<P> The government of the United States (the Union) rejected the claims of secession and considered the Confederacy illegally founded . 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 620,000 - 850,000 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 February 22, 1862, the Confederate Constitution of seven state signatories--Mississippi, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas--replaced the Provisional Constitution of February 8, 1861, 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 . </P> <P> Missouri and Kentucky were represented by partisan factions adopting the forms of state governments without control of substantial territory or population in either case . The antebellum state governments in both maintained their representation in the Union . Also fighting for the Confederacy were two of the "Five Civilized Tribes"--the Choctaw and the Chickasaw--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 was formed in opposition to the secessionist state government in Richmond and administered the western parts of Virginia that had been occupied by Federal troops . The Restored Government later recognized the new state of West Virginia, which was admitted to the Union during the war on June 20, 1863, and re-located to Alexandria for the rest of the war . </P> <P> Confederate control over its claimed territory and population in congressional districts steadily shrank from 73% to 34% during the course of the American Civil War due to the Union's successful overland campaigns, its control of the inland waterways into the South, and its blockade of the southern coast . With the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, the Union made abolition of slavery a war goal (in addition to reunion). As Union forces moved southward, large numbers of plantation slaves were freed . Many joined the Union lines, enrolling in service as soldiers, teamsters and laborers . The most notable advance was Sherman's "March to the Sea" in late 1864 . Much of the Confederacy's infrastructure was destroyed, including telegraphs, railroads and bridges . Plantations in the path of Sherman's forces were severely damaged . Internal movement became increasingly difficult for Southerners, weakening the economy and limiting army mobility . </P>

Which new state was formed at the beginning of the civil war