...Federal Constitution and the Union, was clandestinely prepared during the winter of 1860 and 1861, and assumed an open organization in the form of a reasonable provisional Government at Montgomery. Alabama , on the 8th day of February, 1861. On the 12th day of April, 1861,the insurgents committed the flagrant act of civil war by the bombardment and capture of Fort Sumter, which cut off the hope of immed...