1861 February 13th

February 13 1861 Wednesday

Adoption of the Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States

Go to February 14 1861

USA. The election of Abraham Lincoln as US President and Hannibal Hamlin as Vice-President were confirmed by the United States’ Electoral College, despite the absence of most of the Southern members.

CSA. The Confederate Provisional Government adopted the provisional Constitution of the Confederate States of America.

CSA.  The Confederate Congress authorised the Committee on Naval Affairs to call together all available maritime and naval specialists across the Confederacy to advise on naval plans. The Committee on Naval Affairs met in Montgomery and began immediately to organise the Confederate Navy, recruit naval officers from the US Navy, and prepare coastal defences of the five principal ports: New Orleans, Mobile, Pensacola, Savannah, and Charleston. On 20 February 1861, the Confederate Congress created the Department of the Navy and appointed Stephen Russell Mallory, a former US Senator and former member of the US Committee on Naval Affairs to be the Secretary of the Navy.

North Carolina. The North Carolina state legislature publicly received commissioners from Georgia.

Virginia. The Virginia State Convention met to discuss matters of secession.

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