Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America (also called the Confederacy, the Confederate States, and CSA) was the government formed by eleven southern states of the United States of America between 1861 and 1865.

Seven states declared their independence from the United States before Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as President; four more did so after the American Civil War began at the Battle of Fort Sumter. The United States of America ("The Union") held secession illegal and refused recognition of the Confederacy. Although no European powers officially recognized the CSA, British commercial interests sold it warships and operated blockade runners to help supply it.

When Robert E. Lee and other Confederate generals surrendered their armies in the spring of 1865, the CSA collapsed, ending the war without subsequent guerrilla warfare. A decade-long process known as Reconstruction temporarily gave civil rights and the right to vote to the freedmen, expelled ex-Confederate leaders from office, and permanently re-admitted the states to representation in Congress.