How many states were Confederate States during the Civil War?

During the American Civil War, the Confederate States of America consisted of the governments of eleven (11) Southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860-1861. They performed all the affairs of a separate government and conducted a major war until defeated in the spring of 1865. The Confederate States of America (CSA or C.S.), commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was a confederation of secessionist American states existing from 1861 to 1865. It was originally formed by seven (7) slave states in the Lower South region of the United States whose regional economy was mostly dependent upon agriculture, particularly cotton, and a plantation system that relied upon the labor of African-American slaves. Four additional slave holding states declared their secession and joined the Confederacy following a call by President Abraham Lincoln for troops from each state to recapture Fort Sumter and other lost federal properties in the South.

The actual states making up the Confederacy were: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The government of the United States (the Union) rejected the claims of secession and considered the Confederacy illegitimate. In 1865, after years of heavy fighting which led to over half a million deaths, largely on Confederate territory, all the Confederate forces surrendered and the Confederacy dissolved.