February 11 1861 Monday
USA. Abraham Lincoln departed Springfield, Illinois, for Washington, DC, to assume the office of President of the United States. He spent twelve days on the tour, giving twenty major speeches at destinations across the Northern states. He never visited his home town again.
USA. US Commander John Adolphus Bernard Dahlgren USN urged the US Congress to approve the building of more modern gun sloops and an iron-cased armoured warship.
Mississippi. Jefferson Finis Davis left his plantation at Brierfield to be inaugurated as President of the Confederate States of America at Montgomery, Alabama.
Union Organisation
Commander in Chief: President James Buchanan
Vice-President: John Cabell Breckinridge
Secretary of War: Joseph Holt
Secretary of the Navy: Isaac Toucey
African Squadron: William Inman
Brazil Squadron: Joshua Ratoon Sands
East Indian (Asiatic) Squadron: Cornelius Kinchiloe Stribling
European Squadron: vacant
Home Squadron: Garrett J Prendergast
Mediterranean Squadron: Charles H Bell
Pacific Squadron: John Berrien Montgomery
General–in-Chief: Winfield Scott
Department of the Pacific: Albert Sidney Johnston
- District of Oregon: George Wright
Department of the East: John Ellis Wool
Department of New Mexico: Thomas Turner Fauntleroy
Department of Texas: David Emanuel Twiggs
Department of Utah: Philip St George Cooke
Department of the West: William Selby Harney
Confederate Organisation
President: Thomas Howell Cobb (interim)
Vice-President: Alexander Hamilton Stephens
Union Generals
Major-General USA
Winfield Scott
Brigadier-General USA
John Ellis Wool
David Emanuel Twiggs
William Selby Harney
Brigadier-General USA (Staff)
Joseph Eggleston Johnston
American Civil War High Command 