Dixie Forever: A Timeline

[JJohnson]

Dixie Forever

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Prologue: The Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was an ominous sign of things to come for the young republic known as the United States of America.

During the war with Mexico, the United States’ representative with Mexico negotiated the settlement, whereby Mexico would lose over half its territory (62.7%), and would recognize the independence of Yucatan. The total amount gained by the United States was 1,279,871 mi2 (3,345,019 km2). Some wanted the United States to annex all of Mexico; others wanted nothing to do with it. Some wanted more land to take their servants/slaves, while others wanted to restrict the practice to the southeast to leave land for white settlement in the west. Many varying forces wanted the land, either for their belief in Manifest Destiny, the expansion of African slavery, new lands, new exploration, or a number of other reasons.

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The map of the Mexican Cession, 1848​

The issue came when California petitioned to join the Union as a state, claiming a territory extending entirely to the end of the Baja peninsula. Before the state came into the Union, southerners in southern half had brought their slaves with them, set up farms, and claimed a government based in San Diego. Northerners had ventured into the state for gold and land, and wanted the entire state to be a ‘free state.’

As part of the compromise, Texas ceded land north of 36°30’ and west of the 100° W, but both the Texans and southern Californians demanded the cession of southern California as another ‘slave state,’ as part of the deal. Northern Californians objected, wanting the entirety of California, for the land, for the gold, and to keep out the slaves.

In the end, Congress’s authority over the territories of the United States won out, and the proposed state of California was split evenly across the 37th parallel, in line with Indian Territory and Arizona Territory. Both southern and northern California would be admitted as states, the southern a slave state, and northern a free state. The compromise also organized the territory of Rio Grande, Chihuahua, and Sonora, south of Texas and Arizona Territory. Since river access and sea access was important for commerce, Arizona Territory’s southern border was adjusted to 31° N so that it would have sea access.


Textbook map of the Compromise of 1850, showing Northern and Southern California separated at the 37th parallel


The freshman Whig congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, criticized both President Polk and the war, saying it was immoral, pro-slavery, and a threat to the nation’s republican values. His views were not uncommon from where he came.


Whig Congressman, Abraham Lincoln


Meanwhile, south of Texas in the Territory of Rio Grande, the black, white, red flag with three stars flew up the flagpole in triumphant shouts of joy at the parties people were having, being free of Mexico. They were sure of the security and freedom they would now have being in the United States. It was the next best thing to being an independent nation, since the United States was built on state sovereignty, the Anglos said. States were sovereign in everything but those specific powers delegated to the federal government, which had no power to interfere in their own internal affairs. If it did, then the compact between them would be dissolved, just like any contract. There would be no Santa Anna in the United States, waging war on the states.


Flag of the US Territory of Rio Grande, the same as the former Republic of Rio Grande


Southern California cheered when they got the news and their separate statehood was affirmed by the Congress three thousand miles away. The new Southern California flag was flown at the temporary state house in San Diego, and the people of the new state immediately began working towards bringing in more investment and people from their old homes back east. Georgia, Louisiana, North and South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee, and even Texas – all the southern states parted with some of their men and women to populate their new fellow southern state. Along with them, body servants and slaves came to try to make the desert state bloom.

Flag of Southern California


Some people in New England, on their legislatures and in their newspapers, however threatened secession. Four times before, in 1802-1803, in 1811-12, in 1814, and in 1844-45, people in the north threatened secession and this would make the fifth. First, Colonel Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, friend of George Washington, of Massachusetts, and member of his cabinet; second from Josiah Quincy, another distinguished citizen of Massachusetts; third from the Hartford Convention of 1814; fourth from the Legislature of Massachusetts. Josiah Quincy, in the debate on the admission of Louisiana to the Union, on January 14, 1811, declares his “deliberate opinion that, if the bill passes, the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved,…as it will be the right of all [the States], so it will be the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separation, - amicably if they can, violently if they must.” In 1839, John Quincy Adams declared that “the people of each State have a right to secede from the Confederated Union.”

In 1844, and again in 1845, the Legislature of Massachusetts reiterated its right to secede, and threatened to exercise that right if Texas were admitted to the Union:

“The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, faithful to the compact between the people of the United States, according to the plain meaning and intent in which it was understood by them, is sincerely anxious for its preservation, but it is determined, as it doubts not the other States are, to submit to undelegated powers in no body of men on earth.”

Not even the Oregon Treaty ameliorated the abolitionists and other New Englanders; President Polk wanted Texas, but agreed to a treaty with the United Kingdom, based on the existence of US settlers north of the 49th parallel, the existing border between the US and British North America. This new treaty gave the US all land west of the Continental Divide in the Rockies, and south of the 52° N parallel.

Every time the United States acquired more territory it seemed as if New England threatened to secede. But it wouldn't be the North which would carry out the threat.

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This timeline is inspired by the Union Forever timeline from Mac Gregor, and Dominion of Southern America from Glen. I hope to make this as detailed and fun as his timeline is.

 

[Wolttaire]

this comprises would not be expected ebcasue the Rio Grande and texas were already being accepted as a slave state

 

[JJohnson]

this comprises would not be expected ebcasue the Rio Grande and texas were already being accepted as a slave state

Rio Grande is a territory, not a state.

 

[Wolttaire]

Rio Grande is a territory, not a state.

Oh yah but still think it would be admitted as a free state because Southern California was not good for slavery and that it would make an imbalance too

 

[Blorg]

intresting

 

[JJohnson]

Notes:

American Political Parties of the 1850s:

Whig: This party had most of its support in the north, but had some support in the south as well. It advocated the "American System" devised by Henry Clay which included:
-universal public education to turn unruly children into moral, republican citizens
-high tariff to protect American business and industry
-federal funding for internal improvements paid for by the tariff, i.e. public works
-high land prices to help keep up federal revenue
-a national, central bank to avoid the problems of State banks
-opposed Manifest Destiny
-English and Scots-Irish Protestants, evangelical Protestants tended to be Whigs
-Whigs tended to be more upscale, better educated, more urban, more entrepreneurial
-supported a more active government and economic expansion through such
-supported temperance, prison reform, abolition of capital punishment, public schools
-tended to be moralistic, whether against Jackson or Masons
-tended to be the party of the rich; 85-90% of the men worth over $100,000 in Boston/NYC voted Whig
The Whigs had factions within the party. The anti-slavery Conscience Whigs, and pro-South Cotton Whigs. The former were noted for their moral opposition to slavery, while the latter were more interested in maintaining good relations with the plantations in the south because it was southern cotton that fed the New England textile mills. New England's industry was paid for by its involvement in slavery. Massachusetts itself was the first state to legalize the slave trade (!638) and slavery (1641).



Democrat:
-supported Manifest Destiny and expansion
-opposed a national bank based on its history of cronyism and corruption in the First and Second Bank of the US
-low tariff for free trade
-restriction of the use of paper currency
-preferred church schools over public, which they thought interfered with religious liberty and parental rights
-Catholic Irish and German immigrants tended to be Democrat
-strongest on the frontier and with subsistence farming areas
-supported limited central government, like Jefferson
-wanted more farms to raise families in the traditional style

 

[Southern pride]

Interesting will follow closely.

 

[JJohnson]

Prologue 2: Rising Tensions in the 1850s

The 1850s were a time of growth but a time of increasing sectional tensions between the two great regions of the united states. The North and South grew increasingly at odds, while the Midwest tended towards siding with the North.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, spurring northern abolitionists against slavery. Other books concerning slavery, A Southside View of Slavery (Nehemiah Adams), and American Slavery As It Is (Theodore Weld and the Grimké Sisters) gave a picture of slavery as practiced in the south as well, but were not best-sellers like Stowe’s book.

Senator Lewis Cass proposed the idea of ‘popular sovereignty,’ wherein a territory would determine whether it would have slavery, as Congress did not have that power enumerated in the Constitution. Northern Democrats called for ‘squatter sovereignty’ while Southern Democrats wanted the issue decided at statehood. After being defeated in 1848, Illinois’s Senator Stephen Douglas became a leader in the party with regard to popular sovereignty in his proposal of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

This Kansas-Nebraska Act explicitly repealed the Missouri Compromise, and had the transcontinental railway run through Chicago, while organizing (opening for settlement) the territories of Kansas and Nebraska.

Gold had attracted settlers to California in 1848, with northerners and southerners hoping to make a new state for their region of the country. Southerners tried creating farms and plantations, and brought their slaves to the mines, while northerners wanted the state free and free of slaves. Rising tensions and small conflicts between the two centers of power – San Diego and Sacramento – resulted in the split of the state.

Without gold, the southwest, notably New Mexico, Rio Grande, Sonora and Chihuahua would have their status determined by popular vote by the Compromise of 1850, while DC would abolish the slave trade, but not slavery, and a Fugitive Slave Law would help pacify the south.

The nation sent Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan in 1853 to help open up trade to the island nation, and a Pacific railroad was planned to bring both coasts together.

When Kansas was opened, the small-scale skirmishing from California repeated itself even more. Abolitionists from New England poured in to Topeka, Lawrence, and Manhattan, while pro-slavery settlers, mainly from Missouri, settled in Leavenworth and Lecompton. At the same time, southerners began settling en masse in a swath across the southernmost territories with their slaves, eager to try to make up their deficiency in numbers in the House with representation in the Senate by organizing the territories.

In Kansas, in 1855, the territorial legislature held elections. While there were only 1500 eligible voters, Missourians had swelled the population to 6000. A pro-slavery majority was elected, but the free-soilers were so outraged they set up their own delegates in Topeka. Anti-slavery Missourians sacked the settlement of Lawrence in May of 1856, and violence continued for another two years till the promulgation of the Lecompton Constitution. The conflict enflamed tensions back east.

Senator Charles Sumner (MA) gave a speech he called ‘The Crime Against Kansas,’ a scathing criticism of the South and slavery, wherein he attacked Senator Butler of South Carolina personally. Days afterward, Representative Brooks, also from South Carolina and a relative of Butler’s, caned Sumner for the insult to his family honor. Senator Stephen Douglas, who was also a subject of criticism during the speech, suggested to a colleague while Sumner was orating that "this damn fool (Sumner) is going to get himself shot by some other damn fool."

After the failure of the Whig Party in the last election, the remnants of the party reorganized into the Republican party, still focused on internal improvements funded by tariffs, central banks, along with railroads, free land for white farmers, and stopping the spread of slavery.

In the election of 1856, the Democrats nominated James Buchanan; the Know Nothings nominated former president Millard Fillmore; the new Republicans nominated John Frémont, who nearly won. The state of Southern California was comfortably for Buchanan. In the south, Frémont’s party was denounced as threatening civil war as a divisive force. Buchanan won 176-116, with Fillmore getting 8 electoral votes.

Shortly after his inauguration, on March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court released the Dredd Scott decision. They quickly ruled the obvious – that slaves were not US citizens and had no right to sue in court. The ruling also stated that since slaves were considered private property, their masters could reclaim runaways even from states where slavery did not exist, since the 5th Amendment forbade Congress to deprive a citizen of his property without due process. To add to their decision, the Supreme Court stated the Missouri Compromise was always unconstitutional and Congress couldn’t restrict slavery within a territory.

Southerners were emboldened with this decision, while Northerners were outraged, claiming a ‘slave power’ conspiracy controlled the Supreme Court. Anti-Slavery speakers protested the Supreme Court could only interpret law, not make it, so the decision couldn’t open a territory to slavery. The Republicans in the north would be emboldened by this decision for their next presidential election.

During his presidency, Buchanan noted that “The South had not had her share of money from the treasury, and unjust discrimination had been made against her.” Most moneys from the treasury had gone to fund internal improvements in the North, with little to no internal improvements being made in the South, even though the southerners, being mainly agricultural, paid the majority of tariffs. Foreign goods were more expensive since the South had less manufacturing, while the northern industry was protected by those same tariffs.

Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, told a fellow Republican in 1858, "I do not believe that the People of the Free States are heartily Anti-Slavery. Ashamed of their subserviency to the Slave Power they may well be; convinced that Slavery is an incubus and a weakness, they are quite likely to be; but hostile to Slavery as wrong and crime, they are not, nor (I fear) likely soon to be."

Meanwhile, in Illinois, a former Whig Congressman, now railroad lawyer, Abraham Lincoln, had a series of debates with Senator Stephen A Douglas, the incumbent, for 1858. Neither candidate for the Senate came out for equality between the black and white races, a common belief at the time. While Douglas would win the Senate seat, Lincoln would return to politics in 1860.

The debate over slavery heated up even more with the raid by John Brown on Harper’s Ferry in Virginia the next year. John Brown, receiving arms and money from Massachusetts business and social leaders, went into Virginia to create a slave army to sweep through the South, killing slave owners and liberating slaves. Local slaves did not rise up to support him as he expected, and he was captured by an armed force under Lt Colonel Robert E Lee. He killed 5 civilians, took hostages, and even stole the sword that Frederick the Great gave George Washington. To provide security during his execution, Virginia’s governor sent Thomas Jackson, a veteran of the Mexican War, with a group of VMI cadets, who stood at the scaffolding’s foot.

 

[JJohnson]

Chapter 1: Election and Secession

The Election of 1860 was a unique situation that may not have happened had the Democrats remained united. Had that happened, perhaps the Union could have avoided the trauma of secession and the tragedy that followed.

The Democrat National Convention was held in Charleston, despite normally being held in the North. When the convention endorsed ‘popular sovereignty,’ 50 southern delegates walked out. When the convention couldn’t agree on whom to nominate, a second meeting was held in Baltimore; here 110 Southern delegates when the convention wouldn’t adopt extending slavery into the new territories. Had William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown not inflamed the passions of the northern abolitionists, and not sent anti-slavery tracts down south, even this may have been avoided.

After the walk-out, the remaining Democrats nominated Stephen A Douglas for the presidency. Southern Democrats held their own convention in Richmond, Virginia, and nominated John Breckinridge, the current Vice President, as their candidate for president. Both sides claimed to be the true voice of the Democrat party.

Members of two former parties, the Know Nothings, and some Whigs, formed the Constitutional Union Party, running on a platform of supporting the Constitution and the laws of the land. This party was against secession and avoided the issue of slavery, hoping to avoid it altogether.

The Republican National Convention took several ballots but finally nominated Abraham Lincoln, after it became apparent that William Seward had alienated some branches of the party. He was backed by numerous special interests, including the railroads.

With the election in November, the Democrat vote was split three ways, leading to Lincoln gaining the most electoral college votes despite gaining only about 40% of the popular vote. If the Democrats had been able to unify, perhaps they might've been able to stop Lincoln's election.

Electoral totals:
178: Abraham Lincoln, Republican
74: John Breckinridge, Southern Democrat
39: John Bell, Constitutional Union
12: Stephen Douglas, Northern Democrat

152 required to win.

This picture is not the whole story, as there were plenty of votes in North Carolina and the rest of the south for Bell, while Douglas won quite a few votes across the north. But the die was cast, and Abraham Lincoln was elected to the Presidency.

Secession

With his election certified, the people of South Carolina met in December, and declared their secession from the United States on December 20, 1860.

Some believed the states had no right to secede, but Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island all explicitly retained the right to resume their delegated powers, and no other state objected to such statements. South Carolina believed it was simply acting within its authority as a sovereign and independent state, removing its agent, the United States, from the equation.

On December 10, though, before South Carolina seceded, a group of congressmen asked President Buchanan for a pledge not to reinforce or change the military situation in any way at Charleston, pending anticipated negotiations between South Carolina and the federal government. While he refused to sign such a statement, he offered verbal assurances not to reinforce the fort, and that they would be informed if the President were to change this policy.

After December 20, Anderson, in charge at Fort Moultrie, moved from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, which Buchanan said he couldn't order his return since the takeover of Moultrie made that impossible. On January 5, President Buchanan had ordered the Star of the West to sail from New York with supplies to relieve the fort. South Carolina fired on the ship; Buchanan resolved to hold Sumter and only send aid if requested, leaving things as they were.

Soon afterward, six other states seceded: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. From both North and South met in Virginia to try to hold the Union together, but proposals for amending the Constitution, including the Corwin Amendment, which Lincoln endorsed, would not be successful.

The seven states met in Montgomery, Alabama, and formed a new government between them: the Confederate States of America. The first, provisional, Confederate Congress was held February 4, 1861, and adopted its provisional constitution. Four days later, it nominated Jefferson Davis, the Senator from Mississippi and former Secretary of War, as its President.

The Confederates send peace envoys to Washington to meet with Abraham Lincoln to discuss items like assumption of debt, transfer of federal forts and armories to the confederate authorities, but each time they requested to meet, they were delayed for one reason or another, and Lincoln refused to see them. The envoys from the Confederate States made clear that if the United States were to try to resupply forts, that would be considered an act of war.

Behind their backs and behind the backs of his Secretary of the Navy, Lincoln ordered two secret missions to resupply both Fort Sumter near Charleston, and Fort Pickens near Pensacola, breaking the de facto truce with the Confederates.

Lincoln had two difficult choices: reinforce the fort and risk losing the Upper South, or not do anything and risk looking weak like Buchanan, and legitimizing the Confederacy. Lincoln made his choice. He would send the missions. If the South fired the first shot, then they would be the aggressors, and fuel patriotic sentiment against them in the North.

Before his inauguration, the federal Congress passed the Morrill Tariff, raising tariffs on hundreds of goods, and fueling secession sentiment across the South.

Reaction in the News:

11-10-1860, New York Tribune, by Horace Greeley:

"And now when the Cotton States consider the value of the Union debatable, we maintain their perfect right to discuss it. Nay! We hold we hold with Mr. Jefferson, to the inalienable right of communities to alter or abolish forms of government that have become injurious or oppressive, and if the Cotton States shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist upon letting them go in peace.

The right to secede is a revolutionary one, but it exists nevertheless, and we do not see how one party can have a right to do what another party has a right to prevent. We must ever resist the asserted right of any State to coercion in the Union, and to nullify and defy the laws thereof; to withdraw from the Union is quite another matter.

And whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures to keep it in. We hope never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to another by bayonets.

But while we uphold the practical liberty, if not the abstract right of secession, we must insist that the step be taken, if ever it shall be, with the deliberation and gravity becoming so momentous an issue. Let ample time be given for reflection, let the subject be fully canvassed before the people, and let a popular vote be taken in every case before secession is decreed.

A judgment thus rendered, a demand for separation so backed, would either be acquiesced in without effusion of blood, or those who rushed upon carnage to defy or defeat it, would place themselves clearly in the wrong.”

But after the markets realized their profits would be jeopardized by the loss of southern markets, the tone changed:

New York Times, March 30, 1861:

"The predicament in which both the Government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood the world over. ...If the manufacturer at Manchester can send his goods into the Western States through New-Orleans at a less cost than through New-York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage. ...The English, almost to a man are Abolitionists of the ultra school. They abhor the principles of the Confederate States, but they intend to trade with them notwithstanding. We do not propose to offer a remonstrance, unless we are prepared by force to make good our position.

...If the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel. This is inevitable. The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own port by millions of tons, to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the loss of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior? They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers. ...Once at New-Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country, duty free. The process is perfectly simple. No remedy is suggested, except force or treaty. We see no other. ...The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North...We now see clearly whither we are tending, and the policy we must adopt. With us it is no longer an abstract question -- one of constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated powers of the State or Federal Government, but of material existence and moral position both at home and abroad. England and France were indifferent spectators till their interests were affected. We were divided and confused till our pockets were touched. "

The Union Democrat, from Manchester, NH:

"The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing. The transportation of cotton and its fabrics employs more ships than all other trade. It is very clear that the South gains by this process, and we lose. No - we MUST NOT "let the South go.""

The New York Evening Post:
"That either revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importations from abroad,...If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe...Allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten per cent, which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York; the railways would be supplied from the southern ports."

In what may be an apocryphal quote, when asked "Why not let the South go?" President Lincoln appeared to reply, "Let the South go! Where then shall we get our revenue?"

Thomas Prentice Kettel, a noted economist of the era, wrote:

It [the North] had before it a most brilliant future, but it has wantonly disturbed that future by encouraging the growth of a political party [Republican] based wholly on sectional aggression, - a party which proposes no issues of statesmanship for the benefit of the whole country; it advances nothing of a domestic or foreign policy tending to national profit or protection, or to promote the general welfare in any way.

He later wrote of the hate used to rally northern votes in the 1860 election:

The North has for more than ten years constantly allowed itself to be irritated by incendiary speakers and writers, whose sole stock in trade is the unreasoning hate against the South that may be engendered by long-continued irritating misrepresentation.

Governor Joseph Brown of Georgia, before the end of the 7th of November, 1860, spoke in the capital of Milledgeville:

We have within ourselves, all the elements of wealth, power, and national greatness, to an extent possessed probably by no other people on the face of the earth. With a vast and fertile territory, possessed of every natural advantage, bestowed by a kind Providence upon the most favored land, and with almost monopoly of the cotton culture of the world, if we were true to ourselves, our power would be invincible, and our prosperity unbounded.

 

[Wolttaire]

Did souther California join the south

 

[JJohnson]

Chapter 1.5: Statistics

As of January 1, 1861, the Union army was a total of 16,367 persons, of which 1,704 were absent.

The seven states of the CSA had a population of 4,969,141:
White: 2,621,070
Free Black: 36,811
Slave: 2,311,260

Flag

The remaining states of the USA had a population of 26,110,789:
White: 23,964,387
Free Black: 440,663
Slave: 1,705,739

Flag

 

[JJohnson]

Did souther California join the south

Not as of yet. We'll see how Ft Sumter plays out, and see if/how the Upper South reacts.

 

[Virginia Liberal]

Interesting Timeline I'll be watching, but with out the upper south this is gonna be a short war.

 

[Lalli]

Interesting Timeline I'll be watching, but with out the upper south this is gonna be a short war.

And without Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson as generals of south Confederates aren't so succesful. Altough Upper South might join later.

 

[JJohnson]

Chapter 2: The First Shots

The First Shot

The people of Charleston had a federal fort staring right at the city, and by April the situation was becoming untenable. A supply run, the Confederates had discovered, was en route to the fort, violating the tense truce between the two sides.

Fort Sumter before the attack

General P.G.T. Beauregard was ordered to deliver notice to surrender the fort, or begin bombardment. The general sent his men under flag of truce, but the order was refused. Meanwhile, at the mouth of the river near the ocean, on the morning of April 12, the federal resupply ships were now in view of the harbor and waiting outside.

General P.G.T. Beauregard

The situation was tense, as neither side seemed to want to fire first. Beauregard sent aids to the Fort with a message on April 12 at 1 AM: "If you will state the time which you will evacuate Fort Sumter, and agree in the meantime that you will not use your guns against us unless ours shall be employed against Fort Sumter, we will abstain from opening fire upon you."

Beauregard received the reply that Major Robert Anderson would evacuate Sumter by noon, April 15, unless he got new orders from his government or additional supplies. In his decision, he took a moment to look out upon the city, his imagination wandering, and he could swear he imagined the city burning. Beauregard accepted the condition and ordered his men to wait till the 15th.

Major Robert Anderson

On the 15th at noon, the city was still there, and the situation still tense. But at five past noon, Sumter had not stricken its colors, and its men were getting nervous. In the city, some citizens were setting off fireworks, celebrating what they thought was the surrender of Sumter. At fifteen minutes past, they started setting off the loudest of their fireworks.

The fireworks were loud enough that someone in the fort heard what he believed to be shots, and fired, hitting the wall at Fort Johnson. The Confederates ordered return fire, and the siege began. For over 34 hours, Sumter was bombarded, until it finally signaled its surrender, the men out of food and low on water. By 8 PM, still with some light left, Colonel Louis Wigfall commandeered a boat and waved a white handkerchief from his sword as a sign of truce.

Meeting with Major Anderson, he said, "You have defended your flag nobly, Sir. You have done all that it is possible to do, and General Beauregard wants to stop this fight. On what terms, Major Anderson, will you evacuate this fort?" Fires were burning, his men were tired, and they were low on ammunition. The Confederates offered a 100 gun salute to the US flag, Anderson’s 1 condition for withdrawal, which went off without a hitch.

Flag lowered from Fort Sumter, carried north by Major Robert Anderson

Image of Fort Sumter after the Union evacuation, the Stars and Bars waving from the fort.

Committee of Thirty-Three
Congress proposed a committee to attempt to resolve the secession issue, and proposed the Crittenden Compromise, and later sent the Corwin Amendment to the states for ratification, before the firing on Fort Sumter. Representative Thomas Nelson from Tennessee wrote the minority report, writing about the North:

Three short months ago this great nation was, indeed, prosperous and happy. What a startling, wondrous change has come over it within that brief period! Commercial disaster and distress pervade the land. Hundreds and thousands of honest laboring men have been thrown out of employment; going on and darkness hang over the people; the tocsin of war has been sounded; the clangor of arms has been heard.

Call for Volunteers

To deal with the issue of the seven states refusing to assent to the federal authority, Lincoln called for the loyal states of the Union to provide for 75,000 volunteers to quell the ‘rebellion.’ He also hoped that Colonel Robert E Lee would be willing to lead the Union army.

In his inaugural address, Lincoln stated his main purpose is, “to collect the duties and imposts, but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion – no using of force against or among the people anywhere.”

Lincoln's inauguration at the unfinished Capitol Building

In his inaugural address, President Jefferson Davis declared that government rests on consent of the governed, not on coercion, and on the preservation of the rights of the states and citizens.

Jefferson Davis's inauguration in Montgomery, Alabama


The Upper South Secedes

After the call for volunteers came to quell the rebellion, the Lincoln administration expected the Upper South to provide its share of the 75,000 troops called. Unfortunately, this set off another wave of secessions in Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and South California.

During the debates on the Constitution back in 1787, one of the delegates proposed granting Congress the power to levy war against a state that refused to comply, but this was voted down unanimously.

To bolster its own government, the Confederate States, which claim all territory south of the 37° parallel, admit Rio Grande as a state, making it the official 13th state of the Confederacy. It seats its two senators and four representatives in the Confederate Congress, including two Hispanic representatives, since the state is over 50% Hispanic.

Both Missouri and Kentucky hold secession conventions, but neither are recognized by the concurrent Unionist governments, and Missouri does send a delegation to the Confederate States, while Kentucky holds itself neutral in the conflict between North and South.

When Virginia seceded, the Confederacy decided to move its capital to Richmond, and with it, their 13-star flag.

Across the Confederacy, Union flags came down and women would sew new Stars and Bars to raise across the southern states. Confederates organized a separate Arizona Territory from the southern portion of New Mexico territory, as well as a Sonora and a Chihuahua Territory.

Virginia's Betrayal

In Virginia's secession convention, which ran from February into early April, the Unionists controlled the proceedings. On April 4th, delegates considered and rejected secession. But when news of Fort Sumter hit, and that the Union fired first, that galvanized the secessionists. The decisive event was Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to put down the "insurrection" in the Lower South. Virginian Unionists viewed this act by Lincoln as a betrayal. All spring, they had negotiated in good faith with Republican officeholders and party leaders, and had received assurances that Fort Sumter would be given up, and the Lower South slowly drawn back into the Union. Instead, Lincoln's call for troops confirmed the worst fears of the secessionists, the very people whom the Unionists had been calling irresponsible for the last three months. Now, the Unionists looked irresponsible, blind to the treachery of which a Republican administration was capable.
The Lynchburg Daily Virginian, a pro-Union newspaper until after the fall of Fort Sumter, characterized the anger of Unionists across the state of Virginia. On April 16, the editor resigned himself to joining the Confederacy along with his state. He wrote under the headline, "The Feeling Yesterday," that "Those who have fought valiantly for the Union admitted that they had been outraged and deceived by the Administration; whilst professions of peace and compromise were on their lips, they were taking active measures to conquer and perhaps subjugate the South."

If Lincoln lied about Sumter, could he be lying about the purpose of the army too?

A Unionist from North Carolina stated his case, "We have created reasons to fall out with Lincoln than you secessionist. While we were watching and waiting he was undermining for our subjugations, but now we are for separation and against all sorts of compromise. Death or victory is our motto."

James B Dorman, a Unionist delegate from the upper Shenandoah Valley, wrote to his cousin, "I have bo idea that our people will tamely submit to Lincoln's arrogant and infamous usurpation of power, and to his diabolical purpose of waging war with a force of 50,000 Northern men against the Southern states. The issue is presented of a fight, and the question is simply 'which side are you on?'"

Lee Makes His Decision

Back in February, Colonel Robert E Lee was in Texas when he was summoned to Washington, DC. Since he was still an officer in the US Army, there was still a question on whether he would be arrested before he left the state. “Has it come so soon to this?” he sadly remarked to Mrs. Caroline Darrow, a unionist he had met while in San Antonio.

Lee made it out and made it to DC by March 1, still hoping that there would be a compromise that would keep Virginia in the Union. His father was Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, who fought with George Washington and reported directly to him; his house at Arlington had many artifacts of Washington’s, purchased by the Custis family over the years, which reinforced his identification with the father of the country.

Colonel Lee met with Winfield Scott for three hours on the 5th, expressing his unwillingness to fight against his own state. Scott, hoping Lee would stay with the Union, gave him holding orders to stay close by. Scott himself had been approached by delegates from Virginia to command its state military forces, but he refused; he resolved only to act in defense. Scott also detested Jefferson Davis, whom he called “a Judas who would not have sold the Savior for 30 shillings, but for the successorship to Pontius Pilate he would have betrayed Christ and the apostles and the whole Christian Church.”

Scott did offer Lee a promotion to colonel of the First US Cavalry, which he accepted on the 16th, but he later told his neighbors he might “resign and go plant corn.”

On the 17th of April, Virginia’s constitutional convention met in secret, and this time voted for secession. The next day, Lee was called to Washington again and formally offered the command of the Northern army by Francis P Blair, one of the Republican power brokers in the administration. The offer came directly from Abraham Lincoln. It would take two days, but after talking again to Scott, who told him he either had to resign or be prepared to follow any orders given to him. After another night of pacing and prayer, having received news that Virginia had seceded, Lee wrote his letter to Scott. His own family was divided – Custis and Rooney, his sons, spoke bitterly against secession, and his sister, Ann, married a Unionist.

Lee gave his letter to Scott,

Arlington, Washington City, P.O
20 Apr 1861


Lt. Genl Winfield Scott
Commd U.S. Army


General,

Since my interview with you on the 18th Inst: I have felt that I ought not longer to retain any Commission in the Army. I therefore tender my resignation which I request you will recommend for acceptance. It would have been presented at once but for the struggle it has Cost me to separate myself from a Service to which I have devoted all the best years of my life, & all the ability I possessed. During the whole of that time, more than a quarter of a century, I have experienced nothing but kindness from my superiors & the most Cordial friendships from any Comrades. To no one Genl have I been as much indebted as to yourself for kindness & Consideration & it has always been my ardent desire to merit your approbation. I shall carry with me, to the grave the most grateful recollections of your kind Consideration, & your name & fame will always be dear to me. Save in the defense of my native state shall I ever again draw my sword. Be pleased to accept my most earnest wishes for the Continuance of your happiness & prosperity & believe me


Most truly yours

R E Lee


On the 23rd, Lee went to Richmond and was appointed command of the troops of Virginia, which he accepted.

Cotton Run

While a number of the cotton producers in the lower south seemed to decide amongst themselves to embargo sending their cotton abroad, to force European recognition of the Confederacy, the textile mills in Europe had built up a surplus of supply.

On the 18th of April, despite the good news of the result of Fort Sumter, Jefferson had a fitful dream. A series of bales of cotton, in the shape of the slave states, including a few that he hadn't yet heard seceded, in front of Montgomery's capitol building, while he gave his inaugural. They were surrounded by snakes, slithering around the cotton, keeping it and some people locked in with the cotton, crying "Tell us why you seceded! We must know the reasons!." Burning and rotting from the bales where Kentucky and Tennessee would be, running down the Mississippi cutting the bales in two, slow burning in the northeast at Virginia, and burning down at an angle towards what would be Atlanta, then swinging north to Charleston.

A crowd gathered, and asked him, yelling "Why didn't you send the cotton when you had the chance? Now where will be get the food and arms to defend our nation? This burned and so did our economy!!"

Once the cotton burned, the snakes merged into one, and then leapt at him, intent upon eating him.

He awoke in a sweat and didn't sleep again. President Davis wrote a furious series of letters to the governors of the states, and urged them to send the cotton out, before the Union could strangle the Confederate ports. It took some time, but his letters and their urgency, noting that if they didn't buy southern cotton, Europe would buy somewhere else, eventually persuaded the cotton producers, who ended their own self-declared embargo, sending abroad to Mexico, South America, and Europe. He urged them to sell the cotton for food, weapons, cannon, boots, and military necessities. He wrote to the Congress for a full Declaration of Independence, much like Thomas Jefferson's, to declare why they seceded.

The Union blockade, advocated by Winfield Scott, had not yet achieved any sense of functionality and the ships made it out to Europe, where the cotton was traded for money (gold and silver), food, consumer goods, and weapons. Millions of bales would make it out, and even though some ships would take a longer route, over 80% of the ships returned to the south before the blockade could stop them.

The snake that Jefferson Davis saw in his dream.

 

[Unknown]

Good TL so far, @JJohnson. One question: what happened to your other TL about a bigger United States?

 

[Southern pride]

Great timeline and one question what is the primary language of Rio Grande and is the official language of the state Spanish English or both.

 

[JJohnson]

Chapter 2.5: Statistics

(as of July 1)

Confederate States of America
Population: 9,110,277
White: 5,362,429
Free Black: 134,039
Slave: 3,613,809

Confederate Army (Dec 31):
Present: 258,680
Absent: 68,088
Total: 326,768


United States of America
Population: 22,068,368
White: 21,291,784
Free Black: 343,923
Slave: 432,661


Union Army (July 1):
Present: 183,588
Absent: 3,163
Total: 186,751


By January 1:
Present: 527,204
Absent: 48,713
Total: 575,917


Map (12-31-1861):

 

[JJohnson]

Good TL so far, @JJohnson. One question: what happened to your other TL about a bigger United States?

I kind of dropped it but I might pick it up later, if I finish this one off pretty well.

 

[JJohnson]

Great timeline and one question what is the primary language of Rio Grande and is the official language of the state Spanish English or both.

It should probably be Spanish, but I don't think any state had official languages at this point in time; the numerical majority in that state speaks Spanish.