Confederate Uprising

 

Confederate Uprising
Part of the War of Contingency
Union artillery firing on Confederate forces
Date March 18th - April 2nd, 1866 Location Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland Result Pyrrhic Union Victory Collapse of civil order and security within the Union Beginning of the Union's collapse and the War of Contingency
Belligerents
United States	Confederate States
Commanders and leaders
Ulysses S. Grant William T. Sherman	Robert E. Lee Stand Watie
Strength
55,000 soldiers 10,000 militiamen	35,000 soldiers 15,000 militiamen
Casualties and losses
10,000 total casualties	8,000 total casualties

The Confederate Uprising, also known as the Confederate Insurrection and the Death of the Union, was a large-scale uprising carried out by surviving remnants of the Confederate States Army along with other anti-union fighters in 1866 following the news of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and his entire cabinet leaving the Union leaderless and unstable. The uprising was meant to capture Washington D.C. and help restore the Confederacy while the Union was in disarray and possibly end in its dissolution. The uprising began on March 18th when Confederate Army remnants rose up and began attacking Union Army troops in Maryland and Virginia. When West Virginia saw houses burned by radical Union troops, Robert E. Lee joined the rebellion and commanded Anti-Union fighters in the Battle of Virginia Plains and forced the Union forces out of West Virginia and Western Virginia. Stand Waltie joined the rebellion and commanded Confederate troops marching towards the capital, but were repulsed due to the city's defenses.

The uprising eventually ended on April 2nd when the Confederate armies stopped the went on the defensive and attempted to hold their territories. During this revolt, anti-Union officials and politicians proclaimed the establishment of a provisional government and the Confederacy's independence was restored, but faced resistance from pro-Union sympathizers and Union Army units that managed to repulse the Confederates and recapture territory. The Union government began to break apart slowly and the Union's dissolution had begun. The uprising kicked off the War of Contingency began and with the Union's government nearly collapsed, the northern states declared their independence in the months following the uprising. The United States eventually dissolved and was succeeded by the United Commonwealth and would fight the war to recapture all breakaway states and restore the Union.

Background

In the weeks following the end of the American Civil War, Union President Abraham Lincoln and his entire cabinet was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth and a group of conspirators lead by himself. The attack was carried out to avenge the defeat of the Confederacy in the civil war and its occupation by Union forces following the end of the civil war. Not long after the collapse of Lincoln's government, a provisional military government lead by Ulysses S. Grant as Interim President while other Union Army generals were appointed military governors of different states that were now organized into military districts after Lincoln's death. The Union, now left leaderless and with little security, suffered from internal unrest as the continued occupation of Southern States expanded up north and state governments were soon disbanded and their jurisdictions were now handed over to the military governors such as William T. Sherman in the Georgian Military District. This caused unrest in the states and calls for secession were seeping into public circles. This caused many to join remaining units of the Confederate Army that continued fighting despite the war's end and an underground Confederate resistance movement had soon sprung up across the Southern States. Meanwhile, secret organizations began plotting to establish an independent nation in their respective states believing that the Union's demise was imminent and they needed to break way immediately.

Rumors of northern separatism did not go unnoticed by Grant's government and he ordered reinforcements into New England and the Midwestern territories close to the border of Sierra in order to retain control over the territories. Many of these reinforcements were units redeployed from the south and this weakened the number of troops present in southern districts such as the Virginia Military District, the latter of which was viewed as essential from Confederate rebels to take if they were to make sure their uprising succeeded and the capture of Washington D.C. was critical if the Union was to be quickly defeated before a new civil war could erupt. Stand Watie, the last Confederate general to keep fighting at the end of the civil war, was now the leader of the Confederate resistance, but wanted to earn the support of Robert E. Lee due to his military experience to raise morale among the troops and use his skills to capture Virginia, his home state, and free it from Union occupation. Such an idea convinced Lee to join the rebellion and managed to sneak away to Confederate bases where he was given command over the newly formed 1st Virginian Infantry Division.