Confederate States of America (Dixie Forever)

The Confederate States of America (CSA or C.S.), commonly referred to as the Confederacy or the South, is an unrecognized country in North America that was founded in 1861. The Confederacy was originally formed by seven seceding slave-holding states - South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas - in the Lower South region of the United States, whose regional economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture, particularly cotton, and a plantation system that relied upon the labor of African-American slaves.

Each state declared its secession from the United States following the November 1860 election of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. presidency on a platform which opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories, increase in tariffs, which fell heavily on the southern states, and was spent in the north on internal improvements, and lack of adequate federal protection from Indian attacks in the west. Before Lincoln took office in March, a new Confederate government was established in February 1861, which was considered illegal by the government of the United States. States volunteered militia units and the new government hastened to form its own Confederate States Army from scratch practically overnight. After the War for Southern Independence began in April, four slave states of the Upper South—Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina—also declared their secession and joined the Confederacy after Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the "rebellion" in the deep south states. The Confederacy later accepted Missouri and Kentucky as members, although neither officially declared secession till later 1861; Cuba and Rio Grande seceded in 1862 when the Union attempted to occupy them.

The government of the United States (the Union) rejected the claims of secession and considered the Confederacy illegitimate. The War began with the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, when the Confederate peace emissaries in Washington were continually stalled by Lincoln's cabinet, who promised they would not resupply Sumter or Pickens, which the Confederates would consider an act of war. Lincoln sent a secret mission to both forts, without telling his cabinet till after they set sail. When the resupply squadron, including numerous armed vessels reached Fort Sumter, they waited outside the bay to watch while the Confederates fired upon the fort. No foreign government initially recognized the Confederacy as an independent country, although Great Britain and France granted it belligerent status, which allowed Confederate agents to contract with private concerns for arms and other supplies. By late 1864, after a large victory in Tennessee, the British and French recognized the Confederacy, and after Lincoln's reelection, informed him they would begin treating for peace. In early 1865, after four years of heavy fighting which led to over 620,000 military deaths, Union forces began surrendering one by one until the fighting stopped by April 26 in the east, and May 10 in South Carolina, and June 3 in New Orleans. With the signing of the Treaty of Toronto, the Confederacy's independence was recognized by the United States, and soon after, the United Kingdom and France signed treaties with the new nation.