Nov. 18, 1861

Nov. 18, 1861: In an Address to the Congress of the Confederate States in Richmond, Pres. Jefferson Davis offered these encouragements, among others:
A succession of glorious victories at Bethel, Bull Run, Manassas, Springfield, Lexington, Leesburg and Belmont, has checked the wicked invasion which greed of gain and the unhallowed lust of power brought upon our soil, and has proved that numbers cease to avail when directed against a people fighting for the sacred right of self-government and the privileges of freemen. After more than seven months of war . . . upon a fair comparison between the two belligerents as to men, military means, and financial condition, the Confederate States are relatively much stronger now than when the struggle commenced.
–In Russellville, Kentucky, near the Tennessee border, 112 pro-secession delegates gather and vote to form a new state government and pass an ordinance of secession. The lawfully-elected state legislature is pro-Union and still functioning at the capital in Frankfort.

–In Hatteras, North Carolina, pro-Union delegates from 42 counties meet in convention, repudiate the state’s May 20 ordinance of secession, and form a provisional state government, with Marble Nash Taylor as Provisional Governor of North Carolina.