Editing History of Alabama (section)

==Secession and Civil War (1861–1865)==
{{Main|Alabama in the American Civil War}}

The "Unionists" were successful in the elections of 1851 and 1852. Passage of the [[Kansas-Nebraska Bill]] and uncertainty about agitation against slavery led the State Democratic convention of 1856 to revive the "Alabama Platform". When the Democratic National Convention at [[Charleston, South Carolina]], failed to approve the "Alabama Platform" in 1860, the Alabama delegates, followed by those of the other "cotton states", withdrew. Upon the election of [[Abraham Lincoln]], Governor [[Andrew B. Moore]], as previously instructed by the legislature, called a state convention. Many prominent men had opposed Alabama secession. In North Alabama, there was an attempt to organize a neutral state to be called [[Nickajack]]. With President Lincoln's call to arms in April 1861, most opposition to secession ended.

On January 11, 1861, the State of Alabama adopted the ordinances of secession<ref>Alabama Department of Archives and History, [http://archives.state.al.us/timeline/1861/const.html Ordinances and Constitution of the State of Alabama] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120206131425/http://www.archives.state.al.us/timeline/1861/const.html |date=February 6, 2012 }}</ref> from the Union (by a vote of 61–39). Alabama joined the [[Confederate States of America]], whose government was first organized at [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]] on February 4, 1861. The CSA set up its temporary capital in Montgomery and selected [[Jefferson Davis]] as president. In May 1861, the Confederate government abandoned Montgomery before the sickly season began and relocated to [[Richmond, Virginia]], the capital of that state. During the ensuing [[American Civil War]] [[Alabama in the American Civil War|Alabama had moderate levels of warfare]].

[[File:1861 Davis Inaugural.jpg|thumb|right|The inauguration of [[Jefferson Davis]] in [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]] on February 18, 1861.]]
Governor Moore energetically supported the Confederate war effort. Even before hostilities began, he seized Federal facilities, sent agents to buy rifles in the Northeast and scoured the state for weapons. Despite some resistance in the northern part of the state, Alabama joined the Confederate States of America (CSA). Congressman [[Williamson Robert Winfield Cobb|Williamson R. W. Cobb]] was a Unionist and pleaded for compromise. When he ran for the Confederate congress in 1861, he was defeated.  (In 1863, with [[war-weariness]] growing in Alabama, he was elected on a wave of antiwar sentiment.)

Some idea of the current transportation patterns and severe internal logistic problems faced by the Confederacy can be seen by tracing Jefferson Davis' journey from his plantation in Mississippi to Montgomery. With few roads and railroads, he traveled by [[steamboat]] from his plantation on the Mississippi River down to [[Vicksburg, Mississippi|Vicksburg]], where he boarded a train to [[Jackson, Mississippi]]. He took another train north to Grand Junction, then a third train east to [[Chattanooga, Tennessee]] and a fourth train south to the main hub at Atlanta, Georgia. He took another train to the Alabama border and a last one to Montgomery in the center of the state.

As the war proceeded, the Federals seized ports along the Mississippi River, burned trestles and railroad bridges and tore up track. The frail Confederate railroad system faltered and virtually collapsed for want of repairs and replacement parts.

In the early part of the Civil War, Alabama was not the scene of military operations. The state contributed about 120,000 soldiers to [[Confederate Army|Confederate]] service. Most soldiers were recruited locally and served with others they knew, which built esprit and strengthened ties to home. Medical conditions were severe for all soldiers. About 15% of deaths were from disease, more than the 10% from battle. Alabama had few well-equipped hospitals, but it had many on the home front who volunteered to nurse the sick and wounded. Soldiers were poorly equipped, especially after 1863. Often they pillaged the dead for boots, belts, canteens, blankets, hats, shirts and pants.

Uncounted thousands of slaves were impressed to work for Confederate troops; they took care of horses and equipment, cooked and did laundry, hauled supplies, and helped in field hospitals. Other slaves built defensive installations, especially those around Mobile. They graded roads, repaired railroads, drove supply wagons, and labored in iron mines, iron foundries and even in the munitions factories. The service of slaves was involuntary: their unpaid labor was impressed from their unpaid masters. About 10,000 slaves within the state escaped and joined the Union army.

Around 2,700 white men from Alabama who were adherent [[Southern Unionists]] served in the [[Union Army]], many of whom served in the [[1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment (Union)|1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment]].

Thirty-nine Alabamians attained [[flag rank]], most notably Lieutenant General [[James Longstreet]] and Admiral [[Raphael Semmes]]. [[Josiah Gorgas]], who came to Alabama from Pennsylvania, was the chief of ordnance for the Confederacy. He located new munitions plants in [[Selma, Alabama|Selma]], which employed 10,000 workers until the Union soldiers burned the factories down in 1865. Selma Arsenal made most of the Confederacy's ammunition. The Selma Naval Ordnance Works made artillery, turning out a cannon every five days. The Confederate Naval Yard built ships and was noted for launching the [[CSS Tennessee (1863)|CSS ''Tennessee'']] in 1863 to defend Mobile Bay. Selma's Confederate Nitre Works procured niter for the [[Nitre and Mining Bureau]] for gunpowder, from limestone caves. When supplies were low, it advertised for housewives to save the contents of their chamber pots—as urine was a rich source of [[nitrogen]].

In 1863, Union forces secured a foothold in northern Alabama in spite of the opposition of General [[Nathan B. Forrest]]. From 1861, the Union blockade shut Mobile, and, in 1864, the outer defenses of Mobile were taken by a Union fleet; the city itself held out until April 1865.<ref>Rogers, ch 12</ref>

Alabama soldiers fought in hundreds of battles; the state's losses at the [[Battle of Gettysburg]] were the highest loss of any battle with 1,750 dead plus more captured or wounded; the "Alabama Brigade" took 781 casualties. Governor [[Lewis E. Parsons]] in July 1865 made a preliminary estimate of losses, which totaled that around the 122,000 Alabamian soldiers who served, around 35,000 died during the war. The next year Governor [[Robert M. Patton]] estimated that 20,000 veterans had returned home with permanent disabilities. With cotton prices low, the value of farms shrank, from $176&nbsp;million in 1860 to only $64&nbsp;million in 1870. The livestock supply shrank too, as the number of horses fell from 127,000 to 80,000, and mules from 111,000 to 76,000. The overall population growth remained the same, the growth that might have been expected was neutralized by death and emigration out of the state.<ref>Walter Lynwood Fleming, ''Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama'' (1905) pp 251–4 [https://archive.org/details/civilwarreconstr00flemuoft  online edition]</ref>