John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

[14] lime an alleged vote (taken on February 23d) ratifying the ordinance was submitted to him, he refused to recognize further acts of the convention; whereupon the enraged convention (March 16th) declared his office vacant, and empowered the lieutenant-governor to seize the executive authority.

Meanwhile General Twiggs, commanding the Federal troops in Texas, by treasonable connivance, on February 18th surrendered the military posts and property to a hasty collection of about a regiment of rebels in arms, purporting to act by authority of the convention, and set the various scattered detachments of the army in motion to evacuate the State. Before this had taken place, the newly inaugurated Lincoln administration sent a messenger to Houston, who was still reputed by public rumor to be loyal, and offered to concentrate a strong body of the United States troops under the new commander, Colonel Waite, form an entrenched camp, and sustain his authority as governor. Houston, however (March 29th), refused the offer; and having neither the United States Government nor the people of Texas to lean upon, the conspirators relentlessly pushed him into an ignoble obscurity and transferred the State to the military domination of the Rebellion.

Thus, by easy stages and successive usurpations of authority, rebellion accomplished the first step of its operations unmolested and unopposed. South Carolina, as we have seen, seceded on December 20, 1860; Mississippi on January 9, 1861; Florida on January 10th; Alabama on January 11th; Georgia on January 19th; Louisiana on January 26th; and Texas on February 1st. The various ordinances are in substance that devised and adopted by South Carolina. All the States put on the airs of independent republics, though this pretence was of short duration, as was designed and arranged by the conspiracy.