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Events from the year 1861 in the United States. This year marked the beginning of the American Civil War.
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Events from the year 1861 in the United States. This year marked the beginning of the American Civil War.
The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union. The central conflict leading to war was a dispute over whether slavery should be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prohibited from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or the South, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confederacy was composed of eleven U.S. states that declared secession and warred against the United States during the American Civil War. The states were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
1861 (MDCCCLXI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar, the 1861st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 861st year of the 2nd millennium, the 61st year of the 19th century, and the 2nd year of the 1860s decade. As of the start of 1861, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
In the American Civil War (1861–65), the border states or the Border South were four, later five, slave states in the Upper South that primarily supported the Union. They were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, and after 1863, the new state of West Virginia. To their north they bordered free states of the Union, and all but Delaware bordered slave states of the Confederacy to their south.
Claiborne Fox Jackson was an American politician of the Democratic Party in Missouri. He was elected as the 15th Governor of Missouri, serving from January 3, 1861, until July 31, 1861, when he was forced out by the Unionist majority in the Missouri General Assembly after planning to force the secession of the state.
LeRoy Pope Walker was the first Confederate States Secretary of War.
The Camp Jackson affair, also known as the Camp Jackson massacre, occurred during the American Civil War on May 10, 1861, when a volunteer Union Army regiment captured a unit of secessionists at Camp Jackson, outside the city of St. Louis, in the divided slave state of Missouri.
During the lead-up to the American Civil War, the proposed secession of Missouri from the Union was controversial because of the state's disputed status. The Missouri state convention voted in March 1861, by 98-1, against secession, and was a border state until abolishing slavery in January 1865. Missouri was claimed by both the Union and the Confederacy, had two rival state governments,, and sent representatives to both the United States Congress and the Confederate Congress.
James Chesnut Jr. was an American lawyer and politician, and a Confederate functionary.
Alabama was central to the Civil War, with the secession convention at Montgomery, the birthplace of the Confederacy, inviting other slaveholding states to form a southern republic, during January–March 1861, and to develop new state constitutions. The 1861 Alabaman constitution granted citizenship to current U.S. residents, but prohibited import duties (tariffs) on foreign goods, limited a standing military, and as a final issue, opposed emancipation by any nation, but urged protection of African-American slaves with trials by jury, and reserved the power to regulate or prohibit the African slave trade. The secession convention invited all slaveholding states to secede, but only 7 Cotton States of the Lower South formed the Confederacy with Alabama, while the majority of slave states were in the Union at the time of the founding of the Confederacy. Congress had voted to protect the institution of slavery by passing the Corwin Amendment on March 4, 1861, but it was never ratified.
The American Civil War significantly affected Tennessee, with every county witnessing combat. During the War, Tennessee was a Confederate state, and the last state to officially secede from the Union to join the Confederacy. Tennessee had been threatening to secede since before the Confederacy was even formed, but didn’t officially do so until after the fall of Fort Sumter when public opinion throughout the state drastically shifted. Tennessee seceded in protest to President Lincoln's April 15 Proclamation calling forth 75,000 members of state militias to suppress the rebellion. Tennessee provided a large number of troops for the Confederacy, and would also provide more fleeing soldiers for the Union Army than any other state within the Confederacy.
During the American Civil War, Arkansas was a Confederate state, though it had initially voted to remain in the Union. Following the capture of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Abraham Lincoln called for troops from every Union state to put down the rebellion, and Arkansas along several other southern states seceded. For the rest of the civil war, Arkansas played a major role in controlling the Mississippi River, a major waterway.
Louisiana was a dominant population center in the southwest of the Confederate States of America, controlling the wealthy trade center of New Orleans, and contributing the French Creole and Cajun populations to the demographic composition of a predominantly Anglo-American country. In the antebellum period, Louisiana was a slave state, where enslaved African Americans had comprised the majority of the population during the eighteenth-century French and Spanish dominations. By the time the United States acquired the territory (1803) and Louisiana became a state (1812), the institution of slavery was entrenched. By 1860, 47% of the state's population were enslaved, though the state also had one of the largest free black populations in the United States. Much of the white population, particularly in the cities, supported slavery, while pockets of support for the U.S. and its government existed in the more rural areas.
The Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1861–1863 was a constitutional convention held in the state of Missouri during the American Civil War. The convention was elected in early 1861, and voted against secession. When open fighting broke out between Pro-Confederate governor Claiborne Fox Jackson and Union authorities, and Union forces occupied the state capital, the convention formed a provisional state government, and functioned as a quasi-legislature for several years. The convention never did produce a new constitution; that task was delegated to a new convention, elected in 1864.
Events from the year 1862 in the United States.
Events from the year 1863 in the United States.
Events from the year 1864 in the United States.
Events from the year 1865 in the United States. The American Civil War ends with the surrender of the Confederate States, beginning the Reconstruction era of U.S. history.
On April 15, 1861, at the start of the American Civil War, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln called for a 75,000-man militia to serve for three months following the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter. Some southern states refused to send troops against the neighboring Deep South slave states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The result was that most states in the Upper South of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee also declared secession from the United States and joined the Confederate States.
Media related to 1861 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons