Video: 'Louisiana in the Civil War'

(Saturday, January 26, 1861; 11 weeks after the 1860 United States presidential election) — 81 days after Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the presidential election of 1860 on a platform which opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories, Louisiana became the sixth state to secede today when delegates to the Secession Convention meeting in Baton Rouge voted 113 to 17 to leave the Union.

Lousiana followed South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida Alabama and Georgia. By February, one more cotton state (Texas) would follow, forming the Confederate States of America.