Civil War History Post 1: Secession Week

       As promised, we're marking the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War - the event that singularly made America the country it is today - by noting major events as they occured chronologically.  January, 1861 was generally a slow month - with one major exception....


    South Carolina was the first states to officially secede from the Union on December 20, 1860, after pulling both their Senators from Washington DC.  For three weeks, they stood alone in their resistance. Then, the dominoes fell fast and in rapid succession, what we call Secession Week.



     Yes, the call from the South to leave the Union caught momentum on January 9, 1861, when Mississippi vote to secede, followed by Florida on the 10th, Alabama on the 11th, and Georgia on the 19th. Louisiana also left on the 26th, and Texas quickly joined the Confederacy on February 1st. 


     These were the states that left the Union up to the point of Fort Sumter, when Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina left - guess that's why they're called Tar Heels... Kentucky went the Swiss route and declared itself neutral - until Confederate forces entered the state in September.  Nice try, guys....  



    It was said that South Carolina was too small to be a country, and too big to be an insane asylum. After that week, the asylum got much larger - and the chances of reforming the Union peacefully became much less likely.   The stage was set for conflict, and the South soon took the next step - forming a Government.  It happened 150 years ago this week....

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