The Confederate States of America began its short, ill-fated existence in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1861.

On this day in 1861, representatives from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, states that had already seceded from the United States, met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a new republic. They named themselves the Confederate States of America and elected Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens President and Vice President the following day. Faced with civil war, political strife and financial difficulties, the Confederacy collapsed only four years later.

EDSITEment 
Students gain an understanding of the basic disagreements between the North and the South that led to the secession of the Southern states, the formation of the Confederacy and eventually to the Civil War in the EDSITEment lesson Factory vs. Plantation in the North and South (6-8).

In People and Places in the North and South< (6-8), students concentrate on differences as they look at the way people made a living before the Civil War in two communities, one Northern and one Southern. They explore the kinds of changes that were taking place in the United States at the time.

Both lessons are part of the EDSITEment unit, Before Brother Fought Brother: Life in the North and South 1847-1861 (6-8), which examines life in America leading up to the Civil War from several perspectives.

The unit A House Dividing: The Growing Crisis of Sectionalism in Antebellum America (9-12) traces the development of sectionalism in the United States as it was driven by the growing dependence upon, and defense of, black slavery in the southern states.

Smithsonian's History Explorer
Use primary sources as the inspiration for Comparing Confederate and Union Soldiers in the Civil War (6-9). After examining uniforms and viewing two short video clips, students develop questions and perform short research projects to uncover the motivations behind the Civil War and the conditions for the soldiers who fought. This lesson plan, which includes background information and full-color primary sources, was produced to accompany the exhibition The Price of Freedom: Americans at War, by the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Xpeditions 
Students can look at the Civil War in the context of a boundary dispute in the Xpeditions lesson>Yours, Mine, and Ours: Determining Boundaries (9-12).