The Confederate States of America, also known as the Confederacy and the CSA, formed as the government of the eleven southern states that had seceded from the United States of America. The CSA’s de facto control over its territory varied according to the CSA’s success in battle during the Civil War (1861-1865).
Seven states initially asserted a state’s right to secede from the union, and declared their independence from the United States after Lincoln’s election but before his inauguration. Four more seceded after the start of the Civil War. The United States of America (the Union) held secession to be illegal and refused to recognize the Confederacy. Even though British and French commercial interests sold the Confederacy warships and materials, no European nation officially recognized the Confederacy.
After a long and grueling war, the CSA collapsed when generals Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston surrendered their armies in April 1865. Its cabinet met for the last time in Georgia that may. Union troops captured the Confederacy’s president, Jefferson Davis, near Irwinsville, Georgia on May 10, 1865. Most of the remaining Confederate forces surrendered by the end of June.
After the war, the Reconstruction began, and it temporarily gave civil rights, including the right to vote, to the freed slaves, and expelled the former Confederate leaders from office, and readmitted the states that had seceded to the Union.
The Confederacy also claimed that portion of the New Mexico Territory south of the 34th parallel as its own, and Confederate supporters claimed parts of what is now Oklahoma as Confederate territory after the Union evacuated its forts there. On July 12, 1861, the Confederacy entered into treaties with the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian nations in the Indian Territory. Ultimately the Confederacy’s defeat in the Civil War was the result of the Union’s dominant economy.