The 1861 Alabaman constitution granted citizenship to current U.S. residents, but prohibited import duties (tariffs) on foreign goods, limited a standing military, and as a final issue, opposed emancipation by any nation, but urged protection of African-American slaves with trials by jury, and reserved the power to regulate or prohibit the African slave trade.

Alabama provided a significant source of troops and leaders, military material, supplies, food, horses and mules.

At the southern coast, the Alabama ports remained open (with Union blockades, but guarded by forts, floating mines, and obstacle paths) for almost 4 years using blockade runners, until the Battle of Mobile Bay (Aug 1864) and the Battle of Fort Blakeley (April 1865) forced Mobile to surrender the last major Confederate port.

In the speech, he praised the Confederate constitution for its un-euphemistic protections of the right of its citizens to own slaves: We have dissolved the late Union chiefly because of the negro quarrel.

And yet does not he, who wished the slave trade left for the action of Congress, see that he proposed to open a Pandora's box among us and to cause our political arena again to resound with this discussion.

Even before hostilities began in April 1861, he seized U.S. forts on the Alabama Gulf Coast (Morgan and Gaines)[15] and the arsenal in Mount Vernon, in January 1861,[5][13] sent agents to buy rifles in the Northeast, and scoured the state for weapons.

He ran for Congress, but was soundly defeated (he was subsequently elected in 1863 on a wave of anti-war sentiment, with war-weariness growing in Alabama).

This event resulted in four more southern slave holding states, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina, to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy and its war effort.

Historian James Doster reports that when the war ended, "Only a fourth of the rolling stock remained, and that was in bad condition.

The 184-mile roadway from Okolona to Union City was damaged by decay and destruction of bridges, trestlework, crossties, and water stations".

Soldiers were poorly equipped, especially after 1863, and often resorted to pillaging the dead for boots, belts, canteens, blankets, hats, shirts and pants.

Uncounted thousands of slaves worked with Confederate troops; they took care of horses and equipment, cooked and did laundry, hauled supplies, and helped in field hospitals.

The Confederate Naval Yard built ships and was noted for launching the CSS Tennessee in 1863 to defend Mobile Bay.

When supplies were low, it advertised for housewives to save the contents of their chamber pots, as urine was a rich source of organic nitrogen.

In 1863 Federal forces secured a foothold in northern Alabama in spite of spirited opposition from Confederate cavalry under General Nathan B. Forrest.

The Magee Farm, north of Mobile, was the site of preliminary arrangements for the surrender of the last Confederate States Army east of the Mississippi River.

Federal foragers in Northern Alabama were, for the most part, an adventurous group that were aided by loyal Unionists, and they took all they needed for their vast forces, often raiding farms and homes previously struck by the Confederates.

Their missions included acting as spies, guides, scouts, recruiters behind enemy lines, and anti-guerrilla fighters to protect Union forces and infrastructure.

They cut back on purchases, brought out old spinning wheels and enlarged their gardens with peas and peanuts to provide clothing and food.

The households were severely hurt by inflation in the cost of everyday items and the shortages of food, fodder for the animals, and medical supplies for the wounded.

[35][36] Jonathan Wiener studied the census data on plantations in black-belt counties, 1850–70, and found that the War did not drastically alter the responsibilities and roles of women.

The age of the groom went up as younger women married older planters, and birth rates dropped sharply during 1863-68 during Reconstruction.

Storey finds that their intense loyalty to kin, neighbors, and nation strengthened the Unionists against Confederate ideological pressures so much that they preferred to abandon the slave system and their high socioeconomic status in order to remain true to the Union.

"[40] Many of the Confederate guerrillas in northern Alabama were detached cavalry units that were used to great advantage in protecting the home front, as opposed to serving in the main army.

[42] These renegades sometimes worked with regular U.S. forces based in Pensacola, Florida, and their depredations led several leading citizens of these counties to petition the governor, T.H.

[43] Some local citizens, such as Methodist minister Bill Sketoe of Newton, were even hanged by Home Guard elements for alleged acts of collaboration with these guerrillas.

The next year, Governor Robert M. Patton estimated that 20,000 veterans had returned home permanently disabled, and there were 20,000 widows and 60,000 orphans.

The bicameral First Confederate Congress (1862–64) included two senators from Alabama—Clement Claiborne Clay and William Lowndes Yancey (died July 23, 1863; replaced by Robert Jemison Jr.).

Representing Alabama in the House of Representatives were Thomas Jefferson Foster, William Russell Smith, John Perkins Ralls, Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, Francis Strother Lyon, William Parish Chilton Sr., David Clopton, James Lawrence Pugh, and Edmund Strother Dargan.

War practices were controversial, with land mines at Fort Blakeley exploding on Union troops even after the battle ended.