacy; it had no roll call vote until after its referendum made secession "operative". Lee's strike north was turned back at Antietam MD, then Union Major General Ambrose Burnside's offensive was disastrously ended at Fredericksburg VA in December. The Confederate government in its entire history collected only $3.5million in tariff revenue. Many conditional unionists were swept along by this powerful tide of southern nationalism; others were cowed into silence. [334][335][336] Union forces captured parts of coastal North Carolina, and at first were largely welcomed by local unionists. Both North and South began training up armies for major fighting the next year. The Capital was moved to Richmond May 30. Federal troops were withdrawn from the South, where conservative white Democrats had already regained political control of state governments, often through extreme violence and fraud to suppress black voting. Mail sent from the Confederacy to the U.S. was received, opened and inspected at Fortress Monroe on the Virginia coast before being passed on into the U.S. mail stream. Confederate States of America - Wikipedia In addition to the problems caused by states rights, Escott also emphasizes that the widespread opposition to any strong central government combined with the vast difference in wealth between the slave-owning class and the small farmers created insolvable dilemmas when the Confederate survival presupposed a strong central government backed by a united populace. Four additional slave-holding states Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina declared their secession and joined the Confederacy following a call by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln for troops from each state to recapture Sumter and other seized federal properties in the South. The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederates attacked Fort Sumter, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. W. Harrison Daniel, "Southern Protestantism and Army Missions in the Confederacy". Also known as the "Southern Cross", many variations sprang from the original square configuration. According to historian Avery O. Craven in 1950, the Confederate States of America nation, as a state power, was created by secessionists in Southern slave states, who believed that the federal government was making them second-class citizens. [332] Unionists, led by Parson Brownlow and Senator Andrew Johnson, took control of eastern Tennessee in 1863. Few towns had populations of more than 1,000 the typical county seat had a population of fewer than 500. Before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, a provisional Confederate government was established on February 8, 1861. Why Richmond? | Virginia Museum of History & Culture When bacon reached a dollar a pound in 1863, the poor women of Richmond, Atlanta and many other cities began to riot; they broke into shops and warehouses to seize food, as they were angry at ineffective state relief efforts, speculators, and merchants. The Confederacy recognized the pro-Confederate claimants in both Kentucky (December 10, 1861) and Missouri (November 28, 1861) and laid claim to those states, granting them Congressional representation and adding two stars to the Confederate flag. [191], Rich men's sons were appointed to the socially outcast "overseer" occupation, but the measure was received in the country with "universal odium". With Virginia's secession, Richmond was named the Confederate capitol. [214] Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory placed his hopes in a European-built ironclad fleet, but they were never realized. These in turn changed over time relative to Union occupation and disruption, the war impact on the local economy, and the course of the war. These efforts included taking possession of U.S. courts, custom houses, post offices, and most notably, arsenals and forts. The Confederacy actively used the army to arrest people suspected of loyalty to the United States. [293][294], Slave labor was applied in industry in a limited way in the Upper South and in a few port cities. By March 1865 conscription was to be administered by generals of the state reserves calling out men over 45 and under 18 years old. Some southern unionists blamed Lincoln's call for troops as the precipitating event for the second wave of secessions. The CSA was overwhelmingly Protestant. U.S. coinage was admitted as legal tender up to $10, as were British sovereigns, French Napoleons and Spanish and Mexican doubloons at a fixed rate of exchange. [26], The Confederacy was established by the Montgomery Convention in February 1861 by seven states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, adding Texas in March before Lincoln's inauguration), expanded in MayJuly 1861 (with Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina), and disintegrated in AprilMay 1865. Its administration survived in only three pockets of territory holding only one-third of its population. They were key for both Unionist and Confederate war aims. Confederate President Jefferson Davis's administration declared the Confederacy dissolved on May 5, and acknowledged in later writings that the Confederacy "disappeared" in 1865. "[234], When the war ended over 14,000 Confederates petitioned President Johnson for a pardon; he was generous in giving them out. Confederate officials would attempt to hunt down and kill potential draftees who had gone into hiding. Most were concentrated in "black belt" plantation areas (because few white families in the poor regions owned slaves). Later, mail that crossed lines had to be sent by 'Flag of Truce' and was allowed to pass at only two specific points. Postal Issue Used in the Confederacy (1893)", Tariff of the Confederate States of America, May 21, 1861, "1861 O 50C MS Seated Liberty Half Dollars | NGC", "Confederate Coinage: A Short-lived Dream", "The Richmond Bread Riot of 1863: Class, Race, and Gender in the Urban Confederacy", The Confederate States of America, 18611865, "How the Confederate battle flag became an enduring symbol of racism", Southerner vs. Southerner: Union Supporters Below the Mason-Dixon Line, "Selected Statistics on Slavery in the United States", All data for this section taken from the University of Virginia Library, Historical Census Browser, Census Data for Year 1860, "U.S. Bureau of the Census, Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1860, Internet Release date: June 15, 1998", Kentucky in the American Civil War Further reading, Missouri in the American Civil War Further reading, Tennessee in the American Civil War Further reading, Alabama in the American Civil War Further reading, Mississippi in the American Civil War Further reading, Florida in the American Civil War Further reading, Georgia in the American Civil War Further reading, Louisiana in the American Civil War Further reading, Texas in the American Civil War Further reading, Arkansas in the American Civil War Further reading, North Carolina in the American Civil War Further reading, South Carolina in the American Civil War Further reading, Virginia in the American Civil War Further reading, Confederate official government documents, Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, 18611865, Confederate offices Index of Politicians by Office Held or Sought, Photographs of the original Confederate Constitution, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory, Confederate States of America Collection at the Library of Congress, Works by or about Confederate States of America, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Confederate_States_of_America&oldid=1164556874, Texas-East William Pinckney Hill 18611865. Officers pleaded with the ranks to re-enlist, but a majority did not. According to historian David M. Potter, the lack of a functioning two-party system caused "real and direct damage" to the Confederate war effort since it prevented the formulation of any effective alternatives to the conduct of the war by the Davis administration. On their way to Europe in 1861, the U.S. Navy intercepted their ship, the Trent, and forcibly took them to Boston, an international episode known as the Trent Affair. Battle of Appomattox Court House, (April 9, 1865), one of the final battles of the American Civil War. Because of its depiction in the 20th-century and popular media, many people consider the rectangular battle flag with the dark blue bars as being synonymous with "the Confederate Flag", but this flag was never adopted as a Confederate national flag.[331]. [131] However, their mission was unsuccessful; historians give them low marks for their poor diplomacy. We won." It is STILL in Minnesota today." In the political moment it was a show of "defiance and strength". Many slaves became spies for the North, and large numbers ran away to federal lines. The Second Congress met there in two sessions, from May 2, 1864, to March 18, 1865.[123]. [264][11], The Montgomery Convention to establish the Confederacy and its executive met on February 4, 1861. Rable wrote, "But despite heated arguments and no little friction between the competing political cultures of unity and liberty, antiparty and broader fears about politics in general shaped civic life. Divorce, while never fully accepted, became more common. [127], Mid-war parleys between the two sides occurred without formal political recognition, though the laws of war predominantly governed military relationships on both sides of uniformed conflict. [255], Coulter, viewed by today's historians as a Confederate apologist,[256][257][258][259] says Davis was heroic and his will was indomitable. [108][109] Representatives for most of the counties were seated in both state legislatures at Wheeling and at Richmond for the duration of the war. [254], The enemies of President Davis proposed that the Confederacy "died of Davis". Attempts were made by Commodore Josiah Tattnall III's ironclads from Savannah in 1862 with the CSS Atlanta. Still there was shirking. Eleven were destroyed or severely damaged by war action, including Atlanta (with an 1860 population of 9,600), Charleston, Columbia, and Richmond (with prewar populations of 40,500, 8,100, and 37,900, respectively); the eleven contained 115,900 people in the 1860 census, or 14% of the urban South. [88] The governor maneuvered to take control of the St. Louis Arsenal and restrict Federal movements. Both sides honored George Washington as a Founding Father (and used the same Gilbert Stuart portrait). [230] Virginia - Wikipedia Davis, William C. and James I. Robertson Jr., eds. [341], In Texas, local officials harassed and murdered Unionists and Germans during the Civil War. The flags were known as the "Stars and Bars", . State by State | American Experience | Official Site | PBS "[122], The naming of Richmond as the new capital took place on May 30, 1861, and the last two sessions of the Provisional Congress were held in the new capital. The First Congress met in four sessions in Richmond from February 18, 1862, to February 17, 1864. Defensive strategy sought dispersal to meet demands of locally minded governors. The Permanent Congress for the Confederacy followed the United States forms with a bicameral legislature. Southern Unionists (white Southerners who were opposed to the Confederacy) were widespread in the mountain regions of Appalachia and the Ozarks. By the time the fighting took place, undoubtedly some people had fled to safer areas, so the exact population exposed to war is unknown. For example, freedom to travel within the Confederate states was severely limited by a domestic passport system. Paskoff shows the loss of farm infrastructure was about the same whether or not fighting took place nearby. Writing in 1906, historian Walter Flavius McCaleb praised Reagan's "energy and intelligence in a degree scarcely matched by any of his associates. This website can also be searched by the name of a soldier. The New Orleans Delta said of the Republicans, "It is in fact, essentially, a revolutionary party" to overthrow slavery. In fact, the Confederate citizen may have been in some ways less free than his Northern counterpart. The secession of the Southern states (in chronological order, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and . A naval academy was established at Drewry's Bluff, Virginia[175] in 1863, but no midshipmen graduated before the Confederacy's end. [359][360], The southern churches met the shortage of Army chaplains by sending missionaries. The median year of birth was 1838, so half the soldiers were 23 or older by 1861. The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States, the Confederacy, or the South, was an unrecognized breakaway confederate republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. After four years of heavy fighting, nearly all Confederate land and naval forces either surrendered or otherwise ceased hostilities by May 1865. ", Scheiber, Harry N. "The Pay of Confederate Troops and Problems of Demoralization: A Case of Administrative Failure. Thus, the District Attorney won the case by default, the property was typically sold, and the money used to further the Southern war effort. [150] Without an effective answer to Federal gunboats, river transport and supply, the Confederacy lost the Mississippi River following the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Port Hudson in July, ending Southern access to the trans-Mississippi West. As wives and widows of soldiers, they were hurt by the inadequate welfare system. Promotion to fill vacancies was made internally regardless of merit, even if better officers were immediately available. It abolished industrial exemptions, placing detail authority in President Davis. This signaled the beginning of the . It was then submitted to the state legislatures for ratification. [132][pageneeded] Neither secured diplomatic recognition for the Confederacy, much less military assistance. Rains, Conscription Bureau chief, April 1862 May 1863, Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, military recruiter under Bragg, then J.E. Restrictions: On the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (a presumed supporter of slavery) was 83 years old and ailing. (PhD Dissertation, University of Kentucky, 2010). The important river traffic was at a standstill: levees were broken, channels were blocked, the few steamboats which had not been captured or destroyed were in a state of disrepair, wharves had decayed or were missing, and trained personnel were dead or dispersed. To restore the Union by military force, the Federal strategy was to (1) secure the Mississippi River, (2) seize or close Confederate ports, and (3) march on Richmond. International relations of the Great Powers (18141919), Surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man. They had expended and extracted a profusion of blood and treasure until collapse; "the end had come". [113], Citizens at Mesilla and Tucson in the southern part of New Mexico Territory formed a secession convention, which voted to join the Confederacy on March 16, 1861, and appointed Dr. Lewis S. Owings as the new territorial governor. Stephens' speech criticized "most" of the Founding Fathers for their views on slavery, accusing them of erroneously assuming that races are equal. [23], Missouri and Kentucky were represented by partisan factions adopting the forms of state governments without control of substantial territory or population in either case. In the 50 counties that would make up the state of West Virginia, voters from 24 counties had voted for disunion in Virginia's May 23 referendum on the ordinance of secession. That labor system as practiced in the American South encompassed paternalism, whether abusive or indulgent, and that meant labor management considerations apart from productivity.
