Portal:American Civil War/Grand Parade of the States/09
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Mississippi was the second state to secede from the Union on January 9, 1861. It joined six other Cotton States to form the Confederate States of America in February. Mississippi's location along the lengthyMississippi River made it strategically important to both the North and South; dozens of battles were fought in the state as armies repeatedly clashed near key towns and cities.
Mississippi troops fought in every major theater of the war, although most were concentrated in the west. The only President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, was a native Mississippian. Prominent Mississippi generals included William Barksdale, Carnot Posey, Wirt Adams, Earl Van Dorn, and Benjamin G. Humphreys.
For years prior to the Civil War, Mississippi had heavily voted Democratic, 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 of the Northern Democrats receiving 3,282 votes (4.75%). Not a single Mississippian voted for Abraham Lincoln, who won the national election.
Long a hotbed of secession and states' rights, Mississippi left the Union on January 9, 1861, briefly forming the Republic of Mississippi before joining the Confederacy not a month later. Although there were small pockets of citizens who remained sympathetic to the Union, the vast majority of Mississippians embraced the Confederate cause, and thousands flocked to the military. Around 80,000 white men from Mississippi fought in the Confederate Army; some 500 white Mississippians fought for the Union. As the war progressed, a considerable number of freed or escaped slaves joined the United States Colored Troops and similar black regiments. More than 17,000 black Mississippi slaves and freedmen fought for the Union.
