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Excerpt from Geography of Mississippi For a time Spain claimed most of Mississippi as part of the Floridas, but in 1795 she accepted the parallel of 31° as the boundary. In 1798 Congress organized, from lands claimed by Georgia, the Mississippi Territory, which at that time included less than half of the present states of Alabama and Mississippi. The boundaries of Mississippi Territory were the Mississippi River on the west, the 31st parallel on the south, the Chattahoochee on the east, and a line drawn from the mouth of the Yazoo due east on the north. In 1804, after cessions by Georgia and South Carolina, extensive lands south of Tennessee were attached to the Mississippi Territory, which thus comprised the whole of what are now the states of Alabama and Mississippi from the 31st, to the 35th parallel. The part of those states south of 31° was added in 1812. In March, 1817, Alabama was separated from Mississippi and organized under a territorial government of its own; and in December of the same year Mississippi was admitted into the Union as a state. Washington, six miles east of Natchez, was the first capital. Jackson became the capital in 1822. The first state governor was David Holmes. The growth of the state in population was from the first very rapid, and its citizens always exerted a large influence in national affairs. Mississippi was the second state to pass an ordinance of secession, the state convention taking that action January 9, 1861. During the long Civil War, Mississippi regiments were found on every battlefield from Manassas to Appomattox Court House. Many important engagements occurred in Mississippi, the most noted of which were Corinth, luka, Holly Springs, Chickusaw Bayou, Raymond, Jackson, and Baker's Creek. The siege of Vicksburg ranks among the great historical events. In 1865 the ordinance of secession was repealed and slavery abolished. Congress refused to recognize the state, which suffered much during