American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis appoints General Joseph E. Johnston to replace General Braxton Bragg as commander of the Army of Tennessee.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union. The central conflict leading to war was a dispute over whether slavery should be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prohibited from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.

The Confederate States of America (CSA), also known as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or the South, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States from 1861 to 1865. It comprised eleven U.S. states that declared secession: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. These states fought against the United States during the American Civil War.

Jefferson F. Davis was an American politician who served as the only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party before the American Civil War. He was the United States Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857.

Joseph Eggleston Johnston was an American military officer who served in the United States Army during the Mexican–American War (1846–1848) and the Seminole Wars. After Virginia declared secession from the United States, he entered the Confederate States Army as one of its most senior general officers during the American Civil War. From 1888 to 1889 he was a vice president, from 1889 to 1890 president, of the Aztec Club of 1847.