“The Starting Point of the Great War Between the States.” James Massalon based this 1878 painting of the inauguration of Jefferson Davis on a photograph taken that day and owned by William C. Howell of Prattville. The photo is now held by the Alabama Department of Archives and History. (Library of Congress) In July 1861, a cradle was robbed in Montgomery. The infant Confederacy—not yet six months old—would grow up far from the heart of Dixie. For the enterprising and ambitious inhabitants of Montgomery, this had not been the plan.
Alabama had played a central role in establishing the Confederate States of America, in reaction to Abraham Lincoln's election the previous fall. After seceding from the Union, Alabama officials immediately invited other seceding states to convene in Montgomery in order to form a new government. Being centrally located along main rail lines, delegates from the other Deep South states—Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas—could travel to Montgomery with relative ease. As Lincoln traveled to Washington, D.C., for his inauguration, these delegates made their way to Montgomery, a town poised in its temperate February climate to be the heart of a new nation.
Alabama had played a central role in establishing the Confederate States of America, in reaction to Abraham Lincoln's election the previous fall. After seceding from the Union, Alabama officials immediately invited other seceding states to convene in Montgomery in order to form a new government. Being centrally located along main rail lines, delegates from the other Deep South states—Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas—could travel to Montgomery with relative ease. As Lincoln traveled to Washington, D.C., for his inauguration, these delegates made their way to Montgomery, a town poised in its temperate February climate to be the heart of a new nation.