They are also surrounded by sea ice from the middle of May to late November even longer at their southern end. Executive power is vested in the Monarch of the United Kingdom and is exercised by the commissioner , a post held by the Governor of the Falkland Islands. The current commissioner is Nigel Phillips , who became commissioner on 12 September A chief executive officer Martin Collins deals with policy matters and is director of SGSSI Fisheries, responsible for the allocation of fishing licences.
An executive officer Richard McKee deals with administrative matters relating to the territory. Also, an environmental officer Jennifer Lee and a marine and Fisheries officer Katherine Ross are appointed. The financial secretary and attorney general of the territory are appointed ex officio similar appointments in the Falkland Islands' government.
As no permanent inhabitants live on the islands, no legislative council and no elections are needed. The UK Foreign Office manages the foreign relations of the territory. Since , the territory celebrates Liberation Day on 14 June. The constitution of the territory adopted 3 October , the manner in which its government is directed and the availability of judicial review were discussed in a series of litigations between and see, in particular, Regina v. Although its government is entirely directed by the UK Foreign Office, it was held that, since it was acting as an agent of the Crown in right of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands rather than in right of the UK, its decisions under that direction could not be challenged as if they were in law decisions of a UK government department; [ clarification needed ] thus the European Convention on Human Rights did not apply.
Commercial sealing occurred on the islands between and During that period 20 visits are recorded by sealing vessels. Fishing takes place around South Georgia and in adjacent waters in some months of the year, with fishing licences sold by the territory for Patagonian toothfish , cod icefish and krill. Fishing licences bring in millions of pounds a year, most of which is spent on fishery protection and research. The certificate places limits on the timing and quantity of Patagonian toothfish that may be caught.
Tourism has become a larger source of income in recent years, with many cruise ships and sailing yachts visiting the area the only way to visit South Georgia is by sea; there are no airstrips on the Islands. The territory gains income from landing charges and the sale of souvenirs. Cruise ships often combine a Grytviken visit with a trip to the Antarctic Peninsula.
Charter yacht visits usually begin in the Falkland Islands, last between four and six weeks, and enable guests to visit remote harbours of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Sailing vessels are now required to anchor out and can no longer tie up to the old whaling piers on shore. Yachts visiting South Georgia are normally expected to report to the Government Officers at King Edward Point before moving round the island.
A large source of income from abroad also comes from the issue of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands postage stamps which are produced in the UK. A reasonable issue policy few sets of stamps are issued each year along with attractive subject matter especially whales makes them popular with topical stamp collectors. There are only four genuine first day cover sets from 16 March in existence.
They were stamped at the South Georgia Post Office; all those in circulation were stamped elsewhere and sent out, but the only genuine ones were kept at the Post Office on South Georgia. These four sets were removed during the Falklands War by a member of staff of the British Antarctic Survey in the few moments the Argentinians allowed them to gather their belongings. The pound sterling is the official currency of the islands, and the same notes and coins are used as in the United Kingdom.
For more information on British currency in the wider region, see Pound sterling in the South Atlantic and the Antarctic. Although the territory has no permanent residents, the domain suffix has some popularity for website registrations, with approximately 6 million instances as of November The parts of the islands that are not permanently covered in snow or ice are part of the Scotia Sea Islands tundra ecoregion. In total there are 26 species of vascular plant native to South Georgia; six species of grass , four rushes , a single sedge , six ferns , one clubmoss and nine small forbs.
There are also about species of moss , 85 of liverworts and lichens , as well as about 50 species of macrofungi. The largest plant is the tussock grass Poa flabellata. Other grasses include the tufted fescue Festuca contracta , the Alpine cat's-tail Phleum alpinum and Antarctic hair-grass Deschampsia antarctica , and one of the commonest flowering plants is the greater burnet Acaena magellanica. South Georgia supports many sea birds, including albatross , a large colony of king penguins , Macaroni penguins [38] and penguins of various other species, along with petrels , prions , shags , skuas , gulls and terns.
Seals frequent the islands, and whales may be seen in the surrounding waters. There are no native land mammals, though reindeer , brown rats and mice were introduced to South Georgia through human activities. Rats, brought to the island as stowaways on sealing and whaling ships in the late 18th century, [40] have caused much damage to native wildlife, destroying tens of millions of ground-nesting birds' eggs and chicks. While previously the island's glaciers formed a natural barrier to the spread of rats, these glaciers are now slowly melting as the climate warms.
Reindeer were introduced to South Georgia in by Norwegian whalers for meat and for sport hunting. In February , the authorities announced that due to the reindeer's detrimental effect on native species and the threat of their spreading to presently pristine areas, a complete cull would take place, leading to the eradication of reindeer from the island.
The seas around South Georgia have a high level of biodiversity. In a recent study — , South Georgia has been discovered to contain one of the highest levels of biodiversity among all the ecosystems on Earth. This was scaled down during the s until the last detachment left South Georgia in March , after a new station had been built and occupied by the British Antarctic Survey. A handful of British naval vessels patrol the region, visiting South Georgia a few times each year and sometimes deploying small infantry patrols. She carried out hydrological and mapping work as well as assisting with scientific fieldwork for the British Antarctic Survey, film and photographic units, and youth expedition group BSES Expeditions.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. British overseas territory in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Monarch Queen Elizabeth II. Sovereignty dispute Falkland Islands Dependencies. Flag Languages Postal History. This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources.
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. February Learn how and when to remove this template message. July Learn how and when to remove this template message. Military of the Falkland Islands. Geography portal South America portal United Kingdom portal. Retrieved 1 November Retrieved 31 May Bird Island has a year round complement of four BAS personnel who undertake long-term monitoring of seabirds and marine mammals.
The South Sandwich Islands are uninhabited, though an originally undetected, and subsequently allowed, manned Argentinean research station was located on Thule from to Retrieved 23 August Archived from the original on The original quote in Spanish is: The Official History of the Falklands Campaign: The origins of the Falklands war. Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey: Archived from the original PDF on 7 September Retrieved 10 July Retrieved 10 December Climate Data for Selected Stations in Danish. Archived from the original PDF on April 27, Retrieved January 19, The Island of South Georgia.
Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford. Retrieved 19 May The Life of Birds. South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands. Archived from the original on 3 August Retrieved 8 July Archived from the original on 8 July Retrieved 3 July Archived 12 June at the Wayback Machine. Largest protected area in the world. Portsmouth, 11 January Retrieved 2 August Former ice patrol ship to be scrapped". Retrieved 8 October Countries, territories and dependencies of the United Kingdom. England Northern Ireland Scotland Wales. List of countries that have gained independence from the United Kingdom.
Occupied jointly with the United States. In , Canada and other British dominions obtained self-government through the Statute of Westminster. See Name of Canada. Gave up self-rule in , but remained a de jure Dominion until it joined Canada in Now a department of Colombia. League of Nations mandate. Self-governing Southern Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence in as Rhodesia and continued as an unrecognised state until the Lancaster House Agreement. After recognised independence in , Zimbabwe was a member of the Commonwealth until it withdrew in Iraq's mandate was not enacted and replaced by the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty.
Antarctica and South Atlantic. At the February Hampton Roads Conference with Lincoln, senior Confederate officials rejected his invitation to restore the Union with compensation for emancipated slaves. The Confederacy's last remaining blockade-running port, Wilmington , North Carolina, was lost.
When the Union broke through Lee's lines at Petersburg, Richmond fell immediately. Some high officials escaped to Europe, but President Davis was captured May 10; all remaining Confederate land forces surrendered by June Army took control of the Confederate areas without post-surrender insurgency or guerrilla warfare against them, but peace was subsequently marred by a great deal of local violence, feuding and revenge killings.
Historian Gary Gallagher concluded that the Confederacy capitulated in early because northern armies crushed "organized southern military resistance". The Confederacy's population, soldier and civilian, had suffered material hardship and social disruption. They had expended and extracted a profusion of blood and treasure until collapse; "the end had come". When the war ended over 14, Confederates petitioned President Johnson for a pardon; he was generous in giving them out.
There was a great deal of discussion in about bringing treason trials, especially against Jefferson Davis. There was no consensus in President Johnson's cabinet and there were no treason trials against anyone. In the case of Davis there was a strong possibility of acquittal which would have been humiliating for the government.
Davis was indicted for treason but never tried; he was released from prison on bail in May The amnesty of December 25, , by President Johnson eliminated any possibility of Jefferson Davis or anyone else associated with the Confederacy standing trial for treason. Henry Wirz , the commandant of a notorious prisoner-of-war camp near Andersonville, Georgia , was tried and convicted by a military court, and executed on November 10, The charges against him involved conspiracy and cruelty, not treason.
By , the Compromise of ended Reconstruction in the former Confederate states. Federal troops were withdrawn from the South, where conservative white Southern Democrats had already regained political control of state governments, often through extreme violence and fraud to suppress black voting. Confederate veterans had been temporarily disenfranchised by Reconstruction policy. The prewar South had many rich areas; the war left the entire region economically devastated by military action, ruined infrastructure, and exhausted resources.
Continuing to be dependent on an agricultural economy and resisting investment in infrastructure, the region remained dominated by the planter elite into the 20th century. After the Democratic-dominated legislatures worked to secure their control by passing new constitutions and amendments at the turn of the 20th century that disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites. This exclusion of blacks from the political system, and great weakening of the Republican Party, was generally maintained until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of The Solid South of the early 20th century was built on white Democratic control of politics.
The region did not achieve national levels of prosperity until long after World War II. In this case, the court held that the Constitution did not permit a state to unilaterally secede from the United States. Further, that the ordinances of secession, and all the acts of the legislatures within seceding states intended to give effect to such ordinances, were "absolutely null ", under the Constitution. Furthermore, it decided one of the "central constitutional questions" of the Civil War: The Union is perpetual and indestructible, as a matter of constitutional law.
In declaring that no state could leave the Union, "except through revolution or through consent of the States", it was "explicitly repudiating the position of the Confederate states that the United States was a voluntary compact between sovereign states". Historian Frank Lawrence Owsley argued that the Confederacy "died of states' rights". Georgia's governor Joseph Brown warned of a secret conspiracy by Jefferson Davis to destroy states' rights and individual liberty.
The first conscription act in North America authorizing Davis to draft soldiers was said to be the "essence of military despotism". Pendleton Murrah , governor of Texas. Stephens feared losing the very form of republican government. Allowing President Davis to threaten "arbitrary arrests" to draft hundreds of governor-appointed "bomb-proof" bureaucrats conferred "more power than the English Parliament had ever bestowed on the king. History proved the dangers of such unchecked authority. As Rable concludes, "For Stephens, the essence of patriotism, the heart of the Confederate cause, rested on an unyielding commitment to traditional rights" without considerations of military necessity, pragmatism or compromise.
In governor Pendleton Murrah of Texas determined that state troops were required for defense against Plains Indians and Union forces that might attack from Kansas. He refused to send his soldiers to the East. Vance's faith in states' rights drove him into repeated, stubborn opposition to the Davis administration. Despite political differences within the Confederacy, no national political parties were formed because they were seen as illegitimate. The mid-term elections became mere expressions of futile and frustrated dissatisfaction.
According to historian David M. Potter, this lack of a functioning two-party system caused "real and direct damage" to the Confederate war effort since it prevented the formulation of any effective alternatives to the conduct of the war by the Davis administration. The enemies of President Davis proposed that the Confederacy "died of Davis". He was unfavorably compared to George Washington by critics such as Edward Alfred Pollard , editor of the most influential newspaper the Richmond Examiner.
He unwittingly caused much internal dissension from early on. His ill health and temporary bouts of blindness disabled him for days at a time. Coulter says Davis was heroic and his will was indomitable. But his "tenacity, determination, and will power" stirred up lasting opposition of enemies Davis could not shake. He failed to overcome "petty leaders of the states" who made the term "Confederacy" into a label for tyranny and oppression, denying the " Stars and Bars " from becoming a symbol of larger patriotic service and sacrifice.
Instead of campaigning to develop nationalism and gain support for his administration, he rarely courted public opinion, assuming an aloofness, "almost like an Adams". Escott argues that Davis was unable to mobilize Confederate nationalism in support of his government effectively, and especially failed to appeal to the small farmers who comprised the bulk of the population. In addition to the problems caused by states rights, Escott also emphasizes that the widespread opposition to any strong central government combined with the vast difference in wealth between the slave-owning class and the small farmers created insolvable dilemmas when the Confederate survival presupposed a strong central government backed by a united populace.
The prewar claim that white solidarity was necessary to provide a unified Southern voice in Washington no longer held. Davis failed to build a network of supporters who would speak up when he came under criticism, and he repeatedly alienated governors and other state-based leaders by demanding centralized control of the war effort.
Davis was not an efficient administrator. He attended to too many details. He protected his friends after their failures were obvious. He spent too much time on military affairs versus his civic responsibilities. Coulter concludes he was not the ideal leader for the Southern Revolution, but he showed "fewer weaknesses than any other" contemporary character available for the role.
Lee 's assessment of Davis as President was, "I knew of none that could have done as well. The Southern leaders met in Montgomery, Alabama, to write their constitution. Much of the Confederate States Constitution replicated the United States Constitution verbatim, but it contained several explicit protections of the institution of slavery including provisions for the recognition and protection of slavery in any territory of the Confederacy.
It maintained the ban on international slave-trading while protecting the existing internal trade of slaves among slaveholding states. In certain areas, the Confederate Constitution gave greater powers to the states or curtailed the powers of the central government more than the U. Constitution of the time did, but in other areas, the states lost rights they had under the U. Although the Confederate Constitution, like the U. Constitution, contained a commerce clause , the Confederate version prohibited the central government from using revenues collected in one state for funding internal improvements in another state.
The Confederate Constitution's equivalent to the U. Constitution's general welfare clause prohibited protective tariffs but allowed tariffs for providing domestic revenue , and spoke of "carry[ing] on the Government of the Confederate States" rather than providing for the "general welfare". State legislatures had the power to impeach officials of the Confederate government in some cases. On the other hand, the Confederate Constitution contained a Necessary and Proper Clause and a Supremacy Clause that essentially duplicated the respective clauses of the U. The Confederate Constitution also incorporated each of the 12 amendments to the U.
Constitution that had been ratified up to that point. The Confederate Constitution did not specifically include a provision allowing states to secede; the Preamble spoke of each state "acting in its sovereign and independent character" but also of the formation of a "permanent federal government".
During the debates on drafting the Confederate Constitution, one proposal would have allowed states to secede from the Confederacy. The proposal was tabled with only the South Carolina delegates voting in favor of considering the motion. In contrast with the language of the United States Constitution, the Confederate Constitution overtly asked God's blessing " The Montgomery Convention to establish the Confederacy and its executive met on February 4, Each state as a sovereignty had one vote, with the same delegation size as it held in the U.
Congress, and generally 41 to 50 members attended. One name was placed in nomination for president, one for vice president. Both were elected unanimously, 6—0. Jefferson Davis was elected provisional president. Senate resignation speech greatly impressed with its clear rationale for secession and his pleading for a peaceful departure from the Union to independence. Although he had made it known that he wanted to be commander-in-chief of the Confederate armies, when elected, he assumed the office of Provisional President. Three candidates for provisional Vice President were under consideration the night before the February 9 election.
All were from Georgia, and the various delegations meeting in different places determined two would not do, so Alexander H. Stephens was elected unanimously provisional Vice President, though with some privately held reservations. Stephens was inaugurated February 11, Davis February They were inaugurated on February 22, Coulter observed, "No president of the U. Lincoln inherited an established government of long standing.
Southern dialects make up the largest accent group in the United States. That labor system as practiced in the American South encompassed paternalism, whether abusive or indulgent, and that meant labor management considerations apart from productivity. By December Davis considered sacrificing slavery in order to enlist recognition and aid from Paris and London; he secretly sent Duncan F. One Macon, Georgia , newspaper asked how two million brave fighting men of the South were about to be overcome by four million northerners who were said to be cowards. Zydeco, Cajun and swamp pop , despite having never enjoyed greater regional or mainstream popularity, still thrive throughout French Louisiana and its peripheries, such as Southeastern Texas. In many areas cropland was ruined, livestock lost, railroads destroyed, and billions of dollars in slave-related investments wiped out.
The creation of the Confederacy was accomplished by men who saw themselves as fundamentally conservative. Although they referred to their "Revolution", it was in their eyes more a counter-revolution against changes away from their understanding of U. In Davis' inauguration speech, he explained the Confederacy was not a French-like revolution, but a transfer of rule. The Permanent Constitution provided for a President of the Confederate States of America, elected to serve a six-year term but without the possibility of re-election.
Unlike the United States Constitution, the Confederate Constitution gave the president the ability to subject a bill to a line item veto , a power also held by some state governors. The Confederate Congress could overturn either the general or the line item vetoes with the same two-thirds votes required in the U.
In addition, appropriations not specifically requested by the executive branch required passage by a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress. The only person to serve as president was Jefferson Davis , due to the Confederacy being defeated before the completion of his term. The only two "formal, national, functioning, civilian administrative bodies" in the Civil War South were the Jefferson Davis administration and the Confederate Congresses. It had one vote per state in a unicameral assembly.
The Permanent Confederate Congress was elected and began its first session February 18, The Permanent Congress for the Confederacy followed the United States forms with a bicameral legislature. The Senate had two per state, twenty-six Senators. The House numbered representatives apportioned by free and slave populations within each state. Two Congresses sat in six sessions until March 18, The political influences of the civilian, soldier vote and appointed representatives reflected divisions of political geography of a diverse South.
These in turn changed over time relative to Union occupation and disruption, the war impact on local economy, and the course of the war. Without political parties, key candidate identification related to adopting secession before or after Lincoln's call for volunteers to retake Federal property. Previous party affiliation played a part in voter selection, predominantly secessionist Democrat or unionist Whig. The absence of political parties made individual roll call voting all the more important, as the Confederate "freedom of roll-call voting [was] unprecedented in American legislative history.
For the first year, the unicameral Provisional Confederate Congress functioned as the Confederacy's legislative branch. Andrew Magrath South Carolina District. The Confederate Constitution outlined a judicial branch of the government, but the ongoing war and resistance from states-rights advocates, particularly on the question of whether it would have appellate jurisdiction over the state courts, prevented the creation or seating of the "Supreme Court of the Confederate States;" the state courts generally continued to operate as they had done, simply recognizing the Confederate States as the national government.
Confederate district courts began reopening in early , handling many of the same type cases as had been done before. Prize cases, in which Union ships were captured by the Confederate Navy or raiders and sold through court proceedings, were heard until the blockade of southern ports made this impossible. After a Sequestration Act was passed by the Confederate Congress, the Confederate district courts heard many cases in which enemy aliens typically Northern absentee landlords owning property in the South had their property sequestered seized by Confederate Receivers.
When the matter came before the Confederate court, the property owner could not appear because he was unable to travel across the front lines between Union and Confederate forces. Thus, the District Attorney won the case by default, the property was typically sold, and the money used to further the Southern war effort.
This prevented their clients' property from being sold until a supreme court could be constituted to hear the appeal, which never occurred. Jefferson Davis , 5 cent The 1st stamp , George Washington 20 cent, When the Confederacy was formed and its seceding states broke from the Union, it was at once confronted with the arduous task of providing its citizens with a mail delivery system, and, in the midst of the American Civil War , the newly formed Confederacy created and established the Confederate Post Office.
One of the first undertakings in establishing the Post Office was the appointment of John H. Reagan to the position of Postmaster General, by Jefferson Davis in , making him the first Postmaster General of the Confederate Post Office as well as a member of Davis' presidential cabinet. Through Reagan's resourcefulness and remarkable industry, he had his department assembled, organized and in operation before the other Presidential cabinet members had their departments fully operational. When the war began, the US Post Office still delivered mail from the secessionist states for a brief period of time.
Mail that was postmarked after the date of a state's admission into the Confederacy through May 31, , and bearing US postage was still delivered. Later, mail that crossed lines had to be sent by 'Flag of Truce' and was allowed to pass at only two specific points. Mail sent from the South to the North states was received, opened and inspected at Fortress Monroe on the Virginia coast before being passed on into the U. Mail sent from the North to the South passed at City Point , also in Virginia, where it was also inspected before being sent on.
With the chaos of the war, a working postal system was more important than ever for the Confederacy.
The Civil War had divided family members and friends and consequently letter writing increased dramatically across the entire divided nation, especially to and from the men who were away serving in an army. Mail delivery was also important for the Confederacy for a myriad of business and military reasons. Because of the Union blockade, basic supplies were always in demand and so getting mailed correspondence out of the country to suppliers was imperative to the successful operation of the Confederacy.
Volumes of material have been written about the Blockade runners who evaded Union ships on blockade patrol, usually at night, and who moved cargo and mail in and out of the Confederate States throughout the course of the war. Of particular interest to students and historians of the American Civil War is Prisoner of War mail and Blockade mail as these items were often involved with a variety of military and other war time activities.
The postal history of the Confederacy along with surviving Confederate mail has helped historians document the various people, places and events that were involved in the American Civil War as it unfolded. The Confederacy actively used the army to arrest people suspected of loyalty to the United States. Historian Mark Neely found 4, names of men arrested and estimated a much larger total. The Confederate citizen was not any freer than the Union citizen — and perhaps no less likely to be arrested by military authorities.
In fact, the Confederate citizen may have been in some ways less free than his Northern counterpart. For example, freedom to travel within the Confederate states was severely limited by a domestic passport system. Across the South, widespread rumors alarmed the whites by predicting the slaves were planning some sort of insurrection. Patrols were stepped up. The slaves did become increasingly independent, and resistant to punishment, but historians agree there were no insurrections. In the invaded areas, insubordination was more the norm than loyalty to the old master; Bell Wiley says, "It was not disloyalty, but the lure of freedom.
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation , an executive order of the U. The long-term effect was that the Confederacy could not preserve the institution of slavery, and lost the use of the core element of its plantation labor force. Slaves were legally freed by the Proclamation, and became free by escaping to federal lines, or by advances of federal troops. Many freed slaves served as volunteers in the federal army as teamsters, cooks, laundresses and laborers, and eventually as soldiers.
Their owners never received compensation. Most whites were subsistence farmers who traded their surpluses locally. The plantations of the South, with white ownership and an enslaved labor force, produced substantial wealth from cash crops. It supplied two-thirds of the world's cotton, which was in high demand for textiles, along with tobacco, sugar, and naval stores such as turpentine. These raw materials were exported to factories in Europe and the Northeast. Planters reinvested their profits in more slaves and fresh land, for cotton and tobacco depleted the soil.
There was little manufacturing or mining; shipping was controlled by outsiders. The plantations that enslaved over three million black people were the principal source of wealth. Most were concentrated in " black belt " plantation areas because few white families in the poor regions owned slaves. For decades there had been widespread fear of slave revolts. During the war extra men were assigned to "home guard" patrol duty and governors sought to keep militia units at home for protection.
Historian William Barney reports, "no major slave revolts erupted during the Civil War. Slave labor was applied in industry in a limited way in the Upper South and in a few port cities. One reason for the regional lag in industrial development was top-heavy income distribution. Mass production requires mass markets, and slaves living in small cabins, using self-made tools and outfitted with one suit of work clothes each year of inferior fabric, did not generate consumer demand to sustain local manufactures of any description in the same way a mechanized family farm of free labor did in the North.
The Southern economy was "pre-capitalist" in that slaves were put to work in the largest revenue-producing enterprises, not free labor market. That labor system as practiced in the American South encompassed paternalism, whether abusive or indulgent, and that meant labor management considerations apart from productivity. But the Southern economy was pre-capitalist in its overwhelming reliance on the agriculture of cash crops to produce wealth, while the great majority of farmers fed themselves and supplied a small local market.
Southern cities and industries grew faster than ever before, but the thrust of the rest of the country's exponential growth elsewhere was toward urban industrial development along transportation systems of canals and railroads. The South was following the dominant currents of the American economic mainstream, but at a "great distance" as it lagged in the all-weather modes of transportation that brought cheaper, speedier freight shipment and forged new, expanding inter-regional markets. A third count of southern pre-capitalist economy relates to the cultural setting. The South and southerners did not adopt a work ethic , nor the habits of thrift that marked the rest of the country.
The southern United States, also known as the American South, Dixie, Dixieland, or simply the South, is a region of the United States of America. It is located. The 'culture of the Southern United States, or Southern culture, is a subculture of the United States. The combination of its unique history and the fact that many.
It had access to the tools of capitalism, but it did not adopt its culture. The Southern Cause as a national economy in the Confederacy was grounded in "slavery and race, planters and patricians, plain folk and folk culture, cotton and plantations". The Confederacy started its existence as an agrarian economy with exports, to a world market, of cotton, and, to a lesser extent, tobacco and sugarcane. Local food production included grains, hogs, cattle, and gardens. The cash came from exports but the Southern people spontaneously stopped exports in early to hasten the impact of " King Cotton ".
When the blockade was announced, commercial shipping practically ended the ships could not get insurance , and only a trickle of supplies came via blockade runners. The cutoff of exports was an economic disaster for the South, rendering useless its most valuable properties, its plantations and their enslaved workers. Many planters kept growing cotton, which piled up everywhere, but most turned to food production.
All across the region, the lack of repair and maintenance wasted away the physical assets. The main industrial areas were border cities such as Baltimore, Wheeling, Louisville and St. Louis, that were never under Confederate control. The government did set up munitions factories in the Deep South. Combined with captured munitions and those coming via blockade runners, the armies were kept minimally supplied with weapons. The soldiers suffered from reduced rations, lack of medicines, and the growing shortages of uniforms, shoes and boots.
Shortages were much worse for civilians, and the prices of necessities steadily rose. The lack of adequate financial resources led the Confederacy to finance the war through printing money, which led to high inflation. The Confederacy underwent an economic revolution by centralization and standardization, but it was too little too late as its economy was systematically strangled by blockade and raids. In peacetime, the South's extensive and connected systems of navigable rivers and coastal access allowed for cheap and easy transportation of agricultural products.
The railroad system in the South had developed as a supplement to the navigable rivers to enhance the all-weather shipment of cash crops to market. Railroads tied plantation areas to the nearest river or seaport and so made supply more dependable, lowered costs and increased profits. In the event of invasion, the vast geography of the Confederacy made logistics difficult for the Union. Wherever Union armies invaded, they assigned many of their soldiers to garrison captured areas and to protect rail lines.
At the onset of the Civil War the South had a rail network disjointed and plagued by changes in track gauge as well as lack of interchange. Locomotives and freight cars had fixed axles and could not use tracks of different gauges widths. Railroads of different gauges leading to the same city required all freight to be off-loaded onto wagons for transport to the connecting railroad station, where it had to await freight cars and a locomotive before proceeding.
Due to this design limitation, the relatively primitive railroads of the Confederacy were unable to overcome the Union naval blockade of the South's crucial intra-coastal and river routes. The Confederacy had no plan to expand, protect or encourage its railroads. Southerners' refusal to export the cotton crop in left railroads bereft of their main source of income. In the early years of the war the Confederate government had a hands-off approach to the railroads. Only in mid did the Confederate government initiate a national policy, and it was confined solely to aiding the war effort.
In contrast, the U. Congress had authorized military administration of Union-controlled railroad and telegraph systems in January , imposed a standard gauge, and built railroads into the South using that gauge. Confederate armies successfully reoccupying territory could not be resupplied directly by rail as they advanced. Congress formally authorized military administration of railroads in February In the last year before the end of the war, the Confederate railroad system stood permanently on the verge of collapse. There was no new equipment and raids on both sides systematically destroyed key bridges, as well as locomotives and freight cars.
Spare parts were cannibalized; feeder lines were torn up to get replacement rails for trunk lines, and rolling stock wore out through heavy use. The Confederate army experienced a persistent shortage of horses and mules, and requisitioned them with dubious promissory notes given to local farmers and breeders. Union forces paid in real money and found ready sellers in the South. Both armies needed horses for cavalry and for artillery. The supply was undermined by an unprecedented epidemic of glanders , a fatal disease that baffled veterinarians.
The Confederate armies and farmers experienced a growing shortage of horses and mules, which hurt the Southern economy and the war effort. The South lost half of its 2. Army horses were used up by hard work, malnourishment, disease and battle wounds; they had a life expectancy of about seven months. Much of it was signed by Treasurer Edward C.
Inflation became rampant as the paper money depreciated and eventually became worthless. The state governments and some localities printed their own paper money, adding to the runaway inflation. The Confederate government initially wanted to finance its war mostly through tariffs on imports, export taxes, and voluntary donations of gold.
After the spontaneous imposition of an embargo on cotton sales to Europe in , these sources of revenue dried up and the Confederacy increasingly turned to issuing debt and printing money to pay for war expenses. The Confederate States politicians were worried about angering the general population with hard taxes. A tax increase might disillusion many Southerners, so the Confederacy resorted to printing more money. As a result, inflation increased and remained a problem for the southern states throughout the rest of the war.
The Confederate government took over the three national mints: During , the first two produced small amounts of gold coinage, the latter half dollars. Since the mints used the current dies on hand, these issues remain indistinguishable from those minted by the Union.
In New Orleans the Confederacy used its own reverse design to strike four half dollars. US coinage was hoarded and did not have any general circulation. Confederate money was paper and postage stamps. By mid, the Union naval blockade virtually shut down the export of cotton and the import of manufactured goods. Food that formerly came overland was cut off. Women had charge of making do. They cut back on purchases, brought out old spinning wheels and enlarged their gardens with flax and peas to provide clothing and food. They used ersatz substitutes when possible, but there was no real coffee and it was hard to develop a taste for the okra or chicory substitutes used.
The households were severely hurt by inflation in the cost of everyday items like flour and the shortages of food, fodder for the animals, and medical supplies for the wounded. State governments pleaded with planters to grow less cotton and more food. When cotton prices soared in Europe, expectations were that Europe would soon intervene to break the blockade and make them rich. The Georgia legislature imposed cotton quotas, making it a crime to grow an excess. But food shortages only worsened, especially in the towns.
The overall decline in food supplies, made worse by the inadequate transportation system, led to serious shortages and high prices in urban areas. When bacon reached a dollar a pound in , the poor women of Richmond, Atlanta and many other cities began to riot; they broke into shops and warehouses to seize food. The women expressed their anger at ineffective state relief efforts, speculators, and merchants. As wives and widows of soldiers they were hurt by the inadequate welfare system. By the end of the war deterioration of the Southern infrastructure was widespread. The number of civilian deaths is unknown.
Every Confederate state was affected, but most of the war was fought in Virginia and Tennessee, while Texas and Florida saw the least military action. Much of the damage was caused by direct military action, but most was caused by lack of repairs and upkeep, and by deliberately using up resources. Historians have recently estimated how much of the devastation was caused by military action. By the time the fighting took place, undoubtedly some people had fled to safer areas, so the exact population exposed to war is unknown. The eleven Confederate States in the United States Census had towns and cities with , people; of these with , people were at one point occupied by Union forces.
Historians have not estimated what their actual population was when Union forces arrived. In addition, 45 court houses were burned out of The South's agriculture was not highly mechanized. Many old tools had broken through heavy use; new tools were rarely available; even repairs were difficult. The economic losses affected everyone.
Banks and insurance companies were mostly bankrupt. Confederate currency and bonds were worthless. The billions of dollars invested in slaves vanished. Most debts were also left behind. Most farms were intact but most had lost their horses, mules and cattle; fences and barns were in disrepair. Paskoff shows the loss of farm infrastructure was about the same whether or not fighting took place nearby.
The loss of infrastructure and productive capacity meant that rural widows throughout the region faced not only the absence of able-bodied men, but a depleted stock of material resources that they could manage and operate themselves. During four years of warfare, disruption, and blockades, the South used up about half its capital stock. The North, by contrast, absorbed its material losses so effortlessly that it appeared richer at the end of the war than at the beginning.
The rebuilding took years and was hindered by the low price of cotton after the war. Outside investment was essential, especially in railroads. One historian has summarized the collapse of the transportation infrastructure needed for economic recovery: One of the greatest calamities which confronted Southerners was the havoc wrought on the transportation system.
Roads were impassable or nonexistent, and bridges were destroyed or washed away. The important river traffic was at a standstill: Horses, mules, oxen, carriages, wagons, and carts had nearly all fallen prey at one time or another to the contending armies. The railroads were paralyzed, with most of the companies bankrupt. These lines had been the special target of the enemy. On one stretch of miles in Alabama, every bridge and trestle was destroyed, cross-ties rotten, buildings burned, water-tanks gone, ditches filled up, and tracks grown up in weeds and bushes Communication centers like Columbia and Atlanta were in ruins; shops and foundries were wrecked or in disrepair.
Even those areas bypassed by battle had been pirated for equipment needed on the battlefront, and the wear and tear of wartime usage without adequate repairs or replacements reduced all to a state of disintegration. About , men never came home, some 30 percent of all white men aged 18 to 40, in Widows who were overwhelmed often abandoned the farm and merged into the households of relatives, or even became refugees living in camps with high rates of disease and death. After the war it became almost a norm. Divorce, while never fully accepted, became more common. The concept of the "New Woman" emerged — she was self-sufficient and independent, and stood in sharp contrast to the "Southern Belle" of antebellum lore.
The first official flag of the Confederate States of America — called the "Stars and Bars" — originally had seven stars, representing the first seven states that initially formed the Confederacy. As more states joined, more stars were added, until the total was 13 two stars were added for the divided states of Kentucky and Missouri.
To rectify the situation, a separate "Battle Flag" was designed for use by troops in the field. Also known as the "Southern Cross", many variations sprang from the original square configuration. Although it was never officially adopted by the Confederate government, the popularity of the Southern Cross among both soldiers and the civilian population was a primary reason why it was made the main color feature when a new national flag was adopted in This new standard — known as the "Stainless Banner" — consisted of a lengthened white field area with a Battle Flag canton.
This flag too had its problems when used in military operations as, on a windless day, it could easily be mistaken for a flag of truce or surrender. Thus, in , a modified version of the Stainless Banner was adopted. This final national flag of the Confederacy kept the Battle Flag canton, but shortened the white field and added a vertical red bar to the fly end. Because of its depiction in the 20th-century and popular media, many people consider the rectangular battle flag with the dark blue bars as being synonymous with "the Confederate Flag", but this flag was never adopted as a Confederate national flag.
The "Confederate Flag" has a color scheme similar to the official Battle Flag, but is rectangular, not square. Its design and shape matches the Naval Jack, but the blue bars are darker. The "Confederate Flag" is a highly recognizable symbol of the South in the United States today, and continues to be a controversial icon. Most of the interior portion consisted of arable farmland, though much was also hilly and mountainous, and the far western territories were deserts.
The lower reaches of the Mississippi River bisected the country, with the western half often referred to as the Trans-Mississippi. Much of the area claimed by the Confederate States of America had a humid subtropical climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. The climate and terrain varied from vast swamps such as those in Florida and Louisiana to semi-arid steppes and arid deserts west of longitude degrees west. The subtropical climate made winters mild but allowed infectious diseases to flourish. Consequently, on both sides more soldiers died from disease than were killed in combat, [] a fact hardly atypical of pre—World War I conflicts.
The United States Census of [] gives a picture of the overall population of the areas that joined the Confederacy. Note that population-numbers exclude non-assimilated Indian tribes. In the areas that later formed the eleven Confederate States and including the future West Virginia had , 1. Males made up The CSA was overwhelmingly rural land. Of the twenty largest U. Only 13 Confederate-controlled cities ranked among the top U. The population of Richmond swelled after it became the Confederate capital, reaching an estimated , in Louis never came under the control of the Confederate government.
The CSA was overwhelmingly Protestant. Baptists and Methodists together formed majorities of both the white and the slave population see Black church. Freedom of religion and separation of church and state were fully ensured by Confederate laws.
Church attendance was very high and chaplains played a major role in the Army. Most large denominations experienced a North—South split in the prewar era on the issue of slavery. The creation of a new country necessitated independent structures. In , he organized the meeting that formed General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian Church and served as its chief executive for thirty-seven years.
Catholics included an Irish working class element in coastal cities and an old French element in southern Louisiana. Other insignificant and scattered religious populations included Lutherans , the Holiness movement , other Reformed , other Christian fundamentalists , the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement , the Churches of Christ , the Latter-day Saints movement , Adventists , Muslims , Jews , Native American animists , deists and irreligious people.
The southern churches met the shortage of Army chaplains by sending missionaries. The Southern Baptists started in and had a total of 78 missionaries. Presbyterians were even more active with missionaries in January Other missionaries were funded and supported by the Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans. One result was wave after wave of revivals in the Army. Military leaders of the Confederacy with their state or country of birth and highest rank [] included:. As the telegraph chattered reports of the attack on Sumter April 12 and its surrender next day, huge crowds poured into the streets of Richmond, Raleigh, Nashville, and other upper South cities to celebrate this victory over the Yankees.
These crowds waved Confederate flags and cheered the glorious cause of southern independence. They demanded that their own states join the cause. Scores of demonstrations took place from April 12 to 14, before Lincoln issued his call for troops. Many conditional unionists were swept along by this powerful tide of southern nationalism; others were cowed into silence. The bombardment of Fort Sumter, by itself, did not destroy Unionist majorities in the upper South. Because only three days elapsed before Lincoln issued the proclamation, the two events viewed retrospectively, appear almost simultaneous.
Nevertheless, close examination of contemporary evidence Federal occupation of Confederate territory expanded to include northwestern Arkansas, south down the Mississippi River and east up the Tennessee River. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the historical state. For the film, see C. The Confederate States of America.
For the type of nation, see Confederate state. For a list of confederate nation states, see List of confederations. The Confederate States in in dark green. Light green denotes claims made by the Confederacy. Medium green denotes western counties of Virginia that separated from that State and were admitted to the Union as West Virginia.
Teal denotes the still contested Indian Territory. Confederate States dollar State currencies. Origins of the American Civil War. Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War. Military of the Confederate States of America. Battle Flag — square; also without center star. General Burnside halted at the bridge. Battle of Antietam Sharpsburg. CSS Alabama off Cherbourg , location of the only cruiser engagement. Bombardment of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Federal gunboats controlled rivers. Closing of Mobile Bay, Alabama.
The Union blockade ended trade with the Confederate states. Fires denied advancing Federals. Appomattox courthouse, site of "the Surrender". Brown , governor of Georgia. State flags, statehood and territory dates. May 18, Florida: May 20, South Carolina: May 7, Arizona Territory: Florida May 7, Virginia May 18, Arkansas May 20, Statehood date is the date of ratifying the permanent constitution for the first seven or being admitted to the Confederacy for subsequent states ; territory date is the date the Arizona Territory was organized by the Confederate States.
Constitution of the Confederate States of America. President of the Confederate States of America. Provisional Congress For the first year, the unicameral Provisional Confederate Congress functioned as the Confederacy's legislative branch. Asa Biggs North Carolina District. Finley —62 Georgia Henry R. Jackson , Edward J. Magrath —64, Benjamin F. Perry Tennessee West H. Devine —65 Virginia-East James D. Halyburton —65 Virginia-West John W. Postage stamps and postal history of the Confederate States. Andrew Jackson 2 cent, Economy of the Confederate States of America. South's largest port city, only pre-war population over , Port and region's agriculture lost to Union April Ended locomotive production in to make arms and munitions.
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