1.
History of West Virginia
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West Virginia is one of two American states formed during the American Civil War, along with Nevada, and is the only state to form by seceding from a Confederate state. West Virginia was one of the Civil War Border states, West Virginias history was profoundly affected by its mountainous terrain, spectacular river valleys, and rich natural resources. These were all factors driving its economy and the lifestyles of residents, the area now known as West Virginia was a favorite hunting ground of numerous Native American peoples before the arrival of European settlers. Many ancient earthen mounds constructed by various mound builder cultures survive, especially in the areas of Moundsville, South Charleston, the artifacts uncovered in these give evidence of a village society having a tribal trade system culture that practiced the cold working of copper to a limited extent. As of 2009, over 12,500 archaeological sites have been documented in West Virginia, Paleo-Indian culture appears by 10,500 BC in West Virginia passing along the major river valleys and ridge-line gap watersheds. Following are the traditional Archaic sub-periods, Early, Middle, within the greater region of and neighboring the Mountain State, the Riverton Tradition includes, Maple Creek Phase. Also are the Buffalo Phase, Transitional Archaic Phase, Transitional Period Culture, the Adena provided the greatest cultural influence in the state. For practical purposes, the Adena is Early Woodland period according to West Virginia Universitys Dr. Edward V. McMichael, Adena villages can be characterized as rather large compared to Late Prehistoric tribes. The Adena Indians used ceremonial pipes that were works of art. They lived in round shaped wicker sided and bark sheet roofed houses, Little is known about the housing of Paleo-Indian and Archaic periods, but Woodland Indians lived in wigwams. They grew sunflowers, tubers, gourds, squash and several such as lambsquarter, may grass, sumpweed, smartweed. In the Fort Ancient period, Indians lived in much larger poled rectangular shaped houses with walls hide covered and they were farmers who cultivated large fields around their villages, concentrating on corn, beans, tubers, sunflowers, gourds and many types of squash including the pumpkin. They also raised turkeys and kept dogs as pets. Their neighbors in the northerly of the state, the Monongahelan houses were circular in shape often with nook or storage appendage. Their living characteristics were more of a heritage from the Woodland Indians, contemporaneously to Fort Ancient Tradition southerly of the state, the sister culture called Monongahela is found on the northerly of the Mountain State stemming from the Drew Tradition. Within the Mountain State, these tribal villages can be characterized as rather small, many would join other tribes and remove to the midwest regions as settlers arrived in the state. Although, there were those who would acculturate within the historic as sometimes called Fireside Cabin culture, some are early historic documented seeking protection closer, moving to the easterly Colonial trade towns. And later, other small splintered clans were attracted to, among others, James Le Tort, Charles Poke and John Van Metre trading houses within the state
History of West Virginia
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A view of the
New River in West Virginia, the world's third-oldest river geologically
History of West Virginia
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1715 Nicolas de Fer map showing the Native American areas known as Tionontatacaga and Calicuas
History of West Virginia
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Thomas Lee, the first manager of the
Ohio Company of Virginia
History of West Virginia
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1751
Fry-Jefferson map showing early ferries and established colonial borders before the
French And Indian War
2.
Prehistory of West Virginia
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The Prehistory of West Virginia spans ancient times until the arrival of Europeans in the early 17th century. Hunters ventured into West Virginias mountain valleys and made temporary camp villages since the Archaic period in the Americas, many ancient human-made earthen mounds from various mound builder cultures survive, especially in the areas of Moundsville, South Charleston, and Romney. The artifacts uncovered in these give evidence of a village society with a tribal trade system culture that included limited cold worked copper. As of 2009, over 12,500 archaeological sites have been documented in West Virginia, the first evidence of humans in West Virginia dates back to the nomadic Paleo-Indians in 11,000 BCE. From 7000–1000 BCE, archaic Native American cultures developed in the Northern Panhandle, the Eastern Panhandle, and they created temporary villages on the Kanawha region streams, Monongahela and Potomac tributary streams of the Allegheny Mountains. The early archaic people used tools, such as the atlatl, West Virginia is within the physiographic province of the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau, which includes parts of the Allegheny Front and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians. These western hills along the Ohio Valley climb east up tributary streams to the base of the Allegheny Mountains, the lowest altitude averages 550 to 600 feet above the sea level, with the lowest point to the southwest along the Ohio River at 538 feet below sea level. Below the eastern slopes of the Allegheny Front where approximately 2,600 to 4,700 feet peaks stand, the Potomac River on the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia flows along a 2,000 feet plateau. The plateau reaches from southeastern Ohio through western West Virginia to the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, the Allegheny Mountains have no volcanic peaks and have very little earthquake activity. These mountains were formed by an Orogeny effect of the North American Plate, the Taconic Orogeny near the end of Ordovician time formed a much higher mountainous area in eastern West Virginia approximately 350 million to 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous period. The West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey conducted in 2006 reported, These highlands formed the source of sediments for the succeeding Silurian Period. Devonian was about the time lobe-finned fish developed legs as they started to walk on land as tetrapods, some of these ancient animal evidence are found as fossils between the geologic strata near the abundant sections of coal seams and nearby natural gas in the state. The Quaternary ice age began during the Pleistocene Epoch, sitting snugly in the then much higher mountains was Glacial Teays Lake, extending from south Virginia through the New Kanawha River to its northerly drainage river, the ancient Teays River. It flowed through Ohio to central Indiana, then across Illinois to the Mississippi Valley, the Pittsburgh drainage basin is to the north of the river. The Mississippi River at the time was an embayment of the Gulf of Mexico reaching to Illinois, Glacial Teays Lake last occurrence was about two million years ago when it outburst and the wash build up created the final large prehistoric lake in the western part of the state. Lake Tight lasted 6500 years before it escaped its confines to form the Ohio Valley, the Ohio-Allegheny system in western half of the state had its present form by the Middle Pleistocene, between 781 and 126 thousand years ago. The glacial Monongahela Lake was in the part of the state. It was blocked by ice terraces in the northwestern Pennsylvania, upon the ices retreat, it outburst through the basin to the north
Prehistory of West Virginia
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West Blennerhassett Site (46Wd83-A) 6710 and 6285 BCE, Wood County
Prehistory of West Virginia
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Appalachian zones in the US
Prehistory of West Virginia
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A Late Archaic atlatl point, "Brewerton Eared Notched", Distribution Map, 2980–1723 BCE.
Prehistory of West Virginia
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Grave Creek Mound (250-150 BCE)
3.
Protohistory of West Virginia
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The protohistoric period of the state of West Virginia in the United States began in the mid-sixteenth century with the arrival of European trade goods. Explorers and colonists brought these goods to the eastern and southern coasts of North America and were brought inland by native trade routes, written accounts of the area begin by the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century with the scattered documentation and journals of early explorers. These accounts frequently portray a sparsely inhabited area, possibly due to the Iroquois wars to monopolize the European fur trade or the effects of new diseases introduced by Europeans. These groups were already unstable when Europeans arrived during the century with superior weapons. Many of these groups are now known through the archaeological record. Groups of the Fort Ancient and Monongahela cultures lived in the part of the state along the Ohio River. Late Fort Ancient and Late Monongahela peoples began consolidating their villages into larger settlements with more defensive measures such as wooden palisades during this time, archaeologists suggest that this means that intergroup strife had increased, with the smaller settlements amalgamating into larger entities for mutual protection. These cultures were similar and were both influenced by Mississippian cultures to their south and west. Exotic trade items from the Mississippian regions have found in excavated Fort Ancient. Such items made their way into this region through long established native trade routes and these objects came from Spanish, French, and English explorers who had begun to explore the eastern seaboard and Gulf Coast of the present United States by the sixteenth century. One such expedition that left objects in the record was the de Soto Entrada of the early 1540s. This region was inhabited by members of different major language families when Europeans first arrived. These groups shared similar cultures, but spoke languages that had diverged from each other thousands of years. The major language groups inhabiting the West Virginia region were the Central Algonquian, Iroquoian, many tribal names were actually amalgamations of earlier groups that had been decimated by wars and disease and banded together for mutual safety. Groups were also known by different names, which also made identifying specific groups difficult. Group names were recorded before the group met Europeans, and was frequently the name that enemies knew them by. These names were transliterated into several European written languages, particularly French, English, Dutch. The Algonquian peoples were one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups and they were most concentrated in the New England region
Protohistory of West Virginia
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1715 Nicolas de Fer map showing the River of the Chaouanons
Protohistory of West Virginia
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Section of a 1671 French map
Protohistory of West Virginia
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Upper Gauley River
Protohistory of West Virginia
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The Susquesahanock on the
Captain John Smith 1612 map
4.
Environment of West Virginia
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The Environment of West Virginia encompasses terrain and ecosystems ranging from arid plateaus to mountains. West Virginia is situated in the Appalachian Mountains of the Upper South region of the 48 contiguous states. West Virginia covers an area of 24,229.76 square miles, with 24,077.73 square miles of land and 152.03 square miles of water, making it the 41st-largest state in the United States. Generally, it is divided into four regions, Ohio River Valley, Allegheny Plateau, Allegheny Highlands. Historical Geology Summary Prior to one years ago, the geologic history of West Virginia is obscure. Sometime between about 1,100 and 800 million years ago, lava was deposited in the eastern part of the State forming our oldest exposed rock. Later, perhaps about 800 million years ago, a narrow trough began to form in extreme eastern West Virginia, an arm of the sea entered and sediments accumulated. As time went on, this shallow sea transgressed westward, by the end of Cambrian time, about 300 million years later, this shallow sea covered essentially all of West Virginia. Marine deposition took place throughout most of this and the succeeding Ordovician Period, rocks of the same age are found in abundance in the deep wells throughout the State. The Taconic Orogeny near the end of Ordovician time formed a high mountainous area east of West Virginia, during Middle and Late Devonian time the Acadian Orogeny, with the main uplift to the northeast, resulted in a further source for the predominantly clastic marine deposits of these epochs. However, near the end of Devonian time, the sea was rapidly retreating westward, at the close of Mississippian time, about 310 million years ago, West Virginia was essentially a land area, subject to erosion. Early in the succeeding Pennsylvanian Period, the area dropped to sea level. Permian Period, roughly 270 to 225 million years ago, the Appalachian Orogeny began which played a part in the formation of the Appalachian Mountains as we know them today. Never again has the sea invaded West Virginia, the oldest evidences of life found in West Virginia occur in rocks about 600 million years old, in the Antietam Formation of Lower Cambrian age. However, in this formation they are abundant and of forms that had developed through a substantial part of all evolution that has taken place during the history of the earth. Evidences of life in parts of the earth are found in rocks at least 3 billion years old. Fossils are found in increasing abundance and increasing stages of development in the rocks of all ages since earliest Cambrian time. The life zones of West Virginia transitions from large low-land farming valleys bordered with forest and meadow to high-land ridge flats and heavy forestlands, the geology allows for a diversity of habitats
Environment of West Virginia
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A view of Blackwater Falls State Park
Environment of West Virginia
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West Virginia state quarter
5.
Confederate States of America
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The Confederate States, officially the Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was a breakaway country of 11 secessionist slave states existing from 1861 to 1865. It was never recognized as an Independent country, although it achieved belligerent status by Britain. A new Confederate government was established in February 1861 before Lincoln took office in March, after the 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 Confederacy. The government of the United States rejected the claims of secession, the Civil War began with the April 12,1861, Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. In spring 1865, after four years of fighting which led to an estimated 620,000 military deaths, all the Confederate forces surrendered. Jefferson Davis later lamented that the Confederacy had disappeared in 1865, Missouri and Kentucky were represented by partisan factions from those states, while the legitimate governments of those two states retained formal adherence to the Union. Also fighting for the Confederacy were two of the Five Civilized Tribes located in Indian Territory and a new, but uncontrolled, Confederate Territory of Arizona. Efforts by certain factions in Maryland to secede were halted by federal imposition of law, while Delaware, though of divided loyalty. A Unionist government in parts of Virginia organized the new state of West Virginia. With the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1,1863, the Union made abolition of slavery a war goal, as Union forces moved southward, large numbers of plantation slaves were freed. Many joined the Union lines, enrolling in service as soldiers, teamsters and laborers, the most notable advance was Shermans March to the Sea in late 1864. Much of the Confederacys infrastructure was destroyed, including telegraphs, railroads, plantations in the path of Shermans forces were severely damaged. Internal movement became increasingly difficult for Southerners, weakening the economy and these losses created an insurmountable disadvantage in men, materiel, and finance. Public support for Confederate President Jefferson Daviss administration eroded over time due to repeated military reverses, economic hardships, after four years of campaigning, Richmond was captured by Union forces in April 1865. Shortly afterward, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, President Davis was captured on May 10,1865, and jailed in preparation for a treason trial that was ultimately never held. The U. S. government began a process known as Reconstruction which attempted to resolve the political and constitutional issues of the Civil War. By 1877, the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction in the former Confederate states, Confederate veterans had been temporarily disenfranchised by Reconstruction policy. The prewar South had many areas, the war left the entire region economically devastated by military action, ruined infrastructure
Confederate States of America
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Alexander Stephens CSA Vice President; old Whig friend of Lincoln; author of 'Cornerstone Speech'
Confederate States of America
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Flag (1861–1863)
Confederate States of America
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William L. Yancey, Alabama Fire-Eater, "The Orator of Secession".
Confederate States of America
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William Henry Gist, Governor of South Carolina, called the Secessionist Convention.
6.
American Civil War
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The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. 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 in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
American Civil War
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New Orleans the largest cotton exporting port for New England and Great Britain textile mills, shipping Mississippi River Valley goods from North, South and Border states.
American Civil War
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Clockwise from top:
Battle of Gettysburg,
Union Captain John Tidball's artillery,
Confederate prisoners,
ironclad USS Atlanta, ruins of
Richmond, Virginia,
Battle of Franklin
American Civil War
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Sen. Stephen Douglas, author of the
Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854
American Civil War
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Sen. John J. Crittenden, of the 1860
Crittenden Compromise
7.
South Carolina in the American Civil War
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South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union, and was one of the founder members of the Confederacy. The bombardment of the beleaguered U. S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12,1861 is normally reckoned as the first military engagement of the war. South Carolina was a source of troops for the Confederate army, the state also provided uniforms, textiles, food, and war material, as well as trained soldiers and leaders from The Citadel and other military schools. In contrast to most other Confederate states, South Carolina had a rail network linking all of its major cities without a break of gauge. Relatively free from Union occupation until the end of the war. Among the leading generals from the Palmetto State were Wade Hampton III, one of the Confederacys leading cavalrymen, Maxcy Gregg, killed in action at Fredericksburg, the white population of the state had strongly supported the institution of slavery since the 18th century. Political leaders such as Democrats John Calhoun and Preston Brooks had inflamed regional and national passions in support of the institution, and many pro-slavery voices had cried for secession. On the outbreak of war, South Carolina, had the highest percentage of slaves of any U. S. state at 57% of its population enslaved and 46% of its families owning at least one slave. Alfred P. Aldrich, a South Carolinian politician from Barnwell, president a Hostile Act and stated its intention to declare secession from the United States. In the letter, McQueen claimed that U. S, the Southern Presbyterian of S. C. declared that, On November 10,1860 the S. C. General Assembly called for a Convention of the People of South Carolina to consider secession, delegates were to be elected on December 6. The secession convention convened in Columbia on December 17 and voted unanimously, 169-0, the convention then adjourned to Charleston to draft an ordinance of secession. When the ordinance was adopted on December 20,1860, South Carolina became the first slave state in the south to declare that it had seceded from the United States, James Buchanan, the United States president, declared the ordinance illegal but did not act to stop it. A committee of the convention drafted a Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce. Broadly speaking, the declaration argues that the U. S, Constitution was framed to establish each State as an equal in the Union, with separate control over its own institutions, such as the right of property in slaves. A repeated concern is runaway slaves, the declaration argues that parts of the U. S. The declaration goes on to state that this stipulation of the Constitution was so important to the original signers, Declaration of Independence from July 1776. Professor and historian Harry V. Loewen, writing of South Carolinas Declaration of Secession, Loewen writes that The state adopted the palmetto flag as its banner, a slightly modified version of which is used as its current state flag
South Carolina in the American Civil War
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Fort Sumter, 1861, flying the
Confederate flag after the fort's capture from the U.S. by the Confederacy.
South Carolina in the American Civil War
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Flag
8.
Mississippi in the American Civil War
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Mississippi was the second southern state to declare its secession from the United States of America, on January 9,1861. It joined with six other southern slave-holding states to form the Confederacy on February 4,1861, Mississippian troops fought in every major theater of the American Civil War, although most were concentrated in the Western Theater. Confederate president Jefferson Davis was a Mississippi politician and operated a large cotton plantation there. Prominent Mississippian generals during the war included William Barksdale, Carnot Posey, Wirt Adams, Earl Van Dorn, Robert Lowry, for years prior to the American Civil War, slave-holding Mississippi had voted heavily for the Democrats, especially as the Whigs declined in their influence. During the 1860 presidential election, the state supported Southern Democrat candidate John C. John Bell, the candidate of the Constitutional Union Party, came in a distant second with 25,045 votes, with Stephen A. Douglas, abraham Lincoln, who won the national election, was not on the ballot in Mississippi. S. Thousands flocked to join the Confederate military, around 80,000 white men from Mississippi fought in the Confederate army, whereas some 500 white Mississippians remained loyal to the U. S. and fought for the Union. As the war progressed, a number of freed or escaped slaves joined the United States Colored Troops. More than 17,000 black Mississippian slaves and freedmen fought for the Union, there were regional variations, as Logue shows. The likelihood of a man volunteering for service increased with an amount of personal property owned. Poor men were likely to volunteer. Men living near the Mississippi River, regardless of their wealth or other characteristics, were likely to join the army than were those living in the states interior. Many military-age men in western counties had moved elsewhere. Union control of the Mississippi River made its neighbors especially vulnerable, portions of northwestern Mississippi were under Union control on January 1,1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. All of Mississippi had been declared in rebellion in the Proclamation and we can only live & exist by that species of labor, and hence I am willing to fight to the last. Corinths location at the junction of two made it strategically important. Beauregard retreated there after the Battle of Shiloh, pursued by Union Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, beauregard abandoned the town when Halleck approached, letting it fall into Union hands. Since Halleck approached so cautiously, digging entrenchments at every stop for over a month, Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans moved to Corinth as well and concentrated his force with Halleck later in the year to again attack the city
Mississippi in the American Civil War
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Bishop Elder of Natchez
Mississippi in the American Civil War
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Flag (1861)
9.
Florida in the American Civil War
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Florida joined the Confederate States of America at the beginning of the Civil War, as third of the original seven states to secede from the Union, following Lincolns 1860 election. With the smallest population, nearly half of them slaves, Florida could only send 15,000 troops to the Confederate States Army and its chief importance was in food-supply to the south, and support for blockade-runners, with its long coastline full of inlets, hard to patrol. On the outbreak of war, the Confederates seized many of the army camps. There was little fighting in Florida, the major conflict being the Battle of Olustee near Lake City in February 1864. However, wartime conditions made it easier for slaves to escape, as southern morale suffered, deserters from both sides took refuge in Florida, often attacking Confederate units and looting farms. Tallahassee became the second-last Confederate state capital to fall to the Union army, in May 1865, Federal control was re-established, slavery abolished, and the state governor John Milton shot himself, rather than submit to Union occupation. Secession was declared January 10,1861, and, after less than a month, the first six states to secede had the largest population of slaves among the Southern states. Although the vote to secede passed 62-7, there was a pro-Union and anti-Confederate minority in the state, Florida sent a three-man delegation to the 1861-62 Provisional Confederate Congress, which first met in Montgomery, Alabama, and then in the new capital of Richmond, Virginia. The delegation consisted of Jackson Morton, James Byeram Owens, and James Patton Anderson, who resigned April 8,1861, Ward served from May 1861 until February 1862, when he resigned and was replaced by John Pease Sanderson. Davis, protection of slavery was the reason for Floridas declaring of secession. As Florida was an important supply route for the Confederate army, Union troops occupied major ports such as Cedar Key, Jacksonville, Key West, and Pensacola early in the war. Governor John Milton, an ardent secessionist, throughout the war stressed the importance of Florida as a supplier of goods, Florida was a large provider of food and salt for the Confederate Army. The 8, 436-mile coastline and 11,000 miles of rivers, streams, and waterways proved a haven for blockade runners, however, the states small population, relatively remote location, and meager industry limited its overall strategic importance. Milton worked to strengthen the state militia and to improve fortifications, since neither army aggressively sought control of Florida, many of Floridas troops were sent to serve in Virginia in the Army of Northern Virginia under Brig. Gen. Edward A. Perry and Col. David Lang. The Florida Brigade fought in many of Robert E. Lees campaigns and it sent them to the Western Theater for the remainder of the war. The only Confederate forces remaining in Florida at that time were a variety of independent companies, several battalions. They were reinforced in 1864 by troops from neighboring Georgia, by 1840 the Anglo-American population became the majority among people of European descent, influencing the development of the culture. It became more racist and based on a division of white and non-white, into which latter group the Muscogee
Florida in the American Civil War
Florida in the American Civil War
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Flag
Florida in the American Civil War
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The
Battle of Olustee was the only major Civil War battle fought in Florida.
Florida in the American Civil War
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A military prison in
Jacksonville, Florida, 1864. From the
National Archives and Records Administration.
10.
Alabama in the American Civil War
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The State of Alabama declared that it had seceded from the United States of America on January 11,1861. It then quickly joined the Confederate States during the American Civil War. S, in December 1860, Stephen F. Hale, Alabamas commissioner to Kentucky, wrote a letter to the latter states governor of Alabamas justification for secession. According to one newspaper in Montgomery, slavery was a religious institution, upon declaring its secession from the United States, Alabama adopted a new state constitution. Moore energetically supported the Confederate war effort, even before hostilities began in April 1861, he seized U. S. facilities, sent agents to buy rifles in the Northeast, and scoured the state for weapons. Despite some resistance in the part of the state, Alabama joined the Confederate States of America. Congressman Williamson R. W. Cobb, a Unionist, pleaded for compromise and he ran for the First Confederate Congress, but was soundly defeated. The new nation brushed Cobb aside and set up its capital in Montgomery. In May the Confederate government abandoned Montgomery before the season began. Some idea of the severe internal problems the Confederacy faced can be seen by tracing Daviss journey to Montgomery from his home in Mississippi. Yet another train took Davis to the Alabama border, where a train took him to Montgomery. Alabama was not the scene of any significant military operations, yet the state contributed about 120,000 men to the Confederate service, most were recruited locally and served with men they knew, which built esprit and strengthened ties to home. Medical conditions were severe, about 15% died of disease, Alabama had few well-equipped hospitals, but it had many women who volunteered to nurse the sick and wounded. Soldiers were poorly equipped, especially after 1863, and often resorted to pillaging the dead for boots, belts, canteens, blankets, hats, shirts and pants. Uncounted thousands of slaves worked with Confederate troops, they took care of horses and equipment, cooked and did laundry, hauled supplies, other slaves built defensive installations, especially those around Mobile. They graded roads, repaired railroads, drove supply wagons, and labored in iron mines, iron foundries, as they were enslaved, the labor of slaves was involuntary, their unpaid labor was forcibly impressed from their unpaid masters. About 10,000 slaves escaped and joined the Union Army, thirty-nine Alabamians attained the rank of general or admiral, most notably Admiral Raphael Semmes. Josiah Gorgas was the Chief of Ordnance for the Confederacy and he located new munitions plants in Selma that employed 10,000 workers until Union raiders in 1865 burned down the factories. The Selma Arsenal made most of the Confederacys ammunition, the Selma Naval Ordnance Works manufactured artillery, turning out a cannon every five days
Alabama in the American Civil War
11.
Georgia in the American Civil War
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Georgia was one of the original seven slave states that formed the Confederate States in February 1861, triggering the U. S. Civil War. There was not much fighting in Georgia until September 1863, when Confederates under Braxton Bragg defeated William S. Rosecrans at Chickamauga Creek. In May 1864, William T. Sherman started pursuing the Confederates towards Atlanta and this six-week campaign destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure of Georgia, decisively shortening the war. When news of the march reached Robert E. Lees army in Virginia, whole Georgian regiments deserted, the Battle of Columbus, fought on the Georgia-Alabama border on April 16,1865, is reckoned by some criteria to have been the last battle of the war. The ordinance cited the views of U. S. William L, contemporary Georgian religious leaders also supported slavery. Governor Joseph E. Brown was a leading secessionist and led efforts to remove the state from the Union, a firm believer in states rights, he defied the Confederate governments wartime policies. He resisted the Confederate military draft and tried to keep as many soldiers at home as possible to fight invading forces, Brown challenged Confederate impressment of animals, goods, and slaves. Several other governors followed his lead, during the war, Georgia sent nearly 100,000 men to battle for the Confederacy, mostly to the Virginian armies. Despite secession, many southerners in North Georgia remained loyal to the Union, approximately 5,000 Georgians served in the U. S. Army in units such as the 1st Georgia Infantry Battalion, the 1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment, and a number of East Tennessean regiments. Georgias Rabun County in particular, which did not declare secession from the Union, was highly Unionist, the dividing lines were often not as clear as they are sometimes viewed in Rabun county during this period. In A Separate Civil War, Communities in Conflict in the Mountain South, within these two counties, Unionist and Confederate leaning factions fought brutally directly within the home front between 1861 and 1865. The Madden Branch Massacre in Fannin county was one of several atrocities that occurred as the mountain counties divided into pro and anti-Confederate factions. On November 29,1864, six Georgians trying to enlist in the U. S. Army - Thomas Bell, Harvey Brewster, James T. Hughes, James B. Nelson, Elijah Robinson, Peter Parris, and Wyatt J. Parton - were executed by the notorious Confederate guerilla John P. Gatewood, the long-haired, red-bearded beast from Georgia. While concentrated in the mountains and large cities, Unionism in Georgia was not confined to those areas, by summer 1861, the Union naval blockade virtually shut down the export of cotton and the import of manufactured items. Food that normally came by rail from the Northern states were halted, the governor and legislature pleaded with planters to grow less cotton and more food. The planters refused because at first, they thought the Union would not or could not fight, the planters then saw cotton prices in Europe soared and they expected Europe to soon intervene and break the blockade. The legislature imposed cotton quotas and made it a crime to grow an excess, in more than a dozen instances across the state, poor white women raided stores and captured supply wagons to get such necessities as bacon, corn, flour, and cotton yarn
Georgia in the American Civil War
12.
Louisiana in the American Civil War
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Antebellum Louisiana was a slave state, where enslaved African Americans had comprised the majority of the population during the eighteenth century French and Spanish colonial period. By the time the United States acquired the territory and Louisiana became a state, by 1860, 47% of the states population were enslaved, though the state also had one of the largest free black populations in the United States. Much of the population, particularly in the cities, supported southern states rights and slavery, while pockets of support for the U. S. Louisiana declared that it had seceded from the Union on January 26,1861, New Orleans, the largest city in the South, was strategically important as a port city due to its southernmost location on the Mississippi River and its access to the Gulf of Mexico. War Department early on planned for its capture, the city was taken by U. S. Army forces on April 25,1862. For the latter part of the war, both the U. S. and the Confederacy recognized their own distinct Louisiana governors, a wealthy planter and slave holder, Moore acted aggressively to engineer the secession of Louisiana from the Union by a convention on January 23. All of these strategies were failures, in March 1861, George Williamson, the Louisianan state commissioner, addressed the Texan secession convention, where he called upon the slave states of the U. S. There is too many free niggers, now to suit me, let alone having four millions. The Unions response to Moores leveraged secession was embodied in U. S. President Abraham Lincolns realization that the Mississippi River was the backbone of the Rebellion. If control of the river were accomplished, the largest city in the Confederacy would be back for the Union. The U. S. Navy would become both a formidable force and a means of transporting Union forces, along the Mississippi River. This strategic vision would prove victorious in Louisiana, beauregard, Braxton Bragg, and Richard Taylor all commanded significant independent armies during the war. Taylors forces were among the last active Confederate armies in the field when the war closed, henry Watkins Allen led a brigade during the middle of the war before becoming the Confederate Governor of Louisiana from 1864 to 1865. Randall L. Gibson, another competent brigade commander, became a postbellum U. S, other brigadiers of note included Alfred Mouton, Harry T. Hays, Chatham Roberdeau Wheat, and Francis T. Nicholls. St. John Lidell was a prominent brigade commander in the Army of Tennessee, henry Gray, a wealthy plantation owner from Bienville Parish, was a brigadier general under Richard Taylor before being elected to the Second Confederate Congress late in the war. Leroy A. Stafford was among a handful of Louisiana generals to be killed during the war, albert Gallatin Blanchard was a rarity—a Confederate general born in Massachusetts. Governor Thomas Overton Moore, came held office from 1860 through early 1864, when war erupted, he unsuccessfully lobbied the Confederate government in Richmond for a strong defense of New Orleans. Two days before the city surrendered in April 1862, Moore, Thomas Moore organized military resistance at the state level, ordered the burning of cotton, cessation of trade with the Union forces, and heavily recruited troops for the state militia
Louisiana in the American Civil War
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Map depicting Louisiana and approaches to New Orleans as depicted during the Civil War.
Louisiana in the American Civil War
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Flag
Louisiana in the American Civil War
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Approaches to New Orleans, Department of the Gulf Map Number 5, February 14, 1863.
Louisiana in the American Civil War
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Gen.
P.G.T. Beauregard
13.
Texas in the American Civil War
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As with those of other States, the Declaration was not recognized by the United States government at Washington. Some Texan military units fought in the Civil War east of the Mississippi River, Texas supply role lasted until mid-1863, after which time Union gunboats controlled the Mississippi River, making large transfers of men, horses or cattle impossible. Some cotton was sold in Mexico, but most of the crop became useless because of the Union naval blockade of Galveston, Houston, in the late winter of 1860, Texan counties sent delegates to a special convention to debate the merits of secession. The convention adopted an Ordinance of Secession by a vote of 166 to 8, separately from the Ordinance of Secession, which was considered a legal document, Texas also issued a declaration of causes spelling out the rationale for declaring secession. It accuses northern politicians and abolitionists of committing a variety of outrages upon Texans, the bulk of the document offers justifications for slavery and white supremacy, saying that remaining a part of the United States would jeopardize the security of the two. By February 1861, the six states of the sub-region had separately passed ordinances of secession. However, events in Texas were delayed, largely due to the resistance of Southern Unionist governor, in early December 1860, before South Carolina even seceded, a group of State officials published via newspaper a call for a statewide election of convention delegates on January 8,1861. This election was irregular, even for the standards of the day. It often relied on voice vote at meetings, although viva voce voting for popular elections had been used since at least March 1846. Unionists were often discouraged from attending or chose not to participate and this resulted in lopsided representation of secessionists delegates. The election call had stipulated for the delegates to assemble in convention on January 28, Houston called the Legislature into session, hoping that the elected body would declare the unauthorized convention illegal. On January 21,1861, the Legislature met in Austin and was addressed by Houston, calling Lincolns election unfortunate, he nonetheless emphasized, in a reference to the upcoming meeting of the secession convention, it was no justification for rash action. However, the Texas Legislature voted the delegates expense money and supplies and—over Houstons veto—made a pledge to uphold the legality of the Conventions actions, the only stipulation was that the people of Texas have the final say in referendum. The following day, convention president Oran Roberts introduced a resolution suggesting Texas leave the Union. S, Federal government and the U. S. Constitution. In the interests of historical significance and posterity, the ordinance was written to take effect on March 2, the date of Texas Declaration of Independence. On February 1, members of the Legislature, and a crowd of private citizens, packed the House galleries. Seventy yea votes were recorded there was a single nay. One of the votes is enshrined in Texas history books
Texas in the American Civil War
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Gov.
Sam Houston
Texas in the American Civil War
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Flag
Texas in the American Civil War
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Gov.
Francis Lubbock
Texas in the American Civil War
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Lt. Gen.
John Bell Hood
14.
Virginia in the American Civil War
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The Commonwealth of Virginia was a prominent part of the Confederate States during the American Civil War. As a slave-holding state, it held a convention to deal with the secession crisis. Opinion shifted after 15 April, when U. S, in May, it was decided to move the Confederate capital from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, in part because the defense of Virginias capital was deemed vital to the Confederacys survival. On 24 May, the U. S. Army moved into northern Virginia, the successes of Robert E. Lee in defending Richmond is a central theme of the military history of the war. The White House of the Confederacy, located a few north of the State Capitol, was home to the family of Confederate leader Jefferson Davis. On October 16,1859, the radical abolitionist John Brown led a group of 22 men in a raid on the Federal Arsenal in Harpers Ferry, U. S. troops, led by Robert E. Lee, responded and quelled the raid. Subsequently, John Brown was tried and executed by hanging in Charles Town on December 2,1859, breckinridge as their party candidate for President. When Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected as U. S. president, while a majority of the state would look for compromises to the sectional differences, most people also opposed any restrictions on slaveholders rights. As the state watched to see what South Carolina would do, many Unionists felt that the greatest danger to the state came not from the North but from rash secession by the lower South. On November 15,1860 Virginia Governor John Letcher called for a session of the Virginia General Assembly to consider, among other issues. The legislature convened on January 7 and approved the convention on January 14, the election of convention delegates drew 145,700 voters who elected, by county,152 representatives. Thirty of these delegates were secessionists, thirty were unionists, nevertheless, advocates of immediate secession were clearly outnumbered. Simultaneous to this election, six slave states formed the Confederate States on February 4. According to one Virginian teacher, William M, one of the conventions first actions was to create a 21-member Federal Relations Committee charged with reaching a compromise to the sectional differences as they affected Virginia. The committee was made up of 4 secessionists,10 moderates and 7 unionists, at first there was no urgency to the conventions deliberations as all sides felt that time only aided their cause. With the failure of the Peace Conference at the end of February, Unionist support by many was further eroded for many Virginians by Lincolns March 4 First Inaugural address which they felt was argumentative, if not defiant. Throughout the state there was evidence that support for secession was growing, the fourteen proposals defended both slavery and states rights while calling for a meeting of the eight slave states still in the Union to present a united front for compromise. From March 15 through April 14 the convention debated these proposals one by one, during the debate on the resolutions, the sixth resolution calling for a peaceful solution and maintenance of the Union came up for discussion on April 4
Virginia in the American Civil War
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How Virginia Was Voted Out Of The Union - Harpers Weekly, June 15, 1861
Virginia in the American Civil War
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Flag
Virginia in the American Civil War
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Tredegar Iron Works, Richmond, Virginia, April 1865
Virginia in the American Civil War
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The First of May 1865 or Genl. Moving Day in Richmond Va,
political cartoon, Kimmel & Forster, New York, 1865
15.
Arkansas in the American Civil War
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Arkansas had initially voted to remain in the Union. Arkansas raised 48 infantry regiments for the Confederacy, mostly serving in the Western theatre, Major General Patrick Cleburne was the states most notable military leader. The state also raised some Union regiments, though these were used for local anti-guerrilla patrols. The Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862 ensured Union control of Northern Arkansas, programs such as the draft, high taxes, and martial law led to a decline in enthusiasm for the Confederate cause. The state was readmitted to the Union in 1868, the slave state of Arkansas was a part of the Confederate States during the American Civil War, and provided a source of troops, supplies, and military and political leaders. Arkansas had become the 25th state of the United States, on June 15,1836, antebellum Arkansas was still a wilderness in most areas, rural and sparsely populated. As a result, it did not have military significance when states began declaring secession from the Union. State Militia forces seized the Federal Arsenal in Little Rock before Arkansas actually voted to secede, the small Federal garrison was forced to evacuate after a demand by Arkansas Governor Rector that the arsenal be turned over to state authority. At the beginning of 1861, the population of Arkansas, like states of the Upper South, was not keen to secede on average. This was shown by the results of state referendum in February 1861. The referendum passed, but the majority of the elected were conditional unionist in sympathy. This changed after the Confederacy attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the move toward open war shifted public opinion into the secessionist camp. Arkansas declared its secession from the Union on May 6,1861, at the Arkansas secession convention in March 1861, Henry M. They stated that hostility to the institution of African slavery from the states was the primary reason why the state was declaring that it had seceded from the United States. It also stated that the states support for equality with negroes. Arkansas formed some 48 infantry regiments for the Confederate Army in addition to numerous cavalry and artillery units to serve as part of the Confederate Army. The 1st Arkansas Mounted Rifles, and the 1st, 4th, one infantry regiment, the 3rd Arkansas, served in the East for the duration of the war, thus making it the states most celebrated Confederate military unit. Though it was with the Confederacy that Arkansas sided as a state, none of those saw any heavy combat actions, and few took part in any major battles
Arkansas in the American Civil War
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National Flag (1861–1863)
16.
North Carolina in the American Civil War
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The state of North Carolina provided an important source of soldiers, supplies, and war materiel to the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Large supplies of weapons, ammunition, accoutrements, and military supplies flowed from Wilmington throughout the South, troops from North Carolina played a major role in dozens of major battles, including the Battle of Gettysburg, where Tar Heels were prominent in Picketts Charge. One of the last remaining major Confederate armies, that of Joseph E. Johnston, North Carolina was a picture of contrasts. In the Coastal Plain, it was a state with a long history of slavery. However, there were no plantations and few slaves in the western part of the state. These differing perspectives show in the election of 1860 and its aftermath. North Carolinas electoral votes went to Southern Democrat John C, yet North Carolina was reluctant to secede from the Union when it became clear that Republican Abraham Lincoln had won the presidential election. In fact, North Carolina did not secede until May 20,1861, after the fall of Fort Sumter, central and Eastern white North Carolinians were more enthusiastic about the Confederate cause, North Carolina contributed more troops to the Confederacy than any other state. Initially, the policy of the Confederate populace was to embargo cotton shipments to Europe in hope of forcing them to recognize the Confederacys independence to resume trade, the plan failed, and furthermore the Unions naval blockade of Southern ports drastically shrunk North Carolinas international commerce via shipping. Internally, the Confederacy had far fewer railroads than the Union, the breakdown of the Confederate transportation system took a heavy toll on North Carolina residents, as did the runaway inflation of the war years and food shortages in the cities. In the spring of 1863, there were riots in Salisbury. Although there was little combat in the Western districts, the psychological tensions grew greater and greater. Henry Toole Clark served as the governor from July 1861 to September 1862. Clark founded a Confederate prison in North Carolina, set up European purchasing connections and his successor Zebulon Vance further increased state assistance for the soldiers in the field. As the war went on, William Woods Holden became a critic of the Confederate government. In 1864, he was the peace candidate against incumbent Governor Vance. Unionists in North Carolina formed a group called the Heroes of America that was allied with the U. S, numbering nearly 10,000 men, a few of them possibly black, they helped Unionists escape to U. S. lines. His successes at Battle of Roanoke Island and Battle of New Bern helped cement Federal control of a part of coastal Carolina, fighting continued in North Carolina sporadically throughout the war, particularly along the coast, where the Union army launched several attempts to seize Fort Fisher
North Carolina in the American Civil War
North Carolina in the American Civil War
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Flag (1861)
North Carolina in the American Civil War
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Pictorial envelope published in the North during
U.S. Civil War showing the Devil holding the
Seal of North Carolina and the
Confederate flag
North Carolina in the American Civil War
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Confederate soldier
Silent Sam,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by
John Wilson (sculptor)
17.
Tennessee in the American Civil War
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To a large extent, the American Civil War was fought in cities and farms of Tennessee, as only Virginia saw more battles. However, Tennessee is the state to have major battles or skirmishes fought in every single county. Tennessee was also considered the Bread Basket of the Confederacy, for its rich farmland that fed both armies during the war. A large number of important battles occurred in Tennessee, including the fighting at the Battle of Shiloh. Other large battles in Tennessee included Stones River, Chattanooga, Nashville, Tennessee was one of the most divided states in the country at the outset of the war. Before the bombardment of Fort Sumter, Tennessee was actually staunchly pro-Union, the situation changed when Fort Sumter was bombarded and Lincoln made the call for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion. Tennesseans saw this as a threat to their brethren. In fact, Tennessee would furnish more troops for the Union than any other Confederate state, however, over three times that number volunteered for the Confederacy. Interestingly, notable general Nathan Bedford Forrest voted against secession, initially, most Tennesseans showed little enthusiasm for breaking away from a nation whose struggles it had shared for so long. In 1860, they had voted by a margin for the Constitutional Unionist John Bell. A vocal minority of Tennesseans spoke critically of the Northern states, the people of the South are preparing for their next highest duty– resistance to coercion or invasion, wrote the Nashville Daily Gazette on January 5,1861. A pro-secessionist proposal was made in the Memphis Appeal to build a fort at Randolph, Tennessee, Governor Isham G. Harris convened an emergency session of the Tennessee General Assembly in January 1861. Upon the well-defined constitutions rights of the Southern citizen and he identified numerous grievances with the Republican Party, blaming them for inducing slaves to run off by means of the Underground Railroad, John Browns raids, and high taxes on slave labor. Harris agreed with the idea of 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, 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 and he declared passing any law reorganizing and arming the state militia to be inexpedient. The centrality of the question of slavery to the movement was not doubted by people at the time of the Civil War. If you desire to wait until you are tied hand and foot then vote for the men who advocate the watch and wait policy
Tennessee in the American Civil War
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John Bell.
Tennessee in the American Civil War
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Flag
Tennessee in the American Civil War
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Lt. Gen.
Leonidas Polk
Tennessee in the American Civil War
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Lt. Gen.
Benjamin F. Cheatham
18.
Border States (American Civil War)
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In the context of the American Civil War, the border states were slave states that did not declare a secession from the Union and did not join the Confederacy. To their north they bordered free states of the Union and to their south they bordered Confederate slave states, of the 34 U. S. states in 1861, nineteen were free states and fifteen were slave states. Four slave states never declared a secession, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, also included as a border state during the war is West Virginia, which was formed from 50 counties of Virginia and became a new state in the Union in 1863. In the border states there was concern with military coercion of the Confederacy. Many if not a majority were definitely opposed to it, when Abraham Lincoln called for troops to march south to recapture Fort Sumter and other national possessions, southern Unionists were dismayed. Secessionists in Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia were successful in getting those states to declare their secession from the U. S. in Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, there were both pro-Confederate and pro-Union governments. West Virginia was formed in 1862–63 after unionists from the counties of Virginia then occupied by the Union Army had set up a loyalist state government of Virginia. Lincoln recognized this government and allowed them to divide the state, though every slave state except South Carolina contributed white battalions to both the Union and Confederate armies, the split was most severe in these border states. Sometimes men from the family fought on opposite sides. About 170,000 border state men fought in the Union Army and 86,000 in the Confederate Army, besides formal combat between regular armies, the border region saw large-scale guerrilla warfare and numerous violent raids, feuds, and assassinations. Violence was especially severe in eastern Kentucky and western Missouri, the single bloodiest episode was the 1863 Lawrence Massacre in Kansas, in which at least 150 civilian men and boys were killed. It was launched in retaliation for an earlier, smaller raid into Missouri by Union men from Kansas, with geographic, social, political, and economic connections to both the North and the South, the border states were critical to the outcome of the war. They are considered still to delineate the border that separates the North from the South. Reconstruction, as directed by Congress, did not apply to the states because they never seceded from the Union. They did undergo their own process of readjustment and political realignment after passage of amendments abolishing slavery and granting citizenship, after 1880 most of these jurisdictions were dominated by white Democrats, who passed laws to impose the Jim Crow system of legal segregation and second-class citizenship for blacks. Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to the border states, of the states that were exempted from the Proclamation, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia abolished slavery before the war ended. However, Delaware and Kentucky did not abolish slavery until December 1865, in the border states, slavery was already dying out in urban areas and the regions without cotton, especially in cities that were rapidly industrializing, such as Baltimore, Louisville, and St. Louis. By 1860, more than half of the African Americans in Delaware were free, some slaveholders made a profit by selling surplus slaves to traders for transport to the markets of the Deep South, where the demand was still high for field hands on cotton plantations
Border States (American Civil War)
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Historical military map of the border southern states. Phelps & Watson, 1866
19.
Delaware in the American Civil War
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The history of Delaware as a political entity dates back to the early colonization of North America by European-American settlers. It is made up of three counties established since 1638, before the time of William Penn, each had its own settlement history. Their early inhabitants tended to more closely with the county than the colony or state. Large parts of southern and western Delaware were thought to have been in Maryland until 1767, all of the state has existed in the wide economic and political circle of Philadelphia. Before Delaware was settled by Europeans, the area was home to the Delaware, Susquehanna, at that time the area was considered to be part of the Virginia colony. Peter Minuit was the Dutch Director-General of New Netherland during this period and probably spent some time at the Burlington Island post, thereby familiarizing himself with the region. They established a Swedish South Company, aimed at settling the territory of New Sweden and they established a trading post at Fort Christina, now in Wilmington. Minuit claimed possession of the side of the Delaware River. Unlike the Dutch West India Company, the Swedes intended to bring settlers to their outpost. Minuit drowned in a hurricane on the way home that same year, by 1644, Swedish and Finnish settlers were living along both sides of the Delaware River from Fort Christina to the Schuylkill River. New Swedens best known governor, Johan Björnsson Printz, moved his residence to what is now Tinicum Township, Pennsylvania, three years later, in 1654, Johan Risingh, the Swedish governor, captured Fort Casimir from the Dutch. It was not long, though, before the Dutch too were removed by the English. But Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, Proprietor of Maryland, claimed a grant to lands on the western shore of Delaware Bay. In deference to the royal will of Charles II to please his brother, James, Duke of York, James, the Duke of York, believed he had won the area in war and was justified in ownership. The area was administered from New York as a part of James New York colony, William Penn was granted Pennsylvania, which grant specifically excluded New Castle or any of the lands within 12 miles of it. Nevertheless, Penn wanted an outlet to the sea from his new province and he persuaded James to lease him the western shore of Delaware Bay. So, in 1682, Penn arrived in New Castle with two documents, a charter for the Province of Pennsylvania and a lease for what became known as the Lower Counties on the Delaware. Penn had inherited James claims and thus began nearly 100 years of litigation between Penn and Baltimore, and their heirs, in the High Court of Chancery in London
Delaware in the American Civil War
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Nautical chart of the
Dutch colony Zwaanendael and Godyn's Bay (
Delaware Bay), 1639
20.
Maryland in the American Civil War
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During the American Civil War, Maryland, a slave state, was one of the border states, straddling the South and North. Lincolns suspension of habeas corpus in Maryland, and dismissal of the Supreme Court Chief Justices ruling that such suspension was unconstitutional, would leave lasting scars. Later, in July 1864, the Battle of Monocacy near Frederick, Maryland in the third, across the state, nearly 85,000 citizens signed up for the military, with most joining the Union Army. Approximately one third as many enlisted to fight for the Confederacy, the end of the war would bring the abolition of slavery in Maryland, with a new constitution voted in 1864 by a small majority. Animosity against Lincoln would remain, and Marylander John Wilkes Booth would assassinate President Lincoln in April 1865, Maryland, as a slave-holding border state, was deeply divided over the antebellum arguments over states rights and the future of slavery in the Union. Culturally, geographically and economically, Maryland found herself neither one thing nor another, in the lead up to the American Civil War, it became clear that the state was bitterly divided in its sympathies. In the presidential election of 1860 Lincoln won just 2,294 votes out of a total of 92,421, only 2. 5% of the votes cast, in seven counties, Lincoln received not a single vote. Not all blacks in Maryland were slaves, the 1860 Federal Census showed there were nearly as many free blacks as slaves in Maryland. However, across the state, sympathies were mixed, many Marylanders were simply pragmatic, recognising that the states long border with pro-Union Pennsylvania would be almost impossible to defend in the event of war. Maryland businessmen feared the loss of trade that would be caused by war. After John Browns raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859, many citizens began forming local militias, the first bloodshed of the Civil War occurred in Maryland. Panicked by the situation, several soldiers fired into the mob, whether accidentally, in a desultory manner, chaos ensued as a giant brawl began between fleeing soldiers, the violent mob, and the Baltimore police who tried to suppress the violence. Four soldiers and twelve civilians were killed in the riot, the disorder inspired James Ryder Randall, a Marylander living in Louisiana, to write a poem which would be put to music and, in 1939, become the state song, Maryland, My Maryland. The songs lyrics urged Marylanders to spurn the Northern scum and burst the tyrants chain - in other words, Confederate States Army bands would later play the song after they crossed into Maryland territory during the Maryland Campaign in 1862. After the April 19 rioting, skirmishes continued in Baltimore for the next month, Mayor George William Brown and Maryland Governor Thomas Hicks implored President Lincoln to reroute troops around Baltimore city and through Annapolis to avoid further confrontations. In a letter to President Lincoln, Mayor Brown wrote, It is my duty to inform you that it is not possible for more soldiers to pass through Baltimore unless they fight their way at every step. I therefore hope and trust and most earnestly request that no more troops be permitted or ordered by the Government to pass through the city, if they should attempt it, the responsibility for the bloodshed will not rest upon me. The destruction was accomplished the next day, one of the men involved in this destruction would be arrested for it in May without recourse to habeas corpus, leading to the ex parte Merryman ruling
Maryland in the American Civil War
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8th Massachusetts regiment repairing railroad bridges from Annapolis to Washington.
Maryland in the American Civil War
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Union states in the
American Civil War
Maryland in the American Civil War
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The Baltimore Riot of April 1861
Maryland in the American Civil War
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Governor
Thomas Hicks
21.
Kentucky in the American Civil War
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Kentucky was a border state of key importance in the American Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln recognized the importance of the Commonwealth when he declared I hope to have God on my side, in a September 1861 letter to Orville Browning, Lincoln wrote, I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we cannot hold Missouri, nor Maryland and these all against us, and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent to separation at once, including the surrender of this capitol, Kentucky, being a border state, was among the chief places where the Brother against brother scenario was prevalent. After early 1862 Kentucky came largely under Union control, Kentucky was the site of several fierce battles, including Mill Springs and Perryville. Forrest proved to be a scourge to the Union Army in western Kentucky, kentuckian John Hunt Morgan further challenged Union control, as he conducted numerous cavalry raids through the state. Kentucky was the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, his wife Mary Todd, Kentuckys citizens were split regarding the issues central to the Civil War. In 1860, slaves composed 19. 5% of the Commonwealths population, the ancestors of many Kentuckians hailed from Southern states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, but many Kentucky children were beginning to migrate toward the North. Kentucky, along with North Carolina, also boasted the best educational systems in the South, politically, the Commonwealth had produced some of the countrys best known leaders. Breckinridge and Richard M. Johnson both hailed from the state, as did Henry Clay, John J. Crittenden, U. S. President Abraham Lincoln, however, by the time of the Civil War, Kentucky was in a politically confused state. The decline of the Whig Party, which Clay had founded, had left many politicians looking for an identity. Many joined the Democratic Party, a few joined the newly formed Republican Party, the party was composed mainly of former Whigs and Know-Nothings. Kentucky was strategically important to both the North and South, the Commonwealth ranked ninth in population by 1860, and was a major producer of such agricultural commodities as tobacco, corn, wheat, hemp, and flax. Geographically, Kentucky was important to the South because the Ohio River would provide a boundary along the entire length of the state. Kentucky governor Beriah Magoffin believed that the rights of the Southern states had been violated and favored the right of secession, Magoffin proposed a conference of slave states, followed by a conference of all the states to secure these concessions. Due to the pace of events, neither conference was ever held. Magoffin called a session of the Kentucky General Assembly on December 27,1860. The majority of the General Assembly had Unionist sympathies, however, when the General Assembly convened again on March 20, it called for a convention of the border states in the Kentucky capital of Frankfort on May 27,1861
Kentucky in the American Civil War
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Civil War battle map of Kentucky, published in
Harper's Weekly October 19, 1861
Kentucky in the American Civil War
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Confederate States in the
American Civil War
Kentucky in the American Civil War
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1861 abstract return showing Union Forces in Kentucky, commanded by Brig. Gen
William T. Sherman.
Kentucky in the American Civil War
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Albert Sydney Johnston was charged with maintaining a Confederate defensive line in southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee
22.
Missouri in the American Civil War
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During the American Civil War, Missouri was a hotly contested border state populated by both Union and Confederate sympathizers. Counting minor actions and skirmishes, Missouri saw more than 1,200 distinct engagements within its boundaries, only Virginia, Missouri was initially settled by Southerners traveling up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. The compromise was that Maine would enter the Union as a state to balance Missouri. Of the greatest concern for Missouri slave-holders in the years before the war was a law that decreed that if a slave physically entered a free state. The violence along the Kansas–Missouri border foreshadowed the national violence to come, and indeed continued throughout the Civil War. Against the background of Bleeding Kansas, the case of Dred Scott, citizen and therefore that African-Americans could not initiate legal action in any court, even when they clearly had what would otherwise be a valid claim. The decision calmed the skirmishes between Missouri and Kansas partisans, but its publicity enraged abolitionists nationwide and contributed to the rhetoric that led to the Civil War. In 1860, it took 25 days for a message to reach the Pacific coast from what was then the westernmost railroad terminus at St. Joseph, the firm of Russell, Majors and Waddell proposed to do it in 10 days using a relay system of horses. The resulting Pony Express began operations on April 3,1860, Ulysses S. Grants first commission in the Civil War was to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, which delivered its mail. Scarcely a year after the ride from Missouri to San Francisco. By 1860, Missouris initial southern settlers had been supplanted with a more diversified non-slave-holding population, including former northerners, particularly German, the policy was first put forth in 1860 by outgoing Governor Robert Marcellus Stewart, who had Northern leanings. It was notionally reaffirmed by incoming Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson, who had Southern leanings, Jackson, however, stated in his inaugural address that in case of federal coercion of southern states, Missouri should support and defend her sister southern states. A Constitutional Convention to discuss secession was convened with Sterling Price presiding, the delegates voted to stay in the Union and supported the neutrality position. At the time of the 1860 U. S. Census, Missouris total population was 1,182,012, most of the slaves lived in rural areas rather than cities. Of the 299,701 responses to Occupation,124,989 people listed Farmers and 39,396 listed Farm Laborers, the next highest categories were Laborers, Blacksmiths, and Merchants. Less than half the population was listed as native-born. Those who had migrated from other states were predominantly from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana,906,540 people were listed as born in the United States. Of the 160,541 foreign-born residents of Missouri, most came from the German states, Ireland, England, France, in the election of 1860, Missouris newly elected governor was Claiborne Fox Jackson, a career politician and an ardent supporter of the South
Missouri in the American Civil War
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Old Courthouse in St. Louis where the Dred Scott case was argued
Missouri in the American Civil War
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Union states in the
American Civil War
Missouri in the American Civil War
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Ulysses S. Grant
Missouri in the American Civil War
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Claiborne Fox Jackson
23.
Restored Government of Virginia
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The Restored Government of Virginia, also known as the Reorganized Government of Virginia, was the Unionist government of Virginia during the American Civil War. From 1861 until mid-1863 it met in Wheeling, and from August 26,1863 until June 1865 it met in Alexandria, the Restored Government claimed Richmond as its official capital from its formation and it moved there after the city returned to Union control. The Restored Government had only executive and legislative branches, it did not form a judicial branch, when the Second Wheeling Convention met in its first session, in June 1861, it adopted A Declaration of the People of Virginia. The declaration stated that the Virginia Declaration of Rights required any substantial change in the form or nature of government to be approved by the people. The convention then elected Francis Harrison Pierpont as governor, along with executive officers. President Abraham Lincoln recognized the Restored Government as the government of the entire Commonwealth of Virginia. The United States Congress seated the two new United States senators chosen by its legislature, and five U. S. representatives elected from the territories that remained loyal to the Union and its Congressional delegation in the 37th United States Congress entirely made up of Unconditional Unionists. Senators elected were Waitman T. Willey and John S. Carlile, representatives were seated from where delegates in the Richmond Convention of 1861 had voted to remain in the Union. They were the western 10th, William G. Brown, the 11th, the Restored Government attempted to exercise de facto authority, at least over the western counties, but had control of no more than half of the fifty counties that became West Virginia. On August 22,1862, the Restored Governments Adjutant General, a movement for separate statehood had grown in the trans-Allegheny region of Virginia long before the outbreak of war. Soon after the president and Congress recognized the Restored Government as the government of Virginia. The legislature that met between the two sessions of the Wheeling Convention in 1861 failed to pass a bill, but the second session of the convention approved it. A popular referendum in October 1861 was called on the creation of the new State of Kanawha from the counties of northwestern Virginia, the voters approval led to a constitutional convention, and another popular vote in April 1862 approving the new constitution of the now renamed West Virginia. The U. S. Congress then passed a bill for West Virginia, but with the added condition that slaves be emancipated in the new state. Lincoln, though reluctant to divide Virginia during a war aimed at re-uniting the country, in Wheeling, the added conditions required another constitutional convention and popular referendum. Statehood was achieved on June 20,1863, following West Virginia statehood, the Restored Government of Virginia relinquished authority over the counties of the new state, and thus lost most of its area not under Confederate control. Pierpont then moved the Restored Government to Alexandria, effective August 26,1863, located in Virginia proper, across the Potomac River from Washington, D. C. the city of Alexandria remained under Union control for the entirety of the war. The Restored Government claimed legitimacy over all of Virginia not incorporated into West Virginia, but outside the few jurisdictions Pierponts government held under federal arms, control of the state was in Richmond, for instance, in collecting taxes
Restored Government of Virginia
–
Union states in the
American Civil War
24.
East Tennessee Convention of 1861
–
The East Tennessee Convention was an assembly of pro-Union delegates primarily from East Tennessee that met on three occasions during the U. S. Civil War. The state legislature denied this request, and the Confederate Army occupied the region in late 1861, Nelson was elected president of the Convention, and resolutions were adopted denouncing the state governments actions. The Convention met for the time in Greeneville from June 17 to June 20,1861. This second meeting produced a memorial to the government requesting East Tennessee be allowed to separate from Tennessee. The Convention met for a time in Knoxville from April 12 to April 16,1864, to address the Emancipation Proclamation. This final meeting was marked by divisions over the issue of slavery. Many of its delegates would serve in federal, state and local offices during the postwar period, throughout the first half of the 19th century, East Tennessee was frequently at odds with Tennessees two other grand divisions, Middle Tennessee and West Tennessee. Many East Tennesseans felt the state legislature showed persistent favoritism toward the two divisions, especially over funding for internal improvements. In the early 1840s, several East Tennessee leaders, among them Congressman Andrew Johnson, though this movement was unsuccessful, the idea that East Tennessee should be a separate state periodically resurfaced over the subsequent two decades. From the late 1830s until the early 1850s, Tennessee was politically divided between the Democratic Party and the Whig Party, with the Whigs drawing much of their support from East Tennessee. The collapse of the Whig Party over the issue of slavery in the mid-1850s left East Tennessees Whigs in a difficult position, most Northern Whigs joined the new Republican Party, but Southern Whigs generally found this unpalatable due to the Republicans abolitionist sentiments. Some prominent East Tennessee Whigs switched their allegiance to the Democratic Party, though most turned to third party movements, by the late 1850s, former Whigs, Know Nothings, and a few disgruntled Democrats had formed the Opposition Party to counter rising secessionist sentiment. Gubernatorial elections in Tennessee had been very competitive during the two prior to the election of Isham G. Harris in 1857. The six previous elections had all decided by less than 2,500 votes. Whigs relied heavily on East Tennessee and Democrats relied on Middle Tennessee, as the sectionalist conflict over the issue of slavery heated up in the late 1850s, however, sentiments in West Tennessee began to shift in favor of the Democrats. Harris, a staunch pro-slavery Southern Democrat, was elected by over 12,000 votes in 1857, Democrats also gained control of both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly in the 1859 cycle. During the 1860 presidential election, East Tennessees former Whigs turned to the Constitutional Union Party and this partys candidate, John Bell, was a long-time Whig and native of Tennessee. After Abraham Lincoln won the election in November 1860, Southern Democrats, convinced that Lincoln would abolish slavery, began calling for secession
East Tennessee Convention of 1861
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Union states in the
American Civil War
East Tennessee Convention of 1861
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James G. Spears (vice president)
East Tennessee Convention of 1861
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The old Greene County Courthouse in Greeneville, where the East Tennessee Convention met in June 1861
East Tennessee Convention of 1861
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Tennessee Historical Commission marker in Greeneville, recalling the East Tennessee Convention's June 1861 session
25.
Indian Territory in the American Civil War
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During the American Civil War, Indian Territory occupied most of what is now the U. S. state of Oklahoma. It served as a region set aside for Native American tribes of the Southeastern United States following the Indian Removal Act. It was occupied by captured Native Americans who had removed from their lands. The Union organized several regiments of Indian Home Guard to serve in the Indian Territory and sometimes adjacent areas of Kansas, Missouri, the area was largely undeveloped, railroads did not exist in this area and the Union did not have enough troops to control the few roads. Pro-Union Indians had abandoned their own farms because of raids by pro-Confederacy Indians and fled to Kansas or Missouri and it was not feasible to sustain a large military operation by living off the land. This was demonstrated in 1862, when General William Weer led 5,000 men in the Indian Expedition into Indian Territory from Baxter Springs, weers troops captured a Confederate supply train at the Battle of Locust Grove. However, no Union supplies arrived after that, and the expedition ran short of food, ammunition, weers men mutinied, arresting Weer and putting Colonel Frederick Salomon in command. The Confederacy took an interest, seeking a source of food in the event of a Union blockade, a connection to western territories. At the onset of war, Confederate forces took possession of the US army forts in the area, in June and July 1861, its officers negotiated with Native American tribes for combat support. After refusing to allow Creek lands to be annexed by the Confederacy, after reaching Kansas and Missouri, Opothleyahola and Native Americans loyal to the Union formed three volunteer regiments known as the Indian Home Guard. It fought in Indian Territory and Arkansas, the first battle in the territory occurred on November 19,1861. Opothleyahola rallied Indians to the Union cause at Deep Fork, a total of 7,000 men, women, and children resided in his camp. A force of 1,400 Confederate soldiers under Colonel Douglas H. Cooper initiated the Battle of Round Mountain, Opothleyahola moved his camp to a new location at Chustenalah. On December 26,1861, Confederate forces again attacked, this time driving Opothleyahola, in 1862, Union General James G. Blunt ordered Colonel William Weer to lead an expedition into the Indian Territory, the expedition included five white regiments, two Indian regiments and two artillery battalions. The main objective of the expedition was to escort the Indian refugees who had fled to Kansas back to their homes in Indian Territory, a secondary objective was to hold the territory for the Union. Weers expedition met with success at the Battle of Locust Grove in Indian Territory. The expedition camped at Locust Grove for two weeks, waiting for a Union supply train, one detachment from the main force moved on to Fort Gibson, causing the Confederates stationed there to withdraw
Indian Territory in the American Civil War
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Colonel (Later Brigadier General) Douglas H. Cooper commanded Confederate Forces in Indian Territory
Indian Territory in the American Civil War
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Confederate States in the
American Civil War
Indian Territory in the American Civil War
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Major General James G. Blunt, commander of U. S. forces in Indian Territory.
Indian Territory in the American Civil War
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Brigadier General Stand Watie, the last Confederate general to surrender
26.
Confederate Arizona
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Confederate Arizona was a territory claimed by the Confederate States during the American Civil War, between 1861 and 1865. Delegates to secession conventions had voted in March 1861 to secede from the New Mexico Territory and the United States and it consisted of the portion of the New Mexico Territory south of the 34th parallel, including parts of the modern states of New Mexico and Arizona. Its capital was Mesilla along the southern border, the Confederate territory overlapped the Arizona Territory later established by the Union government in 1863. The physical geography differed in that the Confederate Arizona Territory was approximately the half of the historic New Mexico Territory. The Union-defined Arizona Territory was approximately the half of what had been New Mexico Territory. The territory was declared on August 1,1861, following the Confederate victory at the Battle of Mesilla. The Confederate hold in the area was broken after the Battle of Glorieta Pass, in July 1862, the government of the Confederate Territory of Arizona relocated to El Paso, Texas. With the approach of Union troops, it withdrew to eastern Texas, the territory continued to be represented in the Confederate Congress, and Confederate troops continued to fight under the Arizona banner until the wars end. As early as 1856, the government in Santa Fe had raised concerns about being able to effectively govern the southern part of the territory. It was separated from the rest by the Jornada del Muerto, in February 1858, the New Mexico territorial legislature adopted a resolution in favor of the creation of the Arizona territory. The north-south border was to be defined along the 32nd meridian west from Washington, the legislature proposed that all the Indians of New Mexico would be removed to northern Arizona. In April 1860, impatient for Congress to act, the territory called a convention and 31 delegates met in Tucson, in July 1860, the convention drafted a constitution for a Territory of Arizona to be organized out of the New Mexico Territory south of 34° N. The convention elected Lewis Owings as the Territorial Governor, and elected a delegate to Congress, anti-slavery Representatives opposed creating a new territory, as they feared it had the potential to become a slave state. Many people in the area were pro-slavery, with connections in southern states. In addition, this new territory lay below the old Missouri Compromise line of demarcation between slave and free states, since the proceedings of the Tucson convention were never ratified by the United States Congress, the Provisional Territory was not considered a legal entity. For a time it operated as a de facto, if not de jure, dr. Lewis Owings, Governor of the Provisional Territory, appointed James Henry Tevis to raise the first Territorial Militia. This comprised three companies of Arizona Rangers for the protection of the Territory from marauding Apaches and bandits, two companies were raised in the Pinos Altos mining camp, and another at Mesilla. After the start of the American Civil War, support for the Confederacy was strong in the part of the New Mexico Territory
Confederate Arizona
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1861 map of the USA showing the Confederate Arizona Territory
Confederate Arizona
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Flag
27.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
United States
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Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764
United States
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Flag
United States
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The signing of the
Mayflower Compact, 1620.
United States
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The
Declaration of Independence: the
Committee of Five presenting their draft to the
Second Continental Congress in 1776
28.
West Virginia
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West Virginia /ˌwɛst vərˈdʒɪnjə/ is a state located in the Appalachian region of the Southern United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the north, West Virginia is the 9th smallest by area, is ranked 38th in population, and has the second lowest household income of the 50 United States. The capital and largest city is Charleston, West Virginia was admitted to the Union on June 20,1863, and was a key Civil War border state. The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States, the unique position of West Virginia means that it is often included in several geographical regions, including the Mid-Atlantic, the Upland South, and the Southeastern United States. It is the state that is entirely within the area served by the Appalachian Regional Commission. The state is noted for its mountains and rolling hills, its historically significant logging and coal mining industries and it is one of the most densely karstic areas in the world, making it a choice area for recreational caving and scientific research. The karst lands contribute to much of the states cool trout waters and it is also known for a wide range of outdoor recreational opportunities, including skiing, whitewater rafting, fishing, hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, and hunting. Many ancient man-made earthen mounds from various mound builder cultures survive, especially in the areas of Moundsville, South Charleston. The artifacts uncovered in these give evidence of village societies and they had a tribal trade system culture that crafted cold-worked copper pieces. The Iroquois drove out other American Indian tribes from the region to reserve the upper Ohio Valley as a ground in the 1670s. Siouan language tribes such as the Moneton had also recorded in the area previously. West Virginia was originally part of the British Virginia Colony from 1607 to 1776, residents of the western and northern counties set up a separate government under Francis Pierpont in 1861, which they called the restored government. Most voted to separate from Virginia and the new state was admitted to the Union in 1863, in 1864 a state constitutional convention drafted a constitution, which was ratified by the legislature without putting it to popular vote. West Virginia abolished slavery and temporarily disfranchised men who had held Confederate office or fought for the Confederacy, West Virginias history has been profoundly affected by its mountainous terrain, numerous and vast river valleys, and rich natural resources. These were all factors driving its economy and the lifestyles of its residents, a 2010 analysis of a local stalagmite revealed that Native Americans were burning forests to clear land as early as 100 BC. Some regional late-prehistoric Eastern Woodland tribes were involved in hunting and fishing, practicing the slash. Another group progressed to the more time-consuming, advanced companion crop fields method of gardening, also continuing from ancient indigenous people of the state, field space and time was given to tobacco growing through to early historic. Maize did not make a contribution to the diet until after 1150 BP
West Virginia
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Thomas Lee, the first manager of the
Ohio Company of Virginia.
West Virginia
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Flag
West Virginia
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A celebration at a slave wedding in Virginia, 1838
West Virginia
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On October 24, 1861, when voters from 41 counties voted to form a new state, voter turnout was 34%. The name was subsequently changed from Kanawha to West Virginia.
29.
Union (American Civil War)
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The Union was opposed by 11 southern slave states that formed the Confederate States, or the Confederacy. All of the Unions states provided soldiers for the U. S. Army, the Border states played a major role as a supply base for the Union invasion of the Confederacy. The Northeast provided the resources for a mechanized war producing large quantities of munitions and supplies. The Midwest provided soldiers, food, horses, financial support, Army hospitals were set up across the Union. Most states had Republican governors who energetically supported the war effort, the Democratic Party strongly supported the war in 1861 but in 1862 was split between the War Democrats and the anti-war element led by the Copperheads. The Democrats made major gains in 1862 in state elections. They lost ground in 1863, especially in Ohio, in 1864 the Republicans campaigned under the National Union Party banner, which attracted many War Democrats and soldiers and scored a landslide victory for Lincoln and his entire ticket. The war years were quite prosperous except where serious fighting and guerrilla warfare took place along the southern border, prosperity was stimulated by heavy government spending and the creation of an entirely new national banking system. The Union states invested a great deal of money and effort in organizing psychological and social support for soldiers wives, widows, orphans, and for the soldiers themselves. Most soldiers were volunteers, although after 1862 many volunteered to escape the draft, Draft resistance was notable in some larger cities, especially New York City with its massive anti-draft riots of 1863 and in some remote districts such as the coal mining areas of Pennsylvania. In the context of the American Civil War, the Union is sometimes referred to as the North, both then and now, as opposed to the Confederacy, which was the South. The Union never recognized the legitimacy of the Confederacys secession and maintained at all times that it remained entirely a part of the United States of America, in foreign affairs the Union was the only side recognized by all other nations, none of which officially recognized the Confederate government. The term Union occurs in the first governing document of the United States, the subsequent Constitution of 1787 was issued and ratified in the name not of the states, but of We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union. Union, for the United States of America, is repeated in such clauses as the Admission to the Union clause in Article IV. Even before the war started, the preserve the Union was commonplace. Using the term Union to apply to the non-secessionist side carried a connotation of legitimacy as the continuation of the political entity. In comparison to the Confederacy, the Union had a large industrialized and urbanized area, additionally, the Union states had a manpower advantage of 5 to 2 at the start of the war. Year by year, the Confederacy shrank and lost control of increasing quantities of resources, meanwhile, the Union turned its growing potential advantage into a much stronger military force
Union (American Civil War)
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Charleston Mercury Secession Broadside, 1860 - "The Union" had been a way to refer to the American Republic
Union (American Civil War)
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Map of the division of the states during the American Civil War. Blue (the U.S. Army's uniform color) indicates the Union states; light blue represents Union states which permitted slavery (
border states). Red represents states in rebellion, also known as the
Confederate states. Unshaded areas were U.S. territories.
Union (American Civil War)
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The Union had large advantages in men and resources at the start of the war; the ratio grew steadily in favor of the Union. In the chart, "cauc men" means white men.
Union (American Civil War)
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An anti-Lincoln Copperhead pamphlet from 1864
30.
George B. McClellan
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George Brinton McClellan was an American soldier, civil engineer, railroad executive, and politician. A graduate of West Point, McClellan served with distinction during the Mexican-American War, although McClellan was meticulous in his planning and preparations, these very characteristics hampered his ability to challenge aggressive opponents in a fast-moving battlefield environment. He chronically overestimated the strength of units and was reluctant to apply principles of mass. McClellan organised and led the Union army in the Peninsula Campaign in southeastern Virginia from March through July 1862 and it was the first large-scale offensive in the Eastern Theater. General McClellan failed to maintain the trust of President Abraham Lincoln and he did not trust his commander-in-chief and was privately derisive of him. McClellan went on to become the unsuccessful Democratic Party nominee in the 1864 presidential election against Lincoln, the effectiveness of his campaign was damaged when he repudiated his partys platform, which promised an end to the war and negotiations with the Confederacy. He served as the 24th Governor of New Jersey from 1878 to 1881 and he eventually became a writer, and vigorously defended his Civil War conduct. Most modern authorities have assessed McClellan as a battlefield general. Some historians view him as a capable commander whose reputation suffered unfairly at the hands of pro-Lincoln partisans who made him a scapegoat for the Unions military setbacks. After the war, Ulysses S. Grant was asked for his opinion of McClellan as a general and he replied, McClellan is to me one of the mysteries of the war. Also, when Robert E. Lee was asked who was the best Union general, George Brinton McClellan was born in Philadelphia, the son of a prominent surgeon, Dr. George McClellan, the founder of Jefferson Medical College. His fathers family was of Ulster Scots heritage and his mother was Elizabeth Sophia Steinmetz Brinton McClellan, daughter of a leading Pennsylvania family, a woman noted for her considerable grace and refinement. The couple had five children, a daughter, Frederica, then three sons, John, George, and Arthur, and finally a daughter, Mary. McClellan was the great-grandson of Revolutionary War general Samuel McClellan, of Woodstock and he attended the University of Pennsylvania in 1840 at age 13, resigning himself to the study of law. After two years, he changed his goal to military service, with the assistance of his fathers letter to President John Tyler, young George was accepted at the United States Military Academy in 1842, the academy having waived its normal minimum age of 16. At West Point, he was an energetic and ambitious cadet, deeply interested in the teachings of Dennis Hart Mahan and his closest friends were aristocratic Southerners such as James Stuart, Dabney Maury, Cadmus Wilcox, and A. P. Hill. He graduated in 1846, second in his class of 59 cadets and he was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. McClellans first assignment was with a company of engineers formed at West Point and he arrived near the mouth of the Rio Grande in October 1846, well prepared for action with a double-barreled shotgun, two pistols, a saber, a dress sword, and a Bowie knife
George B. McClellan
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1861 portrait by
Mathew Brady
George B. McClellan
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A portion of the
Julian Scott portrait of McClellan in the
National Portrait Gallery in
Washington, D.C.
George B. McClellan
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George B. McClellan and Mary Ellen Marcy (Nelly) McClellan
George B. McClellan
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Patriotic cover honoring the arrival of Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan in Washington, D.C., on July 26, 1861.
31.
Border states (American Civil War)
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In the context of the American Civil War, the border states were slave states that did not declare a secession from the Union and did not join the Confederacy. To their north they bordered free states of the Union and to their south they bordered Confederate slave states, of the 34 U. S. states in 1861, nineteen were free states and fifteen were slave states. Four slave states never declared a secession, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, also included as a border state during the war is West Virginia, which was formed from 50 counties of Virginia and became a new state in the Union in 1863. In the border states there was concern with military coercion of the Confederacy. Many if not a majority were definitely opposed to it, when Abraham Lincoln called for troops to march south to recapture Fort Sumter and other national possessions, southern Unionists were dismayed. Secessionists in Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia were successful in getting those states to declare their secession from the U. S. in Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, there were both pro-Confederate and pro-Union governments. West Virginia was formed in 1862–63 after unionists from the counties of Virginia then occupied by the Union Army had set up a loyalist state government of Virginia. Lincoln recognized this government and allowed them to divide the state, though every slave state except South Carolina contributed white battalions to both the Union and Confederate armies, the split was most severe in these border states. Sometimes men from the family fought on opposite sides. About 170,000 border state men fought in the Union Army and 86,000 in the Confederate Army, besides formal combat between regular armies, the border region saw large-scale guerrilla warfare and numerous violent raids, feuds, and assassinations. Violence was especially severe in eastern Kentucky and western Missouri, the single bloodiest episode was the 1863 Lawrence Massacre in Kansas, in which at least 150 civilian men and boys were killed. It was launched in retaliation for an earlier, smaller raid into Missouri by Union men from Kansas, with geographic, social, political, and economic connections to both the North and the South, the border states were critical to the outcome of the war. They are considered still to delineate the border that separates the North from the South. Reconstruction, as directed by Congress, did not apply to the states because they never seceded from the Union. They did undergo their own process of readjustment and political realignment after passage of amendments abolishing slavery and granting citizenship, after 1880 most of these jurisdictions were dominated by white Democrats, who passed laws to impose the Jim Crow system of legal segregation and second-class citizenship for blacks. Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to the border states, of the states that were exempted from the Proclamation, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia abolished slavery before the war ended. However, Delaware and Kentucky did not abolish slavery until December 1865, in the border states, slavery was already dying out in urban areas and the regions without cotton, especially in cities that were rapidly industrializing, such as Baltimore, Louisville, and St. Louis. By 1860, more than half of the African Americans in Delaware were free, some slaveholders made a profit by selling surplus slaves to traders for transport to the markets of the Deep South, where the demand was still high for field hands on cotton plantations
Border states (American Civil War)
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Historical military map of the border southern states. Phelps & Watson, 1866
West Virginia portal
