1861 January 19th

January 19 1861 Saturday

Georgia Seceded

Go to January 20 1861

Alabama. Alabama delegates were elected to attend the Southern Congress.

Georgia. The state of Georgia passed the Ordinance of Secession by a vote of 208 to 89 at Milledgeville. Georgia became the fifth state to secede from the Union.

Mississippi. The Mississippi state legislature’s committee presented resolutions to provide for a Southern Confederacy, and to establish a provisional government for any presently seceded states and states that might secede in the future.

Virginia. The Virginia state legislature passed a resolution that if “all efforts to reconcile the differences of the country should fail, every consideration of honour and interest demands that Virginia shall unite her destinies with her sister slaveholding States”. It also announced that “No reconstruction of the Union can be permanent or satisfactory which would not secure to each section self-protecting power against any invasion of the Union upon the reserved rights of either”.

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

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