116-588: Old Confederacy may refer to: Confederate States of America Old Swiss Confederacy Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Old Confederacy . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Old_Confederacy&oldid=1245535268 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
232-679: A centralized federal government in Richmond, Virginia , and enacted the first Confederate draft on April 16, 1862. By 1865, the Confederacy's federal government dissolved into chaos, and the Confederate States Congress adjourned , effectively ceasing to exist as a legislative body on March 18. After four years of heavy fighting, nearly all Confederate land and naval forces either surrendered or otherwise ceased hostilities by May 1865. The most significant capitulation
348-411: A celebratory ball. That week, on February 9, the state of Tennessee was to vote on whether or not to send delegates to a State Convention that would decide on secession. The General Assembly convened by Governor Isham Harris did not believe it had the authority to call a State Convention without a vote of the people. In February 1861, 54 percent of the state's voters voted against sending delegates to
464-521: A century, the admired of all nations we will still bow with reverence to the sight of the stars and stripes, and recognize it as the standard around which the sons of liberty can rally [...]. And if the remonstrances of the people of the South-pleading and begging for redress for years-does not in this critical moment, arouse her brethren of the North to a sense of justice and right, and honor demands
580-487: A convention tasked with choosing delegates for a proposed constitutional convention decided it had the power to propose amendments to the Tennessee state constitution and present them for ratification in an election. Dominated by pro-Union forces allied with Military Governor Andrew Johnson, the convention proposed two constitutional amendments, one abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude unless imposed as punishment for
696-717: A country with a slave-owning aristocracy. The dominant mood strongly opposed secession. Tennesseans representing twenty-six East Tennessee counties met twice in Greeneville and Knoxville and agreed to secede from Tennessee (see East Tennessee Convention of 1861 .) They petitioned the state legislature in Nashville , which denied their request to secede and sent Confederate troops under Felix Zollicoffer to occupy East Tennessee and prevent secession. The region thus came under Confederate control from 1861 to 1863. Nevertheless, East Tennessee supplied significant numbers of troops to
812-550: A crime, and one repudiating the state's allegiance with the Confederate States of America. Both amendments were passed by voters on February 22, 1865, and subsequently went into effect in April of the same year as the war was coming to a close. (A new proposed constitutional amendment that will go before the voters in 2022 will abolish slavery as a punishment for crime and remove it from the state constitution.) After
928-682: A nation whose struggles it had shared for so long. In 1860, they had voted by a slim margin for the Constitutional Unionist John Bell , a native son and moderate who continued to search for a way out of the crisis. A vocal minority of Tennesseans spoke critically of the Northern states and the Lincoln presidency. "The people of the South are preparing for their next highest duty– resistance to coercion or invasion," wrote
1044-573: A normal government, the expression of popular will". Fremantle went on to write in his book Three Months in the Southern States that he had: ...not attempted to conceal any of the peculiarities or defects of the Southern people. Many persons will doubtless highly disapprove of some of their customs and habits in the wilder portion of the country; but I think no generous man, whatever may be his political opinions, can do otherwise than admire
1160-420: A panel of historians emphasized in 2011, "while slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war." Historian David M. Potter wrote: "The problem for Americans who, in the age of Lincoln, wanted slaves to be free was not simply that southerners wanted the opposite, but that they themselves cherished a conflicting value: they wanted
1276-462: A presidential proclamation issued April 15, 1861. It called for troops to recapture forts and suppress what Lincoln later called an "insurrection and rebellion". 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. Once war with the United States began,
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#17327728901831392-531: A pro-Union Tennessee U.S. Postmaster. In it was revealed a comprehensive plan by pro-slavery Tennesseans and others to launch a propaganda campaign to convince Tennesseans that the strength of the pro-secessionist movement was overwhelming: Dear Sir — Our earnest solicitude for the success of the Great Southern Rights movement to secure an immediate release from the overwhelming dangers that imperil our political and social safety, will we trust, be
1508-455: A secession convention, defeating the proposal for a State Convention by a vote of 69,675 to 57,798. If a State Convention had been held, it would have been very heavily pro-Union. 88,803 votes were cast for Unionist candidates and 22,749 votes were cast for Secession candidates. That day the American flag was displayed in "every section of the city," with zeal equal to that which existed during
1624-524: A sectional balance in the Senate but not in the House of Representatives , as free states outstripped slave states in numbers of eligible voters. Thus, at mid-19th century, the free-versus-slave status of the new territories was a critical issue, both for the North, where anti-slavery sentiment had grown, and for the South, where the fear of slavery's abolition had grown. Another factor leading to secession and
1740-464: A separation, we would still have the same claims upon the 'colors of Washington, great son of the South, and of Virginia, mother of the States.' Let us not abandon the stars and stripes under which Southern men have so often been led to victory." "On the corner across from the newspaper office, a crowd had gathered around a bagpipe player playing Yankee Doodle , after which ex-mayor John Hugh Smith gave
1856-511: A speech that was received with loud cheers. In a letter to Democratic senator Andrew Johnson , the publisher of the Clarksville (TN) Jeffersonian , C.O. Faxon, surmised that the margin by which the "No Convention" vote won would have been even greater, had Union men not been afraid that if a State Convention were not called then, then Isham Harris would have again called for a State Convention when more state legislators were "infected with
1972-621: A spy system, intercepted mail, inspected luggage, forced the enlistment of men into the Confederate Army , confiscated private property, and whenever it seemed necessary lynched enemies of the Confederacy. The committees were disbanded by the Union Army when it took control in 1862. East Tennessee was a stronghold of Unionism; most slaves were house servants—luxuries—rather than the base of plantation operations. East Tennesseans feared that they would become second-class citizens in
2088-487: A statement supporting or recognizing the Confederacy. In November 1863, Mann met Pope Pius IX and received a letter supposedly addressed "to the Illustrious and Honorable Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America"; Mann had mistranslated the address. In his report to Richmond, Mann claimed a great diplomatic achievement for himself, but Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin told Mann it
2204-481: A sufficient apology for the results which we beg to impose on you. The sentiment of the Southern heart is overwhelming in favor of the movement. Light only is wanted that men many see their way clearly and the prayer of every true patriot will eventually be realized. Tennessee will be a unit. Although the time be so very short, this object may yet be accomplished, if a few men only, (the more the better, however) in each county, will devote their entire energies to it during
2320-537: A view that has been disproven by the overwhelming historical evidence against it, notably some of the seceding states' own secession documents . The principal political battle leading to Southern secession was over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the Western territories destined to become states. Initially Congress had admitted new states into the Union in pairs, one slave and one free . This had kept
2436-569: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Confederate States of America The Confederate States of America ( CSA ), commonly referred to as the Confederate States ( C.S. ), the Confederacy , or the South , was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 5, 1865. The Confederacy
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#17327728901832552-457: Is too great, save that of honor". The message stated that if the French or British governments made their recognition conditional on anything at all, the Confederacy would consent to such terms. European leaders all saw that the Confederacy was on the verge of defeat. The Confederacy's biggest foreign policy successes were with Brazil and Cuba . Militarily this meant little. Brazil represented
2668-523: The Army of Tennessee under John Bell Hood , the last major battle fought in the state. In 1862, Lincoln chose to use his power as commander in chief to appoint Andrew Johnson as the military governor of Tennessee. Two years later, Lincoln selected him as a Southerner to balance the ticket in the 1864 general election . On Lincoln's assassination , Johnson was sworn in as president. Initially, most Tennesseans showed little enthusiasm for breaking away from
2784-575: The General Assembly from Jefferson City. The executive committee of the convention called the members together in July, and declared the state offices vacant and appointed a Unionist interim state government. The exiled governor called a rump session of the former General Assembly together in Neosho and, on October 31, 1861, it passed an ordinance of secession . The Confederate state government
2900-590: The Jim Crow laws through activities such as building Confederate monuments and influencing the authors of textbooks . The modern display of the Confederate battle flag primarily started during the 1948 presidential election , when the battle flag was used by the Dixiecrats . During the civil rights movement , racial segregationists used it for demonstrations. A consensus of historians who address
3016-465: The Republican Party and restore the legal inferiority of the region's black population. The Banner urged its readers to ignore the presidential election and direct their energy into building "a local movement here at home" to end Republican rule. According to the 1860 census, African Americans made up only 25% of Tennessee's population, which meant they could not dominate politics. Only
3132-606: The Tennessee General Assembly in January 1861. During his speech before the legislative body on January 7, he described the secession of the Southern states as a crisis caused by "long continued agitation of the slavery question" and "actual and threatened aggressions of the Northern States ;... upon the well-defined constitutions rights of the Southern citizen." He also expressed alarm at
3248-709: The "peoples most identical to us in Institutions", in which slavery remained legal until the 1880s and the abolitionist movement was small. Confederate ships were welcome in Brazilian ports. After the war, Brazil was the primary destination of those Southerners who wanted to continue living in a slave society, where, as one immigrant remarked, Confederado slaves were cheap. The Captain–General of Cuba declared in writing that Confederate ships were welcome, and would be protected in Cuban ports. Historians speculate that if
3364-454: The 21st century agree on the centrality of slavery in the conflict, they disagree sharply on which aspects of this conflict (ideological, economic, political, or social) were most important, and on the North 's reasons for refusing to allow the Southern states to secede. Proponents of the pseudo-historical Lost Cause ideology have denied that slavery was the principal cause of the secession,
3480-777: The British Coldstream Guards , who entered the Confederacy via Mexico, Fitzgerald Ross of the Austrian Hussars , and Justus Scheibert of the Prussian Army . European travelers visited and wrote accounts for publication. Importantly in 1862, the Frenchman Charles Girard 's Seven months in the rebel states during the North American War testified "this government ... is no longer a trial government ... but really
3596-529: The British merchant fleet. In mid-1862, fears of a race war (like the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804) led to the British considering intervention for humanitarian reasons. John Slidell, the Confederate States emissary to France, succeeded in negotiating a loan of $ 15,000,000 from Erlanger and other French capitalists for ironclad warships and military supplies. The British government did allow
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3712-419: The Confederacy asserted its independence and appointed dozens of diplomatic agents abroad. None were recognized by a foreign government. The US government regarded the Southern states as being in rebellion or insurrection and so refused any formal recognition of their status. The US government never declared war on those "kindred and countrymen" in the Confederacy but conducted its military efforts beginning with
3828-512: The Confederacy by counties in East Tennessee were checked by martial law. Although slaveholding Delaware and Maryland did not secede, citizens exhibited divided loyalties. Regiments of Marylanders fought in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia . Overall, 24,000 men from Maryland joined Confederate forces, compared to 63,000 who joined Union forces. Delaware never produced a full regiment for
3944-404: The Confederacy counted about one-fourth its population. They voted 43% for pro-Union candidates. The four states which entered after the attack on Fort Sumter held almost half the population of the Confederacy and voted 53% for pro-Union candidates. The three big turnout states voted extremes; Texas, with 5% of the population, voted 20% for pro-Union candidates; Kentucky and Missouri, with one-fourth
4060-592: The Confederacy had achieved independence, it probably would have tried to acquire Cuba as a base of expansion. Most soldiers who joined Confederate national or state military units joined voluntarily. Perman (2010) says historians are of two minds on why millions of soldiers seemed so eager to fight, suffer and die over four years: Tennessee in the American Civil War The American Civil War significantly affected Tennessee , with every county witnessing combat. During
4176-556: The Confederacy on March 16, 1861, and appointed Dr. Lewis S. Owings as the new territorial governor. They won the Battle of Mesilla and established a territorial government with Mesilla serving as its capital. The Confederacy proclaimed the Confederate Arizona Territory on February 14, 1862, north to the 34th parallel . Marcus H. MacWillie served in both Confederate Congresses as Arizona's delegate. In 1862,
4292-585: The Confederacy pinned its hopes for survival on military intervention by the UK or France . The Confederate government sent James M. Mason to London and John Slidell to Paris. On their way in 1861, the U.S. Navy intercepted their ship, the Trent, and took them to Boston, an international episode known as the Trent Affair . The diplomats were eventually released and continued their voyage. However, their mission
4408-700: The Confederacy valiantly fighting for a just cause, emerged in the decades after the war among former Confederate generals and politicians, and in organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans . Intense periods of Lost Cause activity developed around the turn of the 20th century and during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in reaction to growing support for racial equality . Advocates sought to ensure future generations of Southern whites would continue to support white supremacist policies such as
4524-418: The Confederacy, but neither did it emancipate slaves as did Missouri and West Virginia. District of Columbia citizens made no attempts to secede and through the war, referendums sponsored by Lincoln approved compensated emancipation and slave confiscation from "disloyal citizens". Citizens at Mesilla and Tucson in the southern part of New Mexico Territory formed a secession convention, which voted to join
4640-464: The Confederacy. The war itself began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces bombarded the Union's Fort Sumter , in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina . Background factors in the run up to the Civil War were partisan politics , abolitionism , nullification versus secession , Southern and Northern nationalism, expansionism , economics , and modernization in the antebellum period . As
4756-709: The Confederate New Mexico campaign to take the northern half of the U.S. territory failed and the Confederate territorial government in exile relocated to San Antonio, Texas. Confederate supporters in the trans-Mississippi west claimed portions of the Indian Territory after the US evacuated the federal forts and installations. Over half of the American Indian troops participating in the War from
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4872-578: The Confederate States of America. The new provisional Confederate President Jefferson Davis issued a call for 100,000 men from the states' militias to defend the newly formed Confederacy. All Federal property was seized, including gold bullion and coining dies at the U.S. mints in Charlotte , North Carolina; Dahlonega , Georgia; and New Orleans . The Confederate capital was moved from Montgomery to Richmond, Virginia, in May 1861. On February 22, 1862, Davis
4988-596: The Confederate defeat in the Chattanooga campaign . Historian Thomas Connelly concludes that although Bragg was an able planner and a skillful organizer, he failed repeatedly in operations, in part because he was unable to collaborate effectively with his subordinates. The last major battles came when General John Bell Hood led the Confederates north in November 1864. He was checked at Franklin , and his army
5104-557: The Confederate defeat. However, Tennessee was put under martial law during Reconstruction in 1869 to 1870 by then Governor Parson Brownlow through the Enforcement Acts mostly due to the growing threat of the Ku Klux Klan through out the state. Many white Tennesseans resisted efforts to expand suffrage and other civil rights to the freedmen. For generations, white Tennesseans had been raised to believe that slavery
5220-489: The Confederate draft. Union forces finally captured the region in 1863. General William Sherman's famous March to the Sea saw him personally escorted by the 1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment , which consisted entirely of Unionist southerners. Despite its name, the regiment consisted largely of men from Tennessee. Refugees poured into Nashville during the war, because jobs were plentiful in the depots, warehouses, and hospitals serving
5336-431: The Confederate population, voted 68% for pro-Union. Following South Carolina's unanimous 1860 secession vote, no other Southern states considered the question until 1861; when they did, none had a unanimous vote. All had residents who cast significant numbers of Unionist votes. Voting to remain in the Union did not necessarily mean individuals were sympathizers with the North. Once fighting began, many who voted to remain in
5452-424: The Confederates "suffered a severe loss of confidence in themselves" and withdrew into an interior defensive position. By December 1864, Davis considered sacrificing slavery in order to enlist recognition and aid from Paris and London; he secretly sent Duncan F. Kenner to Europe with a message that the war was fought solely for "the vindication of our rights to self-government and independence" and that "no sacrifice
5568-679: The Constitution, which protected slavery, to be honored, and the Union, which was a fellowship with slaveholders, to be preserved. Thus they were committed to values that could not logically be reconciled." The first secession state conventions from the Deep South sent representatives to the Montgomery Convention in Alabama on February 4, 1861. A provisional government was established, and a representative Congress met for
5684-567: The Cumberland Iron Works, which the Confederate War Department tried and failed to protect. Memphis and Nashville, with very large transient populations, had flourishing red light districts. Union wartime regulations forced prostitutes to purchase licenses and pass medical exams, primarily to protect soldiers from venereal disease. Their trade was deregulated once military control ended. In January 1865,
5800-747: The Cumberland and Tennessee valleys. The idea of using the rivers to breach the Confederate defense line in the West was well known by the end of 1861; Union gunboats had been scanning Confederate fort-building on the twin rivers for months before the campaign. Ulysses S. Grant and the United States Navy captured control of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers in February 1862 and held off the Confederate counterattack at Shiloh in April of
5916-692: The Federal army. (See also Nickajack .) Many East Tennesseans engaged in guerrilla warfare against state authorities by burning bridges , cutting telegraph wires, and spying for the North. East Tennessee became an early base for the Republican Party in the South. Strong support for the Union challenged the Confederate commanders who controlled East Tennessee for most of the war. Generals Felix K. Zollicoffer , Edmund Kirby Smith , and Sam Jones oscillated between harsh measures and conciliatory gestures to gain support but had little success whether they arrested hundreds of Unionist leaders or allowed men to escape
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#17327728901836032-675: The Indian Territory supported the Confederacy. On July 12, 1861, the Confederate government signed a treaty with both the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian nations. After several battles, Union armies took control of the territory. The Indian Territory never formally joined the Confederacy, but did receive representation in the Congress. Many Indians from the Territory were integrated into regular Confederate Army units. After 1863,
6148-661: The June 8, 1861, referendum, East Tennessee held firm against separation, while West Tennessee returned an equally heavy majority in favor. The deciding vote came in Middle Tennessee , which went from 51 percent against secession in February to 88 percent in favor in June. The voting was accused of being fraudulent; in some counties in East Tennessee Unionists threatened violence against those voting for secession, while in other places soldiers remained at
6264-562: The Memphis Daily Appeal ran a satirical obituary for Uncle Sam , proclaiming him to have died of "irrepressible conflict disease," after having met Abraham Lincoln. One Robertson County slave owner complained that she could not rent her slaves out for "half [of what] they were worth" because "the negros think when Lincoln takes his last, they will all be free." With the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, followed by Lincoln's April 15 call for 75,000 volunteers to put
6380-677: The Nashville Daily Gazette on January 5, 1861. The newspaper expressed the view that Florida , Georgia , and Alabama were exercising the highest right of all by taking control of all forts and other military establishments within the area– the right to self-defense. A pro-secessionist proposal was made in the Memphis Appeal to build a fort at Randolph, Tennessee , on the Mississippi River . Governor Isham G. Harris convened an emergency session of
6496-425: The South of territories won during the U.S.-Mexican War . It pointed out that the slave states had furnished twice as many volunteers as the free states and territories, though it did not note that slave states were the ones who most supported the war. On March 19, the editors of the Clarksville Chronicle endorsed a pro-Union candidate for state senator in Robertson, Montgomery, and Stewart counties. On April 2,
6612-436: The South's slavery-based economy. The convergence of race and slavery, politics, and economics raised South-related policy questions to the status of moral questions over, way of life, merging love of things Southern and hatred of things Northern. As the war approached, political parties split, and national churches and interstate families divided along sectional lines. According to historian John M. Coski: The statesmen who led
6728-436: The Union accepted the majority decision, and supported the Confederacy. Many writers have evaluated the War as an American tragedy—a "Brothers' War", pitting "brother against brother, father against son, kin against kin of every degree". Initially, some secessionists hoped for a peaceful departure. Moderates in the Confederate Constitutional Convention included a provision against importation of slaves from Africa to appeal to
6844-416: The Union and Confederate sides as belligerents . In 1863, the Confederacy expelled European diplomatic missions for advising their resident subjects to refuse to serve in the Confederate army. Both Confederate and Union agents were allowed to work openly in British territories. The Confederacy appointed Ambrose Dudley Mann as special agent to the Holy See in September 1863, but the Holy See never released
6960-480: The Union victory at the Battle of Antietam , Lincoln's preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and abolitionist opposition in Britain put an end to these possibilities. The cost to Britain of a war with the U.S. would have been high: the immediate loss of American grain-shipments, the end of British exports to the U.S., and seizure of billions of pounds invested in American securities. War would have meant higher taxes in Britain, another invasion of Canada, and attacks on
7076-414: The Union. The federal government in Washington D.C. and states under its control were known as the Union . The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when South Carolina's militia attacked Fort Sumter . Four slave states of the Upper South — Virginia , Arkansas , Tennessee , and North Carolina —then seceded and joined the Confederacy. On February 22, 1862, Confederate States Army leaders installed
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#17327728901837192-402: The United States . The Confederacy was formed on February 8, 1861, by South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. They adopted a new constitution establishing a confederation government of "sovereign and independent states". Some Northerners reacted by saying "Let the Confederacy go in peace!", while some Southerners wanted to maintain their loyalty to
7308-465: The Upper South. Non-slave states might join, but the radicals secured a two-thirds requirement in both houses of Congress to accept them. Seven states declared their secession from the United States before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. After the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter April 12, 1861, and Lincoln's subsequent call for troops, four more states declared their secession. Kentucky declared neutrality, but after Confederate troops moved in,
7424-485: The War, Tennessee was a Confederate state, and the last state to officially secede from the Union to join the Confederacy . Tennessee had been threatening to secede since before the Confederacy was even formed, but didn’t officially do so until after the fall of Fort Sumter when public opinion throughout the state drastically shifted. Tennessee seceded in protest to President Lincoln 's April 15 Proclamation calling forth 75,000 members of state militias to suppress
7540-569: The approach of Federal armies in mid-1862, the government's archives were readied for removal. As the Wilderness Campaign progressed, Congress authorized Davis to remove the executive department and call Congress to session elsewhere in 1864 and again in 1865. Shortly before the end of the war, the Confederate government evacuated Richmond, planning to relocate further south. Little came of these plans before Lee's surrender. Davis and most of his cabinet fled to Danville, Virginia , which served as their headquarters for eight days. During its four years,
7656-1064: The canvass for Delegates. We earnestly beg your attention, therefore, to the following suggestions: [...] We can, we must, carry our State. Our hearts would link within us, at the bare thought of the degradations and infamy of abandoning our more Southern brethren united to us by all the views so sympathy and interest, and of being chained to the car of Black Republican States, who would themselves despise us for our submission; and worse than all, by moral influences alone, if not by force of legal enactment destroy our entire social fabric, and all real independence of thought and action. Your own good judgment will suggest many things we can not now allude to. [emphasis added] Very Respectfully, [Signed]Wm. Williams, Chm'n./S. C. Goethall [?], Sec'y,/Andrew Cheatham/J. R. Baus [?]/R. H. Williamson/G. W. Cunningham/H. M. Cheatham, W. S. Peppin States Central Southern Rights Anti-Coercion Committee In Memphis, Unionists held two torchlight processions to honor their cause. The secessionists replied with their own demonstrations and
7772-413: The construction of blockade runners in Britain; they were owned and operated by British financiers and shipowners; a few were owned and operated by the Confederacy. The British investors' goal was to acquire highly profitable cotton. Several European nations maintained diplomats in place who had been appointed to the U.S., but no country appointed any diplomat to the Confederacy. Those nations recognized
7888-575: The courage, energy, and patriotism of the whole population, and the skill of its leaders, in this struggle against great odds. And I am also of opinion that many will agree with me in thinking that a people in which all ranks and both sexes display a unanimity and a heroism which can never have been surpassed in the history of the world, is destined, sooner or later, to become a great and independent nation. French Emperor Napoleon III assured Confederate diplomat John Slidell that he would make "direct proposition" to Britain for joint recognition. The Emperor made
8004-498: The end of transatlantic enslavement of Africans; by 1833 , the Royal Navy patrolled middle passage waters to prevent additional slave ships from reaching the Western Hemisphere. It was in London that the first World Anti-Slavery Convention had been held in 1840. Black abolitionist speakers toured England, Scotland, and Ireland, exposing the reality of America's chattel slavery and rebutting the Confederate position that blacks were "unintellectual, timid, and dependent", and "not equal to
8120-454: The fighting along the Mississippi brought glory to the then little-known Ulysses S. Grant , while his area commander Henry Halleck was rewarded with a promotion to General-in-Chief . The Tullahoma campaign , led by William Rosecrans , drove the Confederates from Middle Tennessee so quickly that they did not take many casualties, and were strong enough to defeat Rosecrans soon afterward. At Nashville in December 1864, George Thomas routed
8236-455: The formation of the Confederacy was the development of white Southern nationalism in the preceding decades. The primary reason for the North to reject secession was to preserve the Union, a cause based on American nationalism . Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election . His victory triggered declarations of secession by seven slave states of the Deep South , all of whose riverfront or coastal economies were based on cotton that
8352-478: The free negro as his equal" were excluded. Governor Harris proposed holding a State Convention. A series of resolutions were presented in the Tennessee House of Representatives by William H. Wisener against the proposal. He declared passing any law reorganizing and arming the state militia to be inexpedient. The centrality of the question of slavery to the secession movement was not doubted by people at
8468-458: The glorious cause of southern independence. They demanded that their own states join the cause. Scores of demonstrations took place from April 12 to 14, before Lincoln issued his call for troops. Many conditional unionists were swept along by this powerful tide of southern nationalism; others were cowed into silence. Historian Daniel W. Crofts disagrees with McPherson: The bombardment of Fort Sumter, by itself, did not destroy Unionist majorities in
8584-546: The growth of the "purely sectional" Republican Party , which he stated was bound together by the "uncompromising hostility to the rights and institutions of the fifteen Southern states." He identified numerous grievances with the Republican Party, blaming them for inducing slaves to run off by means of the Underground Railroad , John Brown 's raids, and high taxes on slave labor. Harris agreed with
8700-721: The hundreds of thousands. Secessionists argued that the United States Constitution was a contract among sovereign states that could be abandoned without consultation and each state had a right to secede. After intense debates and statewide votes, seven Deep South cotton states passed secession ordinances by February 1861, while secession efforts failed in the other eight slave states. The Confederacy expanded in May–July 1861 (with Virginia , Arkansas , Tennessee , North Carolina ), and disintegrated in April–May 1865. It
8816-435: The idea of popular sovereignty, that only the people within a state can determine whether or not slavery could exist within the boundaries of that state. Furthermore, he regarded laws passed by Congress that made U.S. territories non-slave states as taking territories away from the American people and making them solely for the North, territories from which "Southern men unable to live under a government which may by law recognize
8932-417: The late 1860 presidential campaign, wrote the Nashville Daily Gazette . The proponents of the slavocracy were embarrassed, demoralized and politically disoriented but not willing to admit defeat: "Whatever may be the result of the difficulties which at present agitate our country - whether we are to be united in our common destiny or whether two Republics shall take the place of that which has stood for nearly
9048-534: The men who advocate the 'watch and wait' policy. If you think you have rights and are the superiors of the black man then vote for the men who will not sell you out, body and soul to the Yankee Republicans - for men who would rather see Tennessee independent out of the Union, then in the Union subjugated. [emphasis in original] On February 3, 1861, the pro-Union Knoxville Whig published a "Secret Circular" that had mistakenly been sent by its authors to
9164-428: The ordinance of secession. In the 1860 election "Constitutional Democrat" Breckenridge had outpolled "Constitutional Unionist" Bell in the 50 counties by 1,900 votes, 44% to 42%. The counties simultaneously supplied over 20,000 soldiers to each side of the conflict. Representatives for most counties were seated in both state legislatures at Wheeling and at Richmond for the duration of the war. Attempts to secede from
9280-591: The origins of the American Civil War agree that the preservation of the institution of slavery was the principal aim of the eleven Southern states (seven states before the onset of the war and four states after the onset) that declared their secession from the United States (the Union ) and united to form the Confederate States of America (known as the "Confederacy"). However, while historians in
9396-530: The other three candidates (Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas and John Bell ). Support for these three collectively, ranged from significant to outright majority, running from 25% in Texas to 81% in Missouri. There were minority views everywhere, especially in the upland and plateau areas of the South, particularly concentrated in western Virginia and eastern Tennessee. The first six signatory states establishing
9512-483: The polls to hiss at those with a Unionist ballot. Having ratified by popular vote its connection with the fledgling Confederacy , Tennessee became the last state to declare formally its withdrawal from the Union. Control of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers was important in gaining control of Tennessee during the age of steamboats . Tennessee relied on northbound riverboats to receive staple commodities from
9628-574: The populous counties along the Ohio and Pennsylvania borders rejected the Confederacy. Unionists held a Convention in Wheeling in June 1861, establishing a "restored government" with a rump legislature , but sentiment in the region remained deeply divided. 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
9744-461: The pro-Confederate claimants in 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. Voting for the representatives was mostly done by Confederate soldiers from Kentucky and Missouri. Some southern unionists blamed Lincoln's call for troops as the precipitating event for
9860-601: The rebellion. Tennessee provided the second largest number of troops for the Confederacy , and would also provide more southern unionist soldiers for the Union Army than any other state within the Confederacy. In February 1862, some of the war's first serious fighting took place along the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, recognized as major military highways, and mountain passes such as Cumberland Gap were keenly competed-for by both sides. The Battle of Shiloh and
9976-405: The same assurance to British Members of Parliament John A. Roebuck and John A. Lindsay. Roebuck in turn publicly prepared a bill to submit to Parliament supporting joint Anglo-French recognition of the Confederacy. "Southerners had a right to be optimistic, or at least hopeful, that their revolution would prevail, or at least endure." Following the disasters at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in July 1863,
10092-532: The same year. Capture of Memphis and Nashville gave the Union control of the Western and Middle sections . Control was confirmed at the battle of Murfreesboro in early January 1863. After Nashville was captured (the first Confederate state capitol to fall) Andrew Johnson, an East Tennessean from Greeneville , was appointed military governor of the state by Lincoln. During this time, the military government abolished slavery (but with questionable legality). The Confederates continued to hold East Tennessee despite
10208-510: The seceded states back into line, public sentiment turned dramatically against the Union. Historian Daniel Crofts thus reports: In May 1861, the governor of Tennessee Isham G. Harris defied the United States Government by beginning military mobilization, submitting a ordinance of secession to the General Assembly , and made direct overtures to the Confederate government all before the state officially seceded. In
10324-474: The secession epidemic" [...] " Gov Harris is Check mated [sic]. The Union maj[ority] in the State will almost defy computation [.] So far as heard from the disunionist have carried by a single precinct. The Union and American [Nashville, TN pro-secessionist paper ] Stands rebuked and damned before the people of the State" On March 7, the Memphis Daily Appeal wrote that the abolitionists were attempting to deprive
10440-449: The secession movement were unashamed to explicitly cite the defense of slavery as their prime motive ... Acknowledging the centrality of slavery to the Confederacy is essential for understanding the Confederate. Southern Democrats had chosen John Breckinridge as their candidate during the 1860 presidential election, but in no Southern state was support for him unanimous, as they recorded at least some popular vote for at least one of
10556-481: The second wave of secessions. Historian James McPherson argues such claims have "a self-serving quality" and regards them as misleading: As the telegraph chattered reports of the attack on Sumter April 12 and its surrender next day, huge crowds poured into the streets of Richmond, Raleigh, Nashville, and other upper South cities to celebrate this victory over the Yankees. These crowds waved Confederate flags and cheered
10672-588: The state legislature asked for Union troops to drive them out. Delegates from 68 Kentucky counties were sent to the Russellville Convention that signed an Ordinance of Secession. Kentucky was admitted into the Confederacy on December 10, 1861, with Bowling Green as its first capital. Early in the war, the Confederacy controlled more than half of Kentucky but largely lost control in 1862. The splinter Confederate government of Kentucky relocated to accompany western Confederate armies and never controlled
10788-499: The state population after 1862. By the end of the war, 90,000 Kentuckians had fought for the Union, compared to 35,000 for the Confederacy. In Missouri , a constitutional convention was approved and delegates elected. The convention rejected secession 89–1 on March 19, 1861. The governor maneuvered to take control of the St. Louis Arsenal and restrict Federal movements. This led to a confrontation, and in June federal forces drove him and
10904-501: The states' militia to muster under his command. The stated purpose was to re-occupy U.S. properties throughout the South, as the U.S. Congress had not authorized their abandonment. The resistance at Fort Sumter signaled his change of policy from that of the Buchanan Administration. Lincoln's response ignited a firestorm of emotion. The people of both North and South demanded war, with soldiers rushing to their colors in
11020-479: The strength of Unionist sentiment there, with the exception of strongly pro-Confederate Sullivan and Rhea Counties. After winning a victory at Chickamauga in September 1863, the Confederates besieged Chattanooga but were finally driven off by Grant in November. Many of the Confederate defeats can be attributed to the poor leadership of General Braxton Bragg , who led the Army of Tennessee from Shiloh to
11136-561: The time of the Civil War, nor was it ignored by the contemporary press. Especially in the case of the pro-slavery papers, this question of the possibility of the eventual granting of equal rights for people of color was not couched in diplomatic phraseology: The election, be it remembered, takes place on the 9th, and the Delegates meet in Convention on the 25th instant. If you desire to wait until you are tied hand and foot then vote for
11252-686: The tribal governments sent representatives to the Confederate Congress : Elias Cornelius Boudinot representing the Cherokee and Samuel Benton Callahan representing the Seminole and Creek . The Cherokee Nation aligned with the Confederacy. They practiced and supported slavery, opposed abolition, and feared their lands would be seized by the Union. After the war, the Indian territory was disestablished, their black slaves were freed, and
11368-530: The tribes lost some of their lands. Montgomery, Alabama , served as capital of the Confederate States from February 4 until May 29, 1861, in the Alabama State Capitol . Six states created the Confederacy there on February 8, 1861. 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". The Permanent Constitution
11484-554: The upper South. Because only three days elapsed before Lincoln issued the proclamation, the two events viewed retrospectively, appear almost simultaneous. Nevertheless, close examination of contemporary evidence ... shows that the proclamation had a far more decisive impact. ...Many concluded ... that Lincoln had deliberately chosen "to drive off all the Slave states, in order to make war on them and annihilate slavery". The order of secession resolutions and dates are: In Virginia,
11600-541: The war effort, and furthermore, the city was a much safer place than the countryside. Unionists and Confederate sympathizers both flooded in, as did free blacks and escaped slaves, and businessmen from the North. There was little heavy industry in the South but the Western Iron District in Middle Tennessee was the largest iron producer in the Confederacy in 1861. One of the largest operations was
11716-755: The war, the state legislature ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on July 18, 1866, and was the first state readmitted to the Union on July 24, 1866. Because it ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, Tennessee was the only state that seceded from the Union that did not have a military governor during Reconstruction , nor was it part of any of the Reconstruction military districts , even though this did not placate those unhappy with
11832-572: The white man...the superior race." Frederick Douglass , Henry Highland Garnet , Sarah Parker Remond , her brother Charles Lenox Remond , James W. C. Pennington , Martin Delany , Samuel Ringgold Ward , and William G. Allen all spent years in Britain, where fugitive slaves were safe and, as Allen said, there was an "absence of prejudice against color. Here the colored man feels himself among friends, and not among enemies". Most British public opinion
11948-458: Was "a mere inferential recognition, unconnected with political action or the regular establishment of diplomatic relations" and thus did not assign it the weight of formal recognition. Nevertheless, the Confederacy was seen internationally as a serious attempt at nationhood, and European governments sent military observers to assess whether there had been a de facto establishment of independence. These observers included Arthur Lyon Fremantle of
12064-485: Was Confederate general Robert E. Lee 's surrender on April 9, after which any doubt about the war's outcome or the Confederacy's survival was extinguished. Confederate President Davis's administration declared the Confederacy dissolved on May 5. After the war, during the Reconstruction era , the Confederate states were readmitted to the Congress after each ratified the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawing slavery. Lost Cause mythology , an idealized view of
12180-561: Was adopted there on March 12, 1861. The permanent capital provided for in the Confederate Constitution called for a state cession of a 100 square mile district to the central government. Atlanta, which had not yet supplanted Milledgeville , Georgia, as its state capital, put in a bid noting its central location and rail connections, as did Opelika, Alabama , noting its strategically interior situation, rail connections and deposits of coal and iron. Richmond, Virginia ,
12296-572: Was against the practice, with Liverpool seen as the primary base of Southern support. Throughout the early years of the war, British foreign secretary Lord John Russell , Emperor Napoleon III of France, and, to a lesser extent, British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston , showed interest in recognition of the Confederacy or at least mediation of the war. Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone attempted unsuccessfully to convince Palmerston to intervene. By September 1862
12412-557: Was chosen for the interim capital at the Virginia State Capitol . The move was used by Vice President Stephens and others to encourage other border states to follow Virginia into the Confederacy. In the political moment it was a show of "defiance and strength". The war for Southern independence was surely to be fought in Virginia, but it also had the largest Southern military-aged white population, with infrastructure, resources, and supplies. The Davis Administration's policy
12528-509: Was composed of eleven U.S. states that declared secession ; South Carolina , Mississippi , Florida , Alabama , Georgia , Louisiana , Texas , Virginia , Arkansas , Tennessee , and North Carolina ; they warred against the United States during the American Civil War . With Abraham Lincoln 's election as President of the United States in 1860, a portion of the southern states were convinced that their slavery-dependent plantation economies were threatened, and began to secede from
12644-494: Was cultivated by slave labor. They formed the Confederate States of America after Lincoln was elected in November 1860 but before he took office in March 1861. Nationalists in the North and "Unionists" in the South refused to accept the declarations of secession. No foreign government ever recognized the Confederacy. The U.S. government, under President James Buchanan , refused to relinquish its forts that were in territory claimed by
12760-719: Was formed by delegations from seven slave states of the Lower South that had proclaimed their secession. After the fighting began in April, four additional slave states seceded and were admitted. Later, two slave states ( Missouri and Kentucky ) and two territories were given seats in the Confederate Congress. Its establishment flowed from and deepened Southern nationalism, which prepared men to fight for "The Southern Cause". This "Cause" included support for states' rights , tariff policy , and internal improvements, but above all, cultural and financial dependence on
12876-439: Was inaugurated as president with a term of six years. The Confederate administration pursued a policy of national territorial integrity, continuing earlier state efforts in 1860–1861 to remove U.S. government presence. This included taking possession of U.S. courts, custom houses, post offices, and most notably, arsenals and forts. After the Confederate attack and capture of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Lincoln called up 75,000 of
12992-399: Was justified. Some could not accept that their former slaves were now equal under the law. When the state Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of African American suffrage in 1867, the reaction became stronger. The Nashville Republican Banner on January 4, 1868, published an editorial calling for a revolutionary movement of white Southerners to unseat the one-party state rule imposed by
13108-500: Was that "It must be held at all hazards." 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 there. As war dragged on, Richmond became crowded with training and transfers, logistics and hospitals. Prices rose dramatically despite government efforts at price regulation. A movement in Congress argued for moving the capital from Richmond. At
13224-450: Was unable to control substantial parts of Missouri territory, effectively only controlling southern Missouri early in the war. It had its capital at Neosho, then Cassville , before being driven out of the state. For the remainder of the war, it operated as a government in exile at Marshall, Texas . Not having seceded, neither Kentucky nor Missouri was declared in rebellion in Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation . The Confederacy recognized
13340-426: Was unsuccessful; historians judge their diplomacy as poor. Neither secured diplomatic recognition for the Confederacy, much less military assistance. The Confederates who had believed that " cotton is king ", that is, that Britain had to support the Confederacy to obtain cotton, proved mistaken. The British had stocks to last over a year and been developing alternative sources. The United Kingdom took pride leading
13456-559: Was virtually destroyed by George Thomas 's greatly superior forces at Nashville in December. Fear of subversion was widespread throughout the state. In West and Middle Tennessee it was fear of pro-Union activism, which was countered proactively by numerous local Committees of Safety and Vigilance from 1860 to 1862. They emerged as early as the 1860 Presidential election, and when the war began activists developed an aggressive program to detect and suppress Unionists. The committees set up
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