150 Years Ago Today...

.. Alabama Legislators voted the state out of the Union..secession was approved.

     Here in Montgomery you can stand in the spot where Jefferson Davis was sworn in, at the top of the stairs leading to the Capitol building from Dexter Avenue. On the other side of the Capitol, you can see the cornerstone marking Davis' participation after the war in the building of the state's memorial to the hundreds of Alabamians who died during the war.

     Although no major battles were fought in Alabama, her standing as the first Capitol of the Confederacy will make her forever a touchstone of the War.

    You have to wonder if someone had been able to tell Davis 150 years ago that the war would last four years and cost more than 618,000 military lives and those of many more civilians (not to mention the economic devastation visited on the South!)...if he had been told, would he have sued for peace?

     There is no formal recognition of today's 150th anniversary planned (though the new Republican majority Alabama Legislature will begin an organizational session this morning).