Montgomery: The Civil War

Because of the importance of cotton to this area Alabama needed to maintain slavery and hence was very important in the civil war. It had money, it had resources, it had manufacturing capability, it was safely away from the action. The civil war for Alabama retained its romance long after it had become a bloody war of attrition for the rest of the country. Montgomery was declared the first capital of the Confederacy and the first action, firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston, was ordered from Montgomery. Because it was so far from the fighting many of the antebellum houses still remain.