Why was the Confederate capital moved

Rob9641

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from Montgomery to Richmond? I've always thought it was a bit risky, putting your capital so close to "enemy lines," and I've never seen a reason stated. Does anyone know?
 
Because Richmond was the largest city in the CSA. And because they had the infrastructure available to sustain a federal government. Montgomery never had that. But you are right, it was rather close to the federal lines. After Richmond fell Davis moved it to Charlotte NC.
 
Was Richmond as large as New Orleans?

The last Confederate capital was Danville, Virginia, but Davis may have been on the way to Charlotte.
 
I'm pretty sure NO was larger than Richmond, but of course, it was taken fairly early on in the war - being a port, it was more vulnerable. And it seems to me there must be some political reason for choosing Richmond - to make sure Virginia was solidly in the Confederacy maybe?
 
One reason is suggested in the book At the Precipice: Americans North and South During the Secession Crisis, by Shearer Davis Bowman. It tells of Jefferson Davis' travel from his home in Brierfiled, MS, to Montgomery. Brierfield is near to Vicksburg, MS.

In early February (1861), a messenger from the Vicksburg telegraph office brought word (to Davis) that the convention delegates from the seceding states meeting in Montgomery had named him the new president of the CSA... Then the "deplorable state of the rail system in the South... forced him to travel nearly seven hundred miles-north, east, and then south-to reach Montgomery," which lay a mere 100 miles east of Jackson.

(This points to the infrastructure deficiencies of Montgomery as noted in the 2nd post.)
 
I think that is quite true - Montgomery was still something of a frontier town and lacked many of the amenities Richmond had in abundance. Inns, hotels, passable roads and, as mentioned before, railroads. Montgomery wasn't very suitable for a Congress to live in. Richmond was swankier and more established in social circles. It also had strong ties to the Revolution. And, it was in Virginia - Virginia was the most populous state in the Confederacy. It had better access to food supplies and other resources, too. (I think Atlanta was also considered for the capital.)
 
It was the conviction of the confederate leadership that Va. assured the viability of the csa i.e. they wanted to make sure Va. stayed in the confederacdy, through the bad times as well as the good.
 
A Confederacy without Virginia would have dried up in months, if not weeks. In the original seven there was very little industry to speak of. It has been speculated, and I believe it, that tipping Virginia and Tennessee was the primary reason for firing on Ft. Sumter instead of just letting it wither and die. (Dare I say elastrated?)

I've heard it said that taking the Capital to Richmond was a reward for Virginia's secession. Haven't thought that much about it, but Montomery really sucked. Richmond seemed to have all the amenities: access to the sea but not too close, rails, rooms, society. (Boiled peanuts?)
 
A Confederacy without Virginia would have dried up in months, if not weeks. In the original seven there was very little industry to speak of. It has been speculated, and I believe it, that tipping Virginia and Tennessee was the primary reason for firing on Ft. Sumter instead of just letting it wither and die. (Dare I say elastrated?)

I've heard it said that taking the Capital to Richmond was a reward for Virginia's secession. Haven't thought that much about it, but Montomery really sucked. Richmond seemed to have all the amenities: access to the sea but not too close, rails, rooms, society. (Boiled peanuts?)

Boiled peanuts? I hope not. Usually those are found further south. Only weird people like my wife would eat such a mess. Father-in-law from South Alabama was a fanatic. We all got our secrets.
 
Agreed on Hank Williams! Contemporary Montgomery - Hank Williams Museum and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts.
 
Richmond

wasn't in the center of the Confederacy, geographically, but it was the Confederacy's logistic center. Nothing compared in the South to the Tredegar Iron Works. Over half the cannon made in the Confederacy were made there.
I've often thought having the two capitals so close, kept the war going more than a year longer. It wasn't just a matter of attacking the enemy capital; it was protecting your own capital too.

Logistically, the Confederacy should have seen their severe shortcomings. They could field an adequate army for the time; they just lacked logistics to fight a then modern war.
As noted, the railroad system through Alabama was terrible, as Jefferson Davis should have easily recognized, when going to his inauguration from Mississippi.

Even more ignored about the Confederate selection of Richmond, was the inability to protect the waterways of the South. The U.S. controlled the steamboats and their production. There was no way, Virginia could protect western Virginia after secession. The U.S. merely had to send steamboats from Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, on the Ohio river, and discharge troops and supplies.

It seemed real folly for the new Virginia defense commander to send a dispatch to Wheeling, Virginia, as if it would be saved for the Confederacy. Wheeling was just downriver on the Ohio river, from Pittsburgh, and just across the river from Ohio.

One should not just question why the Confederates selected Richmond. The question is how they thought they could win independence of not only of the Confederacy, but of Virginia itself. We see volumes on Chancellorsville and Fredricksburg, but nothing about the Ohio river that ran along western Virginia. It is as if no one should ever question what the authorities in Richmond and Virginia were ever thinking at the beginning.
 
The only thing I can think of that's wrong about selecting Richmond as a capital is it's proximity to the northern capital. Still, it held out for four years, and I wonder if any other location could have stood as long.

But its choice was unfortunate for Virginia in that Richmond required defending and armies tramped the fields and farms of Virginia for those four years.

It is quite obvious why Montgomery wouldn't do. (I spent a week there one day not too long ago.) But Atlanta would have answered the same need for access. Except a port.

Oh well. It was selected and that's a fact. Looking closely at other possibilities can't change that.
 
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