The Confederate States of America were formed by eleven states which seceded from the Union after the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. The first to go was South Carolina in 1860. In January of 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana followed suit. Texas joined in March and before the end of the year, so did Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
The CSA elected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi to be their President. The original capital was Montgomery, but when Virginia joined, it was moved to Richmond. The Confederacy adopted a constitution which, interestingly, ended the foreign slave trade, although not slavery itself.
Although the Confederacy wished to seceded peacefully, the Union would not allow it. In the Civil War which followed, the Confederacy lost 500,000 men killed or wounded out of a white population of about six million, and $5 billion in treasure. The government ceased to exist after the final Union victory in 1865.
