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Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee (in order) secede. War traditionally begins at Bull Run/Manassas. The Buchanan governments response to the firing upon the unarmed cargo ship Star of the West in January of 1861 was a strongly-worded nothing. US armories, arsenals, and barracks across the seceded states surrendered to armed mobs wit... hout a fight during his administration. Then the South Carolinians wanted Ft. Sumter to just give upand they wouldnt. In the patois of the time, reduced meant destroyed or taken. South Carolina started shooting and everything went downhill after that. Davis faulty assumption/poor leadership as to Lincolns reaction to an attack on Sumter led to the war, the first failure of the Confederacy. For a country that was so dependent on imports and exports, The Confederacy had no reliable means of defending any maritime assets. Yes, the Confederacy built ships to break the blockade, but the blockade was porous until late 1862. Nonetheless, the Confederate Congress, with Daviss agreement, began to withhold cotton when cotton could get out as early as the winter of 1861. They believed that starved of their cotton, Britain and France would hasten to rescue the Confederacy. But Europe depended too much on the Norths output and too little on the Souths, and the Confederacy never admitted this. The Confederacy believed Europe would break the blockade and land troops to fight off the Yankee invaders in exchange for cotton. When even recognition didnt come, Confederate leaders tried all sorts of schemes to finance the war with cotton futures: all failed. As the war went on and they lost more territory, the schemes became even more fantastic. One even surrendered the Gulf of Mexico to whoever would support themwithout asking the Gulf States. It is a leaders responsibility to act in the best interests of a majority of the led. Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Congress did not guide the Confederacy in a practical or realistic direction. Aside from the miscalculation about Lincoln, ...Read More