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 5, 1865. The Confederacy was composed of eleven U.S. states that declared secession; South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina; they warred against the United States during the American Civil War.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, and the promotion of the pseudohistorical Lost Cause ideology and corresponding white supremacy.
The flags of the Confederate States of America have a history of three successive designs during the American Civil War. 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.
Confederate Memorial Day is a holiday observed in several Southern U.S. states on various dates since the end of the American Civil War. The holiday was originally publicly presented as a day to remember the estimated 258,000 Confederate soldiers who died during the American Civil War.
The United Confederate Veterans was an American Civil War veterans' organization headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was organized on June 10, 1889, by ex-soldiers and sailors of the Confederate States of America as a merger between the Louisiana Division of the Veteran Confederate States Cavalry Association; N. B. Forrest Camp of Chattanooga, Tennessee; Tennessee Division of the Veteran Confederate States Cavalry Association; Tennessee Division of Association of Confederate Soldiers; Benevolent Association of Confederate Veterans of Shreveport, Louisiana; Confederate Association of Iberville Parish, Louisiana; Eighteenth Louisiana; Adams County (Mississippi) Veterans' Association; Louisiana Division of the Army of Tennessee; and Louisiana Division of the Army of Northern Virginia.
Edmund Kirby Smith was a Confederate States Army general, who oversaw the Trans-Mississippi Department from 1863 to 1865. Before the American Civil War, Smith served as an officer of the United States Army.
The 2nd Confederate States Congress, consisting of the Confederate States Senate and the Confederate States House of Representatives, met from May 2, 1864, to March 18, 1865, during the last year of Jefferson Davis's presidency, at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia; the Confederacy's government effectively dissolved 16 days later, when it fled Richmond on April 3, 1865. Its members were elected in the 1863 congressional elections.
The Southern Historical Society was an American organization founded to preserve archival materials related to the government of the Confederate States of America and to document the history of the American Civil War. The society was organized on May 1, 1869, in New Orleans, Louisiana. The society published 52 volumes of its Southern Historical Society Papers which helped preserve valuable historical resources.
William J. Behan was an American Confederate veteran and politician. A military, business, and political leader, he served as the 41st mayor of New Orleans.
The Confederate government of Missouri was a continuation in exile of the government of pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne F. Jackson. It existed until General E. Kirby Smith surrendered all Confederate troops west of the Mississippi River at New Orleans, May 26, 1865.
A Ladies' Memorial Association (LMA) is a type of organization for women that sprang up all over the American South in the years after the American Civil War. Typically, these were organizations by and for women, whose goal was to raise monuments in Confederate soldiers honor. Their immediate goal, of providing decent burial for soldiers, was joined with the desire to commemorate the sacrifices of Southerners and to propagate the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. Between 1865 and 1900, these associations were a formidable force in Southern culture, establishing cemeteries and raising large monuments often in very conspicuous places, and helped unite white Southerners in an ideology at once therapeutic and political.
The Blandford Church is the oldest building in Petersburg, Virginia whose history is well documented. It is at the highest point in the city, atop Well's Hill. It is today (2019) part of a memorial to Southern soldiers who died during the Civil War. It is adjacent to Blandford Cemetery, one of the oldest, largest and historically significant cemeteries in Virginia. The Blandford Cemetery did not exist until after the church building had been abandoned, in the early 1800s, and the land purchased by the city to use as a cemetery.
The following list is a bibliography of American Civil War Confederate military unit histories and are generally available through inter-library loan. More details on each book are available at WorldCat. For an overall national view, see Bibliography of the American Civil War. For histories of the Union, see Bibliography of American Civil War Union military unit histories. For a guide to web sources see: Carter, Alice E.; Jensen, Richard. The Civil War on the Web: A Guide to the Very Best Sites—Completely Revised and Updated (2003).
Mary Ann Williams was an American woman who was the first proponent for Memorial Day, an annual holiday to decorate soldiers’ graves.
Anna Mitchell Davenport Raines was an American philanthropist and founding Vice President of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. She later served as the organization's Honorary President General and as the Custodian of the Southern Cross of Honor.
The Mississippi River was an important military highway that bordered ten states, roughly equally divided between Union and Confederate loyalties.
When Jefferson Davis died on December 6, 1889, his funeral was a major event in the United States, receiving front-page attention throughout the country. By the time of his death, Davis had become a transitional figure. He was the embodiment of the Old South, who lived long enough to be seen as emblematic of the New South. Davis's funeral and reburial is also symbolic of his problematic legacy as a leader of the Confederate States of America and its role in the perpetuation of slavery.
Kate Walker Behan (1851–1918) was an American club leader, prominent in social, educational, and Confederate memorial affairs in the South for many years. She was president of the Confederated Southern Memorial Association, the Ladies' Confederate Memorial Association of Louisiana, and the Catholic Women's Club. Behan was also identified with the United Daughters of the Confederacy. She was an intimate friend of Varina Davis, Mary Anna Jackson, and Mary Anna Custis Lee.
Margaret O'Connor Wilson was an American civic leader and philanthropist. Prominent in civic and patriotic organizations in Atlanta for many years, she was also known also for her religious and philanthropic work. Among the many positions that she held, Wilson served as President General of the Confederated Southern Memorial Association (CSMA).
