Agency overview | |
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Formed | January 23, 1862 |
Dissolved | May 5, 1865 |
Jurisdiction | Confederate States of America |
Headquarters | Richmond, Virginia |
Agency executive |
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The Confederate Patent Office was the agency of the Confederate States of America charged with issuing patents on inventions. The Chief Clerk during its entire existence was Rufus Randolph Rhodes of Mississippi who resigned his post at the United States Patent Office after the election of Abraham Lincoln.
The Confederate Patent Office is known to have issued 266 patents, and likely it issued some more during the early months of 1865. Unfortunately, the records it contained were destroyed in a fire. Very few patent documents issued by the CPO, likely fewer than 10, are known to survive.
The first patent was issued to James H. Van Houten of Savannah, Georgia, on August 1, 1861, for a "breech-loading gun".
One of the more well-known Confederate patents (at least based on the results) was Patent No. 100, granted to John Mercer Brooke for the design of the Confederate ironclad ship Merrimack, more properly known as the CSS Virginia.
Confedetate States Patent #60 was granted to Jacob B. and William L. Platt of Augusta, Georgia on January 7, 1872 for "Camp Cots."
The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States from 1861 to 1865, fought between northern states loyal to the Union and southern states that had seceded to form the Confederate States of America. The principal cause of the war was the status of slavery in the United States, especially in the territories.
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy, was an unrecognized breakaway state in existence from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865, that fought against the United States of America during the American Civil War. The eleven states that seceded from the Union and formed the main part of the CSA were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
The flags of the Confederate States of America have a history of three successive designs from 1861 to 1865. The flags were known as the "Stars and Bars", used from 1861 to 1863, the "Stainless Banner", used from 1863 to 1865, and the "Blood-Stained Banner", used in 1865 shortly before the Confederacy's dissolution. A rejected national flag design was also used as a battle flag by the Confederate Army and featured in the "Stainless Banner" and "Blood-Stained Banner" designs. Although this design was never a national flag, it is the most commonly recognized symbol of the Confederacy.
The Confederate States Navy (CSN) was the naval branch of the Confederate States Armed Forces, established by an act of the Confederate States Congress on February 21, 1861. It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the American Civil War against the United States's Union Navy.
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or simply the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting against the United States forces in order to uphold the institution of slavery in the Southern states. On February 28, 1861, the Provisional Confederate Congress established a provisional volunteer army and gave control over military operations and authority for mustering state forces and volunteers to the newly chosen Confederate president, Jefferson Davis. Davis was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, and colonel of a volunteer regiment during the Mexican–American War. He had also been a United States Senator from Mississippi and U.S. Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. On March 1, 1861, on behalf of the Confederate government, Davis assumed control of the military situation at Charleston, South Carolina, where South Carolina state militia besieged Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, held by a small U.S. Army garrison. By March 1861, the Provisional Confederate Congress expanded the provisional forces and established a more permanent Confederate States Army.
Augustus Hill Garland was an American lawyer and Democratic politician from Arkansas, who initially opposed Arkansas' secession from the United States, but later served in both houses of the Congress of the Confederate States and the United States Senate, as well as became the 11th Governor of Arkansas (1874-1877) and the 38th Attorney General of the United States (1885-1889).
During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also called the Northern Army, referred to the United States Army, the land force that fought to preserve the Union of the collective states. Also known as the Federal Army, it proved essential to the preservation of the United States as a working, viable republic.
In the context of the American Civil War (1861–65), the border states were slave states that did not secede from 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 to their south they bordered Confederate slave states.
The postage stamps and postal system of the Confederate States of America carried the mail of the Confederacy for a brief period in American history. Early in 1861 when South Carolina no longer considered itself part of the Union and demanded that the U.S. Army abandon Fort Sumter, plans for a Confederate postal system were already underway. Indeed, the Confederate Post office was established on February 21, 1861; and it was not until April 12 that the American Civil War officially began, when the Confederate Army fired upon US soldiers who had refused to abandon the fort. However, the United States Post Office Department continued to handle the mail of the seceded states as usual during the first weeks of the war. It was not until June 1 that the Confederate Post office took over collection and delivery, now faced with the task of providing postage stamps and mail services for its citizens.
The president of the Confederate States was the head of state and head of government of the Confederate States. The president was the chief executive of the federal government and was the commander-in-chief of the Confederate Army and the Confederate Navy.
Francis Harrison Pierpont, called the "Father of West Virginia," was an American lawyer and politician who achieved prominence during the American Civil War. During the conflict's first two years, Pierpont served Governor of the Restored Government of Virginia and in this capacity administered the part of Virginia then under Unionist control prior to West Virginia's admission to the Union as a separate state. After recognizing the creation of West Virginia, Pierpont continued to serve as Governor of the Restored Government, although for the remainder of the war the degree of civil authority he was able to exercise was extremely limited. Having claimed to be the legitimate Governor of Virginia for the duration of the conflict, Pierpont assumed civil control of the state's entire post-1863 territory following the dissolution of the Confederacy and continued to serve as Governor during the early years of Reconstruction.
The Confederate States Congress was both the provisional and permanent legislative assembly of the Confederate States of America that existed from 1861 to 1865. Its actions were for the most part concerned with measures to establish a new national government for the Southern "revolution", and to prosecute a war that had to be sustained throughout the existence of the Confederacy. At first, it met as a provisional congress both in Montgomery, Alabama and Richmond, Virginia.
The Battle of Sewell's Point was an inconclusive exchange of cannon fire between the Union gunboat USS Monticello, supported by the USS Thomas Freeborn, and Confederate batteries on Sewell's Point that took place on May 18, 19 and 21, 1861, in Norfolk County, Virginia in the early days of the American Civil War. Little damage was done to either side. By the end of April 1861, USS Cumberland and a small number of supporting ships were enforcing the Union blockade of the southeastern Virginia ports at the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay and had captured several ships which attempted to pass the blockade. USS Monticello's bombardment of the Sewell's Point battery was one of the earliest Union Navy actions against Confederate forces during the Civil War. While it has been suggested by some sources that the Monticello's action may have been the first gunfire by the Union Navy during the Civil War, a brief exchange of cannon fire between the U.S. gunboat USS Yankee and shore batteries manned by Virginia volunteer forces which had not yet been incorporated into the Confederate States Army at Gloucester Point, Virginia on the York River occurred on May 7, 1861.
Mississippi was the second southern state to declare its secession from the United States, doing so on January 9, 1861. It joined with six other southern slave-holding states to form the Confederacy on February 4, 1861. Mississippi's location along the lengthy Mississippi River made it strategically important to both the Union and the Confederacy; dozens of battles were fought in the state as armies repeatedly clashed near key towns and transportation nodes.
Richmond, Virginia served as the capital of the Confederate States of America for almost the whole of the American Civil War. It was a vital source of weapons and supplies for the war effort, and the terminus of five railroads.
The military forces of the Confederate States, also known as Confederate forces, were the military services responsible for the defense of the Confederate States during its brief existence (1861–1865).
Ambrose Cobbs was an early Virginia colonist and planter who established the long lasting social and political Cobb dynasty in the southern states.
The Cabinet of the Confederate States, commonly called the Confederate cabinet or Cabinet of Jefferson Davis, was part of the executive branch of the federal government of the Confederate States between 1861 and 1865. The members of the Cabinet were the vice-president and heads of the federal executive departments.
Rufus Randolph Rhodes was born in Wilcox County, Alabama. Rhodes spent most of his life as an attorney in Mississippi. After serving a tenure in the United States Patent Office in Washington, D.C., he was appointed as first and only Commissioner of Confederate States Patents from 1861-1865 based in Richmond, Virginia.