Confederate States Department of the Navy Confederate States Department of the Navy The Department of the Navy was the Confederate Civil Service department responsible for the administration of the affairs of the Confederate Navy and Confederate Marine Corps. It was officially established on February 21, 1861. The Department of the Navy was established by an act of the Provisional Confederate Congress in Montgomery, Alabama which passed into law on February 20, 1861. This act also established the position of Secretary of the Navy which was according to the act authorized to handle all affairs related to the navies of the Confederacy. President Jefferson Davis nominated and
Confederate States of America war, following the November 1860 election of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. presidency on a platform which opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories. Before Lincoln took office in March, a new Confederate government was established in February 1861, which was considered illegal by the government of the United States. States volunteered militia units and the new government hastened to form its own Confederate States Army from scratch practically overnight. After the American Civil War began in April, four slave states of the Upper South—Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina—also declared their secession and joined the