a New Nation: The Confederacy
These newly independent states decided to unite in another compact, one more to their liking. A new Constitution was quickly adopted, very much like the original (except for ironclad guarantees of slavery, a six-year term for the president, and increased power to the sovereign states). On February 18, a new nation, the Confederate States of America, was established in Montgomery, Alabama.
Jefferson Davis, former Mississippi senator, heroic Mexican-American War veteran, one-time secretary of war, and strong supporter of Southern rights, became the first president. One of Davis’s first acts as president was to call for 100,000 volunteers to serve the new Confederacy as soldiers for a period of 12 months. Davis didn’t anticipate trouble, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.
As a matter of course, the new Confederacy began taking control of all federal property within its territory. Military installations, post offices, and customs houses came routinely under control of the Confederate government. All but the two most important pieces of federal property, Fort Pickens at Pensacola and Fort Sumter at Charleston, fell under Confederate control. A few days earlier, the delegates who had formed the new government met in session as the first Confederate Congress and authorized the use of force, if necessary, to remove U.S. troops from Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens. For the new Confederacy, Sumter was a bone in its throat. As long as Sumter remained in the hands of the United States, the new government had little claim to legitimacy as an independent country.
WORDS HAVE MEANING
The choice of words is very important; after all, a lot of thought should go into what you name your new country. It has to have significant meaning. So why the word “Confederate”? The Southern states in forming a new government harkened back to the original document that first created the United States in 1781 — the Articles of Confederation. To protect the states from a too-powerful central government, the Articles clearly outlined that the powers of the individual states were dominant. In fact, the Articles only pledged the states to enter into “a firm league of friendship.” It was this spirit of the Confederation that led to the naming of the Confederate States of America. The creation of the Confederacy can be seen as a conservative revolutionary act, intended to go back to the original form of American government.
JEFFERSON DAVIS: EARLY CAREER, 1808–1860
Jefferson Davis, born in Kentucky, moved to Mississippi where his father made his fortune in cotton. Davis (see the following image) attended West Point, graduating in 1828. As a lieutenant, he participated in the Black Hawk War and commanded a regiment of volunteers in the Mexican-American War. He served as U.S. secretary of war under Franklin Pierce and served Mississippi as a U.S. senator. Davis was one of the leading advocates of the Southern way of life, defending slavery and the right of secession. His role as a strong Southern spokesman, combined with his reputation for courage and his strong background in military affairs, made him the logical choice to become the president of the Confederate States of America. Davis, it seemed, was the man destiny had selected to lead the new nation.
War Department / The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration / Public Domain
The growing crisis in Charleston: Fort Sumter
Major Robert Anderson was the U.S. commander at Charleston, South Carolina. In late December he had abandoned his original location in Charleston, Fort Moultrie. Moultrie was too close to the city, now filling with pro-Southern rowdies (fortified by a few quarts of liquor), who bragged they would take care of the problem by waltzing into the fort and convincing the soldiers they weren’t welcome any longer. Fort Sumter, in the middle of Charleston harbor, was the most defensible place. Anderson secretly moved his entire command of 85 soldiers (along with 45 women and children) to the fort to prevent any confrontations. Begun in 1829, Sumter was still incomplete and had only a few operational cannons for defense. Nevertheless, with walls anywhere from 8 to 12 feet thick, it was the most formidable defensive position in the Western Hemisphere. In the coming days, Fort Sumter for the North would become far more than just a piece of military real estate. Very soon it would become a symbol of national resolve to defend the flag and the Union.
Walking the tightrope: President Buchanan
In the midst of all this activity, President Buchanan was waiting out the last few weeks of his term. His Southern sympathies and his unwillingness to stir the already troubled pot led him to pass assurances to South Carolina that he would take no aggressive action.
As much as Buchanan would have liked to wait, events set into motion by a number of individuals forced the president to take action. Several commissioners from South Carolina had arrived in Washington to meet the president and negotiate a peaceful settlement that would allow the new Confederate nation to go its own way. At the top of their list was the removal of the U.S. garrison from Fort Sumter. Buchanan would have gladly acceded to such a request, but he was faced with threats from his cabinet to resign en masse and the possibility of certain impeachment proceedings from Congress if he showed such weakness. He had to walk a political tightrope, so he took another course. Here is what he needed to do:
To satisfy the North, he had to show that the U.S. government would maintain its possessions in the seceded states.
To avoid antagonizing the South (states both seceded and not seceded), he had to assure them that his intentions were nonthreatening.
This would be a tough call for any political leader, let alone a lame duck president with only a month left in office. Nevertheless, he put a plan together to meet both requirements. Buchanan ordered that Sumter be resupplied and reinforced. But rather than use a warship, which could be seen as a provocation, a merchant ship, the Star of the West, was dispatched with supplies and troops from New York. The plan was supposed to be a secret, but then as now, nothing is a secret long in Washington. Pro-Southern spies had the information to Charleston in a flash. While useful and dramatic, this act of espionage was unnecessary. The War Department, as it had done for years, sent all of its orders and information to Major Anderson through the U.S. mail, having forgotten that the U.S. Post Office no longer existed in the sovereign nation of South Carolina. All mail addressed to Fort Sumter had been intercepted and read. It seemed that everyone knew about the resupply effort except Anderson. Sitting in a fort surrounded by water and cut off from all information, Anderson knew nothing about what the government had planned.
On the 9th of January, as expected, the Star of the West arrived outside Charleston harbor. Everyone was waiting. Most expectant of all were cadets from the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, who were standing by heavy cannons on the shore. A cadet fired a cannon aimed at the Star of the West — a miss. This could have been the first shot of the war, with all honor and glory going to the Citadel, but the Citadel was denied such an important historical footnote because there was no response from the cannons at Fort Sumter. Other cannons around the harbor joined in, causing no damage to the Star of the West. Enough lead was flying, however, to convince the ship’s captain to turn away. Anderson watched this display from Sumter and almost returned fire to respond to the Confederate batteries, but, not knowing what the ship was doing in the harbor or why it was being fired upon, he decided to wait. A war would have to come on another day.
Confederates at Charleston: Waiting for a sign and heavily armed
In the wake of the Star of the West incident, the new Confederacy waited for the U.S. government to respond. Nothing happened. As the days went by, Charleston harbor became one of the most heavily armed places in the world. Cannons surrounded Fort Sumter on three sides. Both confidence and contempt rose among the population of Charleston. Some thought the North’s silence meant that the federal government wouldn’t interfere with