Arizona secedes, Texas sacks Gov. Houston

Mesilla, capital of seceded Arizona Territory

• The citizens of the Southwestern town of Mesilla, in present-day New Mexico, adopt an ordinance of secession from the United States, citing as reasons for their separation the region's common interests and geography with the Confederacy, the need of frontier and border protection, and the loss of postal service routes under the United States government. The ordinance proposes secession to the western portions of their self-proclaimed Territory of Arizona. The Confederate government will later recognize and establish a territorial government for Arizona./1861

Gov. Sam Houston

•  The Texas Secession Convention in Austin sacks Texas Governor Sam Houston and replaces him with Lieutenant Governor Edward Clark. Houston, who has accepted Texas citizens’ decision to secede and re-assume its independent sovereignty has also refused to take the oath of loyalty to the Confederate government required by the Texas Secession Convention, and it cost him his job./1861

• Knowing its diplomatic, economic, and military future depend upon international recognition, Confederate Secretary of State, the Honorable Robert Toombs, dispatches three commissioners to Britain and then France to secure recognition for the Confederacy/1861
• Confederate Provisional Congress creates the Confederate Marine Corps. It never numbers more than 600 members and its records are destroyed on purpose near the end of the war./1861

• Georgia's secession convention unanimously ratifies the Confederate Constitution and adopts "an Enunciation of Fundamental Principles" explaining the doctrine of state sovereignty and why Georgia is fully within her right to secede and take all subsequent actions. It is a clear statement of the doctrine of sovereign states' rights which all the seceded states firmly believe. It explain that governments are expressions of sovereignty, and when government is not doing its job to serve the sovereign people, it must be reformed or overthrown./1861

• Robert E. Lee of Virginia is promoted to full Colonel in the US Army. Edwin Vose Sumner is promoted to Brigadier General and given command of the US Department of the Pacific, replacing Albert Sidney Johnston/1861