States convene in Montgomery

Montgomery, Alabama

• Representatives from the seceded states, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, open a convention in Montgomery, Alabama. It is the initial meeting of what will become the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America. Howell Cobb of Georgia is elected president of the convention. The meeting is attended by many former United States senators, including Louisiana’s Judah P. Benjamin and John Slidell, law partners in New Orleans. Benjamin will become Attorney General, then Secretary of War, then Secretary of State, the first Jewish Cabinet member in North American history. Slidell will become involved in the famous international incident, the Trent affair./1861 

• Virginians vote for delegates to a state convention to discuss Secession/1861 

• In Washington, the Peace Convention, opens with 131 delegates from 21 states led by Virginia, with the seceded states conspicuously missing. The Convention is headed by former President John Tyler, who has joined with like-minded people in a last desperate effort to compromise and save the Union./1861