War for Southern Independence (Differently)

The War of Southern Independence was fought between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America from 1861 until 1863. Its end result was the division of that country and the creation of the Confederate States of America.

Beginning largely as a result of the long-standing controversy over slavery, war broke out in April 1861, when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, shortly after United States President Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated. The loyalists of the Union in the North proclaimed support for the Constitution, while secessionists of the Confederate States in the South advocated for states' rights.

Among the 34 U.S. states in February 1861, seven Southern states individually declared their secession from the country to form the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy grew to include eleven states during the war.

The first major action of the war came in July 1861 when undertrained Union and Confederate forces met at Manassas, Virginia, by Bull Run. Both sides expected an easy victory, but the undisciplined Union troops were routed and fell all the way back to Washington, DC and the Confederate forces, in little better shape, were unable to press their advantage.

Despite small campaigns in Missouri, the newly formed West Virginia and elsewhere, there was no more major action that year as the two sides' armies organized within their own territory. The following spring, the massive Union Army of the Potomac, the largest army in the history of the US up to that point, was dispatched to the Virginia Peninsula to move against Richmond. Unfortunately, it was commanded by General George McClellan. McClellan hesitant to press his many advantages in the offensive campaign, falsely believing he was outnumbered by the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary in his Intelligence reports. After halting the advance when the original ANV commander John Magruder built false artillery out of painted logs, and being similarly held up by subsequent ANV commander Joseph Johnston, McClellan was repulsed from the Peninsula altogether when he first met Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

The following summer, Lee defeated the Union Army of Virginia under John Pope at a second battle of Bull Run

Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant had won several important victories farther west, including the Battle of Shiloh, at which Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston was killed in action. The Union was also winning the naval war, with the US Navy establishing a blockade of Southern ports which the CS Navy was helpless to break. However, the East was the war's primary front, and in the fall of 1862 Confederate fortunes were riding extremely high, with Britain and France considering granting the CS diplomatic recognition. That fall, Lee launched an ambitious invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania. McClellan was slow to respond to Lee's invasion, and Union intelligence failed to realize that the Army of Northern Virginia had adopted a high-risk marching order in which each division of James Longstreet's and Thomas Jackson's two corps were all marching alone. McClellan made the foolish decision to offer Lee battle at Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, where the Army of the Potomac was destroyed on October 1, 1862.

Lee advanced u on the city of Philadelphia and took possession of it. Britain and France extended diplomatic recognition to the Confederate States, and the war formally ended on February 15, 1863, when President Lincoln fearing impeachment, and a possible war with the United Kingdom declared diplomatic recognition to the Confederate States. British Foreign Secretary Lord Russell would serve as mediation between the two states.