list of states that seceded during the civil war
Secession in the United States The most famous secession movement was the case of the Southern states of the United States. Secession from the United States was accepted in eleven states (and failed in two others). The seceding states joined together to form the Confederate States of America (CSA). The eleven states of the CSA, in order of secession, were: South Carolina (seceded December 20, 1860), Mississippi (seceded January 9, 1861), Florida (seceded January 10, 1861), Alabama (seceded January 11, 1861), Georgia (seceded January 19, 1861), Louisiana (seceded January 26, 1861), Texas (seceded February 1, 1861), Virginia (seceded April 17, 1861), Arkansas (seceded May 6, 1861), North Carolina (seceded May 20, 1861), and Tennessee (seceded June 8, 1861). Secession was declared by its supporters in Missouri and Kentucky, but did not become effective as it was opposed by their pro-Union state governments. This secession movement brought about the American Civil War. The position of the Union was that the Confederacy was not a sovereign nation—and never had been, but that "the Union" was always a single nation by intent of the states themselves, from 1776 onward—and thus that a rebellion had been initiated by individuals. Historian Bruce Catton described President Abraham Lincoln's April 15, 1861, proclamation after the attack on Fort Sumter, which defined the Union's position on the hostilities:
Confederate States of America The government of the United States (the Union) rejected the claims of secession and considered the Confederacy illegitimate. The War began with the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. No foreign government officially recognized the Confederacy as an independent country,[1][3][4] although Great Britain and France granted it belligerent status, which allowed Confederate agents to contract with private concerns for arms and other supplies. In early 1865, after four years of heavy fighting which led to over 620,000 military deaths,[5] all the Confederate forces surrendered and the Confederacy vanished. The war lacked a formal end; nearly all Confederate forces had been forced into surrender or deliberately disbanded by the end of 1865, by which point the dwindling manpower and resources of the Confederacy were facing overwhelming odds.[2] By 1865, Jefferson Davis lamented that the Confederacy had "disappeared".[6]
Confederate States of America The Confederacy was established in the Montgomery Convention in February 1861 (before Lincoln's inauguration in March) and was disintegrated in April and May 1865. It was formed by delegations from seven Southern slave states that had proclaimed their secession from the Union. After the fighting began in April, four additional slave states seceded and were admitted. Later, two states (Missouri and Kentucky) and two territories were given seats in the Confederate Congress.
American Civil War Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter. While in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive from 1861â€“1862. Later, in 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal.[20] To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, and seized New Orleans. The 1863 Union Siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lee's Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg. Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grant's command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled the resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions, leading to the fall of Atlanta to William T. Sherman and his march to the sea. The last significant battles raged around the Siege of Petersburg. Lee's escape attempt ended with his surrender at Appomattox Court House, on April 9, 1865. While the military war was coming to an end, the political reintegration of the nation was to take another 12 years, known as the Reconstruction Era.