American Military History, Volume 1 by Richard W. Stewart

Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presidency on November 6, 1860, triggered the long-simmering political crisis. Lincoln's party was opposed to the expansion of slavery into the new western territories. This threatened both the economic and political interests of the South, since the Southern states depended on slavery to maintain their way of life and their power in Congress. South Carolina on December 20 enacted an ordinance declaring that "the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the ‘United States of America,' is hereby dissolved." Within six weeks, six other deep-South states seceded from the Union and seized Federal property inside their borders, including military installations, save Fort Pickens outside Pensacola and Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. (Map 21) To the seven states that formed the Confederate States of America on February 18, 1861, at Montgomery, Alabama, the U.S. government's retention of the forts was equivalent to a warlike act. To provide his fledgling government with a military force, on March 6 the new Confederate Executive, Jefferson Davis, called for a 100,000-man volunteer force to serve for twelve months.

Noncommissioned Officer Frock Coat, ca. 1861;