<P> The Confederate States of America (CSA or C.S.), commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was an unrecognized country in North America that existed from 1861 to 1865 . The Confederacy was originally formed by seven secessionist slave - holding states--South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas--in the Lower South region whose regional economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture, particularly cotton, and a plantation system that relied upon the labor of African - American slaves . </P> <P> Each state declared its secession from the United States following the November 1860 election of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. presidency on a platform which opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories . Before Lincoln took office in March, a new Confederate government was established in February 1861, which was considered illegal by the government of the United States . States volunteered militia units and the new government hastened to form its own Confederate States Army from scratch practically overnight . After the Civil War began in April, four slave states of the Upper South--Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina--also declared their secession and joined the Confederacy . The Confederacy later accepted Missouri and Kentucky as members, although neither officially declared secession nor were they ever largely controlled by Confederate forces; Confederate shadow governments attempted to control the two states but were later exiled from them . </P> <P> The government of the United States (the Union) rejected the claims of secession and considered the Confederacy illegitimate . The War began with the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina . No foreign government officially recognized the Confederacy as an independent country, although Great Britain and France granted it belligerent status, which allowed Confederate agents to contract with private concerns for arms and other supplies . In early 1865, after four years of heavy fighting which led to over 620,000 military deaths, all the Confederate forces surrendered and the Confederacy vanished . The war lacked a formal end; nearly all Confederate forces had been forced into surrender or deliberately disbanded by the end of 1865, by which point the dwindling manpower and resources of the Confederacy were facing overwhelming odds . By 1865, Jefferson Davis lamented that the Confederacy had "disappeared". </P> <P> On March 11, 1861, the Confederate Constitution of seven state signatories--South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas--replaced the February 7 Provisional Confederate States Constitution with one stating in its preamble a desire for a "permanent federal government". Four additional slave - holding states--Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina--declared their secession and joined the Confederacy following a call by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln for troops from each state to recapture Sumter and other seized federal properties in the South . Missouri and Kentucky were represented by partisan factions from those states, while the legitimate governments of those two states retained formal adherence to the Union . Also fighting for the Confederacy were two of the "Five Civilized Tribes"--the Chocktaw and the Chickasaw--located in Indian Territory and a new, but uncontrolled, Confederate Territory of Arizona . Efforts by certain factions in Maryland to secede were halted by federal imposition of martial law; Delaware, though of divided loyalty, did not attempt it . A Unionist government in western parts of Virginia organized the new state of West Virginia, which was admitted to the Union during the war on June 20, 1863 . </P>

Who helped the confederate states in the civil war