Confederacy

Examples of Confederacy in the following topics:

• Confederate Diplomacy

  • Both the Union and countries in Europe refused to recognize the Confederacy as a sovereign nation.
  • Unfortunately for the Confederacy, the European countries also had economic incentives not to aid the Confederacy.
  • Moreover, the military situation worsened for the Confederacy.
  • The Confederacy had overestimated British demand for Southern cotton.
  • Moreover, Britain had much to lose by recognizing the Confederacy.

• International Diplomacy

  • No European countries formally acknowledged the Confederacy, preferring Northern grain imports and abolitionism to Southern cotton imports.
  • Though the Confederacy hoped that Britain and France would join them against the Union, this was never likely.
  • It also helped to turn European opinion further way from the Confederacy.
  • Britain did allow the Confederacy to purchase several warships from its commercial ship builders.
  • Recognition of the Confederacy seemed at hand, but Lincoln released two detained Confederate diplomats, tensions cooled, and the Confederacy gained no advantage.

• Confederate Finances

  • The Confederate government desperately sought to secure international recognition of the Confederacy as a nation and gain European allies.
  • The Confederate government hoped to force diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy by starving Europe of cotton.
  • Throughout the war, the South clung to the notion that the Confederacy would be able to capitalize on its cotton monopoly.
  • Cartoon map illustrating General Winfield Scott's plan to crush the Confederacy economically, 1861
  • Describe how the Confederacy sought to finance the war and gain international recognition through taxes and the cotton embargo

• The Northwest Territory

  • The Western Confederacy, an alliance among the American Indian nations dating back to the French colonial era, was renewed during the American Revolutionary War.
  • The Western Confederacy came together in the autumn of 1785 at Fort Detroit, proclaiming that the parties to the Confederacy would deal jointly with the United States, rather than individually.
  • The Confederacy was renewed in 1786 when member tribes declared the Ohio River as the boundary between their lands and those of European American invaders.
  • The Northwest Indian War, or Little Turtle's War, resulted from conflict between the United States and the Western Confederacy over occupation of the Northwest Territory.
  • Following the battle, the Western Confederacy and the United States signed the Treaty of Greenville on August 3, 1795, to end the Northwest Indian War.

• Confederate Politics

  • Confederate politics were dominated by the tension between states' rights and the military needs of the Confederacy.
  • Despite political differences, no political parties were formed within the Confederacy.

• The Aftermath of the War

  • Historians have debated whether the Confederacy could have won the war.
  • Some scholars, such as those of the Lost Cause tradition, argue that the Union held an insurmountable long-term advantage over the Confederacy in terms of industrial strength and population.
  • The Confederacy sought to win independence by out-lasting Lincoln.

• Sectionalism and the New South

  • Many white Southerners were devastated economically, emotionally, and psychologically by the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865.
  • These included the claim that the Confederacy started the Civil War to defend states' rights rather than to preserve slavery, and the related claim that slavery was benevolent, rather than cruel.
  • Many white Southerners were devastated economically, emotionally, and psychologically by the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865.
  • Today, education is a high priority of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which collects documents and gives aid to historical researchers and top college scholars.
  • The United Daughters of the Confederacy helped promulgate the "Lost Cause" ideology through the construction of numerous memorials, such as this one in Tennessee.

• Cotton in the South

  • The Confederacy thought cotton interests would force Europe to intervene, but this was not the case.
  • They argued that cotton exports would provide economic prosperity to an independent Confederacy and, more importantly, force Great Britain and France to support the Confederacy in the Civil War because their industrial economy depended on cotton textiles.
  • The slogan was successful in mobilizing support: by February 1861, the seven states whose economies were based on cotton plantations had seceded and formed the Confederacy.
  • Consequently, the strategy proved a failure for the Confederacy.

• Secession of the South

  • By spring 1861, the Confederacy was composed of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
  • During the four years of its wartime existence, the Confederacy asserted its independence by appointing dozens of diplomatic agents abroad.
  • The United States issued warnings to Europe (particularly Britain) that threatened hostile relations if the Confederacy was recognized internationally.
  • Throughout the early years of the war, British foreign secretary Lord John Russell, Napoleon III of France, and other foreign leaders showed interest in recognizing the Confederacy, or at least in a mediation in the war.
  • At the same time, foreign governments curiously watched the political evolution of the Confederacy and sent military observers to assess Confederate autonomy in the event that the South prevailed in its fight for nationhood.

• The Battles: 1863–1865

  • Fort Monroe in Virginia; Fort Sumter in South Carolina; and Fort Pickens, Fort Jefferson, and Fort Taylor, all in Florida, were the remaining Union-held forts in the Confederacy, and Lincoln was determined to hold them all.
  • Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Virginia, however, refused to send forces against their neighbors, declared their secession, and joined the Confederacy.
  • The Confederate invasion of Columbus, Kentucky, ended Kentucky's policy of neutrality and turned that state against the Confederacy.
  • Grant marched to the relief of troops in Chattanooga and defeated Bragg at the Third Battle of Chattanooga, driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee and opening a route to Atlanta and the heart of the Confederacy.
  • Texas remained in Confederate hands throughout the war, but was cut off from the rest of the Confederacy after the capture of Vicksburg in 1863 gave the Union control of the Mississippi River.