In January, 1871, there were 4 professors and 21 students. - In 1871 there were 71 newspapers and periodicals published in the state, of which 58 were weekly. 2 tri-weekly, 10 daily (which also issued weekly editions), and one semi-monthly. Their aggregate annual circulation was 8,891,432, and their average circulation 1,070. - The leading religious denominations are Methodists and Baptists. The former in 1860 had 777 churches, with accommodations for 212.555 persons, and church property valued at $606,720; the latter 810 churches, worth $495,449, with accommodations for 245,255 persons. There were 202 Presbyterian churches, valued at $368,500, with accommodations for 65,004; 34 Episcopal, valued at $196,050, with seats for 13,840; and 9 Roman Catholic, with 8,000 seats and church property worth $230,450. There are other denominations in the state of less importance as to numbers. - The territory now forming the state of Alabama was originally a part of Georgia. In 1798 the country now included in the states of Alabama and Mississippi was organized as a territory, called Mississippi. At this time Florida, which then belonged to Spain, extended to the French possessions in Louisiana, from hit. 31° to the gulf of Mexico, cutting off Mississippi territory from the gulf coast entirely.

During the war with Great Britain in 1812, as a precautionary measure, that part of Florida between the Perdido and Pearl rivers was occupied by United States troops, and finally annexed to Mississippi territory. After the removal of most of the Creek Indians from this territory as the result of a vigorous war in 1813 -'14 (see Creeks), the country was rapidly settled by the whites, and in 1817 the western portion was admitted into the Union as the state of Mississippi, while the eastern part remained as the territory of Alabama till 1819, when it was also admitted as a state. The slave population increased much more rapidly than the free, the proportion of slave to the free population being, according to the state census of 1855, as 239 to 289. The popular vote cast by Alabama at the presidential election of 1860, which resulted in the choice of Abraham Lincoln, was: for Douglas, 13,651; Breckinridge, 48,831; and Bell, 27,875. The state had instructed her delegates to the national convention held at Charleston in April of the same year to withdraw from that body unless the convention should adopt, among others, a resolution affirming "the unqualified right of the people of the slaveholding states to the protection of their property in the states, in the territories, and in the wilderness in which territorial governments are yet unorganized.'1 The convention having refused to declare in favor of this doctrine, the Alabama delegation withdrew.

Early in December commissioners were sent by Alabama to the other southern states to urge the withdrawal of these states from the federal government, and their union in a separate confederacy; and on Dec. 24 an election was held for the choice of delegates to a state convention. These delegates were classified as immediate secessionists and cooperationists, the latter being in favor of secession with the cooperation of the other southern states. The convention assembled at Montgomery Jan. 7, 1861, and on the same day communications were received from the representatives of the state in congress, who had held a meeting in Washington, and passed resolutions advising immediate secession. On Jan. 11 the ordinance of secession was adopted by a vote of 01 to 39. The immediate cause of this action was stated in the preamble to the ordinance to be "the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice president of the United States of America by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the state of Alabama, preceded by many and dangerous infractions of the constitution of the United States by many of the states and people of the northern section" The convention held secret sessions and refused to submit its action to the people.

These proceedings were followed by the withdrawal on Jan. 21 of the senators and representatives of Alabama from the federal congress, and the election of delegates to the southern congress, which assembled at Montgomery Feb. 4, to organize the southern confederacy. Forts Morgan and Gaines at the entrance to Mobile harbor and Mt. Vernon arsenal were seized by order of the governor, and on the 9th live companies of volunteers were sent to Pen-sacola, at the request of the governor of Florida, to assist in capturing the forts and other property there belonging to the United States. Subsequently a commissioner was sent to Washington to negotiate with the president for the transfer to the state authorities of the forts, arsenals, custom houses, and other United States property in the state. The president declined to receive this commissioner except as a "distinguished citizen of Alabama.'1 On March 13 the state convention, which had reassembled on the 4th, ratified by a vote of 87 to 0. without submission to the people, the constitution adopted by the confederate congress, and subsequently passed an ordinance transferring to the provisional government the arms and munitions of war acquired from the United States, and also all authority over the forts and arsenals in the state.

Laws were enacted by the legislature placing the state upon an efficient war footing and appropriating 8500,000 to aid the cause of southern independence. On April 10 the president of the Confederate States made a requisition on the governor for 3.000 troops, and on May 1 the first battalion of the third state regiment left for Virginia. No important military operations occurred within the borders of Alabama during the first years of the war. In February, 1862, immediately after the capture of Fort Henry. Commander Phelps, with three gunboats from the fleet of Commodore Foote, proceeded up the Tennessee river and took possession of Flor-ence at the foot of the Muscle Shoals. This was the first appearance of the national flag in northern Alabama since the beginning of the war, and was received with demonstrations of loyalty by many of the inhabitants who had opposed secession. On April 9 Gen. O. M. i Mitchel, who had advanced from Nashville with a division of Gen. BuelFs army, took Huntsville by surprise and gained possession of 100 miles of the Memphis and Charleston railroad between Stephenson and Decatur. He advanced westward to Tuscumbia, and thence as far south as Russellville, capturing confederate property without loss of life.