Southern Response to Lincoln’s Election
The election of Abraham Lincoln as the 16th president of the United States triggered a series of events throughout that South that hurtled the nation toward civil war. In the days after the election,...
View ArticleSouthern Fire-Eaters
In the 1850s, a group of extremists known as fire-eaters advocated secession as a means of protecting southern rights and institution against the expanding power of the Federal government. They met...
View ArticleJames Buchanan’s Response to Lincoln’s Election
In the weeks after Abraham Lincoln’s election, lame duck president James Buchanan strove to keep the nation together and contain talk of secession. In his State of the Union message to congress he...
View ArticleThe Crisis Deepens
As the South Carolina Secession Convention prepared to meet to discuss the possibility of leaving the Union, President James Buchanan determines not to send reinforcements to the Federal garrison in...
View ArticleSouth Carolina Secedes from the Union
On December 20, 1860 a convention of elected delegates in Charleston, South Carolina unanimously approved an Ordinance of Secession. The Ordinance dissolved South Carolina’s association with the rest...
View ArticleMajor Anderson moves to Fort Sumter
After Lincoln’s election, tensions continued to mount around Charleston. Major Robert Anderson, in command of US forces in Charleston, decided that Fort Moultrie was indefensible and on the night of...
View ArticleSecession Expands
As the new year of 1861 dawned, secessionists seized a number of U.S. coastal fortifications. As at Fort Sumter in Charleston, the US troops in Pensacola looked to move to a more secure facility in...
View ArticleStar of the West Attacked
On January 9, 1861, the Star of the West, carrying supplies and reinforcements for Fort Sumter, entered Charleston Harbor. Southern artillerists fired on the ship, driving it away, and accelerating...
View ArticleSoutherners meet in Montgomery
On February 4, 1861 Southern delegates convened in Montgomery, Alabama to begin to create a new nation. On that same day, the Peace Conference, a last ditch effort to avoid war, convened in...
View ArticleThe South Forms a Government
During the second week of February, Southerners assembled in Montgomery, Alabama, approved a new constitution for and elected Jefferson Davis President of a new nation: The Confederate States of...
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