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Soon after Abraham Lincoln was elected president, South Carolina decided to secede, or leave, the United States. Soon after, the Southern States all decided to leave the United States, or the Union. They called their new country The Confederate States of America.

This map shows which states became the Confederacy and which states stayed in the Union.

• Union States

• Union Territories

• Border States (yellow) - States where slavery was legal, but they chose to stay in the Union

• Confederate States

• Territories Claimed by the Confederacy

The United States was now divided. The Civil War began when the Confederacy attacked Union troops at Fort Sumter in April 1861.