Robert Toombs to the People of Georgia (telegram).[i] [Washington, D. C, Dec. 23, 1860.] Fellow Citizens of Georgia: I came here to secure your constitutional rights or to demonstrate to you that you can get no guarantees for these rights from your Northern confederates. The whole subject was referred to a committee of thirteen in [...]

Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War, October 1861 Top: Representative Lawrence M. Keitt, Representative John McQueen, Representative Milledge Luke Bonham Middle: Senator James Chesnut, Senator James Henry Hammond Bottom: Representative William Waters Boyce,  Representative John D. Ashmore, and Representative William Porcer Miles Note: Even though this was published late in 1861, the Harper’s Weekly [...]

To Alexander H. Stephens For your own eye only.            Springfield, Ills. Dec. 22, 1860 Hon. A. H. Stephens            My dear Sir                                  Your obliging answer to my short note is just received, and for which please accept my thanks. I fully appreciate the present peril the country is in, and the weight of responsibility on [...]

Charleston Mercury  broadside, December 20, 1860 We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the twenty-third day of May in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven hundred and eighty [...]

Cuthbert, Ga. Decr. 19, 1860. Dear Governor, I see by the papers you are to be in Macon tomorrow. I am glad to find you again upon Georgia soil; there is work to be done and nobody doing it. I am fearful of the consequences of such supineness and neglect. Where are all our speakers? [...]

Athens, Dec. 19/60. Dear Brother, Your appointments are received and a man sent around with hand bills to post them up in each county. I have barely time to write this to get it into the mail. A thousand cheers for So. Ca.! We have a torchlight procession tonight. From Annual Report of the American [...]

The Liberator, Boston, November 16, 1860 by William Lloyd Garrison The election of the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, to the Presidency of the United States, has operated upon the whole slaveholding South in a manner indicative of the torments of the damned. The brutal dastards and bloody-minded tyrants, who have so long ruled the country [...]

Athens [Ga.], Dec. 15/60. Dear Brother, By all means come directly to Athens or else send me a list of appointments for you to speak in the following counties—Franklin, Banks, Habersham-, Union, Lumpkin, Forsyth, Hall and Gwinnett. We have trouble above here, and no one but yourself can quell it. Have you seen my letter [...]

Mrs. Jacob Thompson[i] to Mrs. Howell Cobb. Washington City, Dec. 15/60. My Dear Mrs. Cobb, … I did not see Gov. Cobb after you left. Mr. Thompson went to see him every day and often invited him to take dinner with us but he never could spare the time. His resignation created great excitement here. [...]

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT OF ALABAMA Montgomery, December 14, 1860. Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln, a Black Republican, to the Presidency of the United States, by a purely sectional vote, and by a party whose leading and publicly avowed object is the destruction of the institution of slavery as it exists in the slaveholding states, and [...]

William Henry Trescot to Howell Cobb. Washington [D. C], Decem, 14, 1860. Dear Sir: I have no time to tell all that has happened here. I write to say that if you hope to do any good in Columbia, recommend the following plan which I cannot argue but which will explain itself. It has the [...]

Washington, December 13th. At the request of Hon. Reuben Davis of Mississippi, member of the Committee of States, the Southern members of Congress assembled at his rooms to-night and adjourned at eleven o’clock, at which the following declaration was made and signed by those present. It had already been presented to the Committee of Thirty-three: [...]

Robert Toombs to E. B. Pullin and Others.[i] Washington, Ga. Dec. 13, 1860. Gentlemen: Your letter of the 10th. inst., inviting me on behalf of the citizens of Danburg and its vicinity to address you at an early day, was received yesterday. I regret very much that my public duties deprive me of the pleasure [...]

Washington City, 10 Dec, 1860. My Dear Wife, As you have already learned through the telegraph, I have resigned my office and am again a private citizen. The President and myself part in the most friendly spirit. We both see and feel the necessity and both regret that it should be so. I shall leave [...]

Washington, 10 December, 1860. My Dear Sir: I have received your communication of Saturday evening resigning the position of Secretary of the Treasury which you have held since the commencement of my administration. Whilst I deeply regret that you have determined to separate yourself from us at the present critical moment, yet I admit that [...]

  Howell Cobb to James Buchanan.[i] Washington City, Dec. 8, 1860. My Dear Sir: A sense of duty to the State of Georgia requires me to take a step which makes it proper that I should no longer continue to be a member of your Cabinet. In the troubles of the country consequent upon the [...]

I am providing background information for authors of the civil war era material that I will be posting as I blog my way through the civil war 160 years later.  They will all be listed on the Authors page, accessible on the menu at the top of every page.  Each listed author will also include [...]

[COPY.] Columbia, December 7, 1860. [STRICTLY   CONFIDENTIAL.] My Dear Sir: With a sincere desire to prevent a collision of force, I have thought proper to address you directly and truthfully on points of deep and immediate interest. I am authentically informed that the forts in Charleston harbor are now being thoroughly prepared to turn, [...]

The Charleston Mercury, December 7, 1860 At one o’clock yesterday, Messrs. E. LAFITTE & CO. erected a handsome flagstaff, twenty-five feet high on the roof of their office, Savannah Packet wharf, and unfurled a banner at its summit which has been universally admired. The flag has a plain white ground—something like the Hayne and Meeting [...]

Washington City, 7 Dec, 1860. My Dear Wife, … I put a printed copy of my address to the people of Georgia in Judge Black’s[i] hand to be handed to the President. Whether I remain here after its publication to the world will soon be decided. I suppose I cannot; but I hope to part [...]

Executive Office, Columbia, S. C, November 29, 1860. Mr. Wm. Henry Trescot. Dear Sir: Although South Carolina is determined to secede from the Federal Union very soon after her Convention meets, yet the desire of her constituted authorities is, not to do anything that will bring on a collision before the ordinance of secession has [...]

Alexander H. Stephens to J. Henly Smith. Crawfordville [Ga.], Nov. 21st, 1860. Dear Smith, I got home yesterday from Milledgeville after an absence of ten days. I was expecting a letter from you and some papers but found none. I wrote to you soon after our election before I left home. I am anxious to [...]

Richmond Daily Dispatch, November 9, 1860 A dispatch from Springfield, Ill, speaking of Lincoln’s visit to the polls to vote on Tuesday, says: “Mr. Lincoln advanced as rapidly as possible to the voting table, and handed in his ticket, upon which, it is hardly necessary to say, all the names were Republicans. The only alteration [...]

Crawfordville [Ga.], Nov. 8th, 1860. Dear Smith, I got home Sunday night last—was here at the election. Taliaferro County did well; but the State I fear has gone for Breckinridge by the popular vote. The old Eighth is all right, I feel confident. I have just heard that Judge Andrews[i] has been elected to fill [...]