Confederate States Army Confederate States Army The Confederate States Army (C.S.A.) was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting against the United States forces. On February 28, 1861, the Provisional Confederate Congress established a provisional volunteer army and gave control over military operations and authority for mustering state forces and volunteers to the newly chosen Confederate president, Jefferson Davis. Davis was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, and colonel of a volunteer regiment during the Mexican–American War. He had also been a United States Senator from Mississippi and U.S. Secretary of
Congress of the Confederate States 1861 and February 1862 in the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia. The Virginia secessionist convention was already in session, and after Lincoln's call up of 75,000 troops to secure federal property, on April 17 that convention voted 88 to 55 to seceded. North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas soon after called secessionist conventions that voted to leave the Union by overwhelming majorities. On May 6, 1861, the Confederate Congress officially declared war on the United States and authorized the President all land and naval force in pursuit of the war that had commenced. Arizona secessionists met in convention at La