United States Civil War (1861 – 1865) in Real Time

Events leading up to the United States Civil War, February 4th 1861

District of Columbia

John Slidell and Judah Benjamin of Louisiana withdraw from the United States Senate.

The Peace Conference or Convention with more than 130 delegates who hope that they can forge a compromise and "adjust the present unhappy controversies" is held in Washington D.C. North Carolina sends 5 delegates headed by former governor John Motley Morehead. The other members are Thomas Ruffin, George Davis, Daniel Barringer, and David S. Reid. The conference does offer a proposed constitutional amendment, but it pleases neither pro- nor anti-slavery supporters.

Alabama

A convention of delegates from the Deep South states that have already seceded gathers at Montgomery, Alabama. Howell Cobb of Georgia becomes President of the Convention, with an unmistakable message that there will be no turning back. “The separation is perfect, complete, and perpetual.” Now, the work of forming a government takes precedence.

Harper's Weekly: The city of Montgomery, Alabama, showing the state house where the congress of the Southern Confederacy meets on February 4, 1861



Virginia

A pro-United States majority took control of the Virginia Secession Convention, raising hopes that Virginia would not leave the United States, voters chose:

- Samuel Woods (Barbour County).
- Edmund Pendleton and Allen C. Hammond (Berkeley County).
- Benjamin W. Byrne (representing Braxton, Nicholas, Clay, and Webster).
- Campbell Tarr (Brooke County).
- William McComas (Cabell County).
- C. J. Stuart (representing Doddridge and Tyler)
- Henry L. Gillespie (representing Fayette and Raleigh)
- C. B. Conrad (representing Gilmer, Wirt, and Calhoun).
- Samuel Price (Greenbrier County).
- Edward M. Armstrong and David Pugh (Hampshire County).
- George McC. Porter (Hancock County).
- Thomas Maslin (Hardy County).
- John S. Carlile Benjamin Wilson (Harrison County).
- Franklin P. Turner (representing Jackson and Roane).
- Alfred M. Barbour and Logan Osburn (Jefferson County).
- George W. Summers and Spicer Patrick (Kanawha County).
- Caleb Boggess (Lewis County).
- James Lawson (representing Logan, Boone, and Wyoming).
- Alpheus F. Haymond and Ephraim B. Hall (Marion County).
- James Burley (Marshall County), James H. Couch (Mason County).
- Napoleon B. French (Mercer County).
- Waitman T. Willey and Marshall M. Dent (Monongalia County).
- Allen T. Caperton and John Echols (Monroe County).
- Johnson Orrick (Morgan county).
- Sherrard Clemens Chester D. Hubbard (Ohio County).
- Henry H. Masters (Pendleton County).
- Paul McNeil (Pocahontas County).
- Cyrus Hall (representing Pleasants and Ritchie).
- William G. Brown and James C. McGrew (Preston County).
- James W. Hoge (Putnam County).
- John N. Hughes (representing Randolph and Tucker).
- John S. Burdett (Taylor County).
- William P. Cecil and Samuel L. Graham (representing Tazewell and Buchanan in present-day Virginia as well as McDowell).
- George W. Berlin (Upshur County).
- Burwell Spurlock (Wayne County).
- Leonard S. Hall (Wetzel County).
- John J. Jackson* (Wood County).

Events leading up to the United States Civil War, February 6th 1861

Alabama

By unanimous consent of the “deputies of the sovereign and independent States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana,” assembled at Montgomery produces a Constitution for the Provisional Government for a “Confederacy” of these states, with executive power to be “vested in a President of the Confederate States of America.”

Florida

Sidewheel steam frigate USS POWHATAN arrived off Pensacola with Federal reinforcements for Fort Pickens.

Massachusetts

In the State House in Boston, the Massachusetts legislature amended the state's Militia Act to allow units to be liable, when the President of the United States requires, to marched outside of the state's borders.

Events leading up to the United States Civil War, February 8th 1861

District of Columbia

United States Army, General-in-Chief Major-General Winfield Scott assured a visiting Vermont peace delegate that nothing would be allowed to obstruct the official counting of the Electoral College votes at the United States Capital on the coming Wednesday. He told Lucius Chittenden that "any man who attempted by force or unparliamentary disorder to obstruct or interfere with the lawful count of the electoral vote ... should be lashed to the muzzle of a twelve-pounder and fired out of a window of the Capitol. I would manure the hills of Arlington with fragments of his body ...."

Alabama

The Constitution for a provisional Confederate States government was adopted by seven states at Montgomery, namely, Mississippi, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Montgomery became the provisional capital of the Confederate States of America. The Confederate Constitution shared many similarities with that of the United States but differed in its provisions about slavery and states’ rights.

Arkansas

Rumors of the reinforcement of the United States Arsenal under the command of United States Army, Captain James Totten (2nd US Artillery) had spread quickly in Little Rock during the previous week and Arkansas militia and other secessionists had gathered spontaneously around the installation without the apparent sanction of the governor of Arkansas, Henry Rector. To forestall a clash, Rector was forced to demand a surrender. This was negotiated and local militia took the Arsenal and its reported 9,000 small arms, 40 pieces of artillery, and large quantities of ammunition.

Georgia

Five New York ships were seized by order of the Georgia Governor and held until certain guns on board the vessel Monticello, seized by New York City police in January, were delivered to agents of Georgia. In addition, the Georgia Governor ordered the Collector of the Port of Savannah to retain all money from customs in his possession and to make no payment on accounts of the United States government.

Tennessee

The voters of Tennessee voted against holding a state convention.

Events leading up to the United States Civil War, February 10th 1861

Mississippi

Word reaches Davis at his plantation, Brierfield, in Mississippi, of the actions of the Montgomery delegates. He accepts the Presidency, although deeming himself fit more for military command with a record of service that includes the War with Mexico.

Pennsylvania

The loading of heavy cannon and "several tons of shells" aboard a steamship bound for New York City attracted crowds of Philadelphians to the Reading Railroad docks at the foot of Willow Street in the city. The shipment came from a foundry near Pittsburgh and was intended to add to the defenses of New York Harbor by strengthening the Stevens Water Battery there. War excitement clearly was growing as crowds watched and cheered as the weapons were loaded.

Events leading up to the United States Civil War, February 12th 1861

Arkansas

The United States Arsenal and Ordnance depot at Napoleon was seized by Arkansas State forces.

Georgia

Frank Leslie's The Soldier in Our Civil War, Vol. I: Review of the Clinch Rifles on the Parade Ground in front of the Augusta Arsenal in February 1861

Events leading up to the United States Civil War, February 14th 1861

Alabama

The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States authorized the Committee on Naval Affairs to call together all available maritime and naval specialists across the Confederacy to advise on naval plans.

Pennsylvania

(United States) President-elect Abraham Lincoln had left Springfield, Illinois on February 11th 1861 for his eleven-day journey to Washington D.C. His party had reached Columbus in Ohio the day before and went on to cross Ohio, with the now customary small stops along the way, to reach a rainswept Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that evening. Lodging at the Monongahela House Hotel, he pleaded tiredness and went to bed soon after.

The press reported that the south-central Pennsylvania residents of Shippensburg in Cumberland County awoke to find a massive secessionist "Palmetto flag" hanging from a telegraph wire in the town. The banner was immediately taken down and destroyed.

Florida

The Florida state legislature passed an Act declaring that after any actual collision between Federal troops and those in the employ of Florida, “the act of holding office under the US government shall be declared treason, and any person convicted of such action shall suffer death”. The state of Florida transferred control of captured United States government property to the Confederate government.

United Kingdom 

For the second time in five weeks, the Bank of England again raised the discount rate, the interest charged to smaller banks, this time by another percentage point to eight percent. Demands for specie from India and the United States were continuing to drain the Bank's bullion reserves. Conditions seemed to have improved enough, though, that by mid-April the rate was reduced to five percent.

Events leading up to the United States Civil War, February 16th 1861

Alabama

After a grueling journey, (Confederate States) President-elect Jefferson Davis reaches Montgomery. Perhaps with an eye to the efforts to find a resolution to the crisis that will maintain the United States he insists to a group of well-wishers, “The time for compromise has now passed, and the South is determined to maintain her position, and make all who oppose her smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel if coercion is persisted in… We ask nothing, we want nothing; we have no complications.”

Later, Davis appeared on the Exchange Hotel balcony with William Lowndes Yancey, who had been instrumental in the secession of Alabama. Davis spoke to the crowd below:

“It may be that our career will be ushered in in the midst of a storm; it may be that as this morning opened with clouds, rain and mist, we shall have to encounter inconveniences at the beginning; but as the sun rose and lifted the mist it dispersed the clouds and left us the pure sunshine of heaven. So will progress the Southern Confederacy, and carry us safe into the harbor of constitutional liberty and political equality. We fear nothing… because, if war should come, if we must again baptize in blood the principles for which our fathers bled in the Revolution, we shall show that we are not degenerate sons, but will redeem the pledges they gave, preserve the rights they transmitted to us, and prove that Southern valor still shines as bright as in 1776… I will devote to the duties of the high office to which I have been called all that I have of heart, of head, of hand. If, in the progress of events, it shall become necessary that my services be needed in another position—if, to be plain, necessity require that I shall again enter the ranks of soldiers—I hope you will welcome me there.”

Yancey then stepped forward to show gratitude to “the distinguished gentleman who has just addressed you,” who was “the statesman, the soldier and the patriot.” Yancey had been a leader among the fire-eaters who had worked so hard to take the South out of the Union. Now he would pass that leadership on to Davis, leader of the moderates who would head the new government. Yancey declared: “The man and the hour have met.”

Texas

United States Army, General David E. Twiggs, commander of federal forces in Texas, surrendered his entire command — all the federal installations, property, and soldiers in Texas — to the Confederacy. This included 20 military installations (including the Federal Arsenal at the Alamo), 44 cannons, 400 pistols, 1,900 muskets, 500 wagons, and 950 horses, valued at a total of $1.6 million. Twiggs did insist that all Federals be allowed to retain personal arms and sidearms and flags and standards. 

Harper's Weekly: Surrender of ex-General Twiggs, to the Texan troops in the Gran Plaza, San Antonio, Texas, February 16, 1861



New York

(United States) President-elect Abraham Lincoln reached Cleveland and spent the night and then left for Buffalo, New York. On the way, he stopped at Westfield, New York where he met Grace Bedell, the eleven-year old who three months before had famously advised him to grow a beard. He arrived in Buffalo at 4:30 that afternoon and was met at the railway station by former president Millard Fillmore (1850-1853).