Lee proved a tenacious defender of Richmond, which had an exposed position and a long, difficult supply line. Lee led the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia against the Union armies, which were led by various generals appointed by Abraham Lincoln, with the last, and most successful being General Ulysses S. It was a poor choice for a war capital because it was hard to supply and hard to defend. Richmond, Virginia became the capital of the Confederacy after that state seceded. The president of the Confederate States of America was Jefferson Davis, a former Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce and Senator from Mississippi. West Virginia broke away from Virginia during the war and joined the Union as a state. In addition, Kentucky and Missouri saw the establishment of Confederate legislatures within their borders which sent delegates to the Confederate Congress.
![war of rights confederate war of rights confederate](https://www.history.com/.image/ar_4:3%2Cc_fill%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_1200/MTU3ODc5MDgzNzQ3MjU2MDMx/rare-confederate-artifacts-from-the-civil-war.jpg)
Residents of the latter three states raised regiments for the Confederacy, although not as an official act of their governments. Of the 15 slave states, four remained in the United States: Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri.
![war of rights confederate war of rights confederate](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/424030/ss_f9c69511e676bf4ecc16d599e9a235b25dbec5fb.1920x1080.jpg)
When fighting began in April Lincoln called on all states to send troops at this point four more states broke away and joined the Confederacy, Virginia, North Cariolina, Tennessee and Arkansas. The Union government rejected the claims that a state had a right to secede. Arguing that their Constitutional states' rights protected the extension of slavery into America's western territories, they saw that issue rejected in the North.
![war of rights confederate war of rights confederate](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/CivilWarUSAColl.png)
The political future for slavery and for Southern commerce was bleak, as the South was losing relative strength in Congress. They saw that the antislavery forces in the North were gaining strength, typified by the election as president of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Seven southern states seceded from the United States of America over the winter of 1860-61 and joined together as the "Confederate States of America" to protect their sovereignty and economic status.