Mississippi in the American Civil War
| State of Mississippi | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nickname(s): "The Magnolia State" | |||||
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| Capital | Jackson | ||||
| Largest City | Jackson | ||||
| Admission to confederacy | February 4, 1861 (2nd) | ||||
| Population |
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| Forces supplied |
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| Major garrisons/armories | Corinth | ||||
| Governor |
John Pettus (1859–1863) Charles Clark (1863–1865) |
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| Lieutenant Governor | None | ||||
| Senators |
Albert Brown (1862–1865) James Phelan, Sr. (1862–1864) John Watson (1864–1865) |
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| Representatives | List | ||||
| Restored to the Union | February 23, 1870 | ||||
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Mississippi was the second southern state to declare its secession from the United States of America, on January 9, 1861. It joined with six other southern slave-holding states to form the Confederacy on February 4, 1861. Mississippi's location along the lengthy Mississippi River made it strategically important to both the Union and the Confederacy; dozens of battles were fought in the state as armies repeatedly clashed near key towns and transportation nodes.
Mississippian troops fought in every major theater of the American Civil War, although most were concentrated in the Western Theater. Confederate president Jefferson Davis was a Mississippi politician and operated a large slave cotton plantation there. Prominent Mississippian generals during the war included William Barksdale, Carnot Posey, Wirt Adams, Earl Van Dorn, Robert Lowry and Benjamin G. Humphreys.
For years prior to the American Civil War, slave-holding Mississippi had voted heavily for the Democrats, especially as the Whigs declined in their influence. During the 1860 presidential election, the state supported Southern Democrat candidate John C. Breckinridge, giving him 40,768 votes (59.0% of the total of 69,095 ballots cast). John Bell, the candidate of the Constitutional Union Party, came in a distant second with 25,045 votes (36.25% of the total), with Stephen A. Douglas, a northern Democrat, receiving 3,282 votes (4.75%). Abraham Lincoln, who won the national election, was not on the ballot in Mississippi. According to one Mississippian newspaper:
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