 Alabama provided a significant source of troops and leaders, military material, supplies, food, horses and mules.At the southern coast, the Alabama ports remained open (with Union blockades, but guarded by forts, floating mines and obstacle paths) for almost 4 years using blockade runners, until the Battle of Mobile Bay (Aug 1864) and the Battle of Fort Blakeley (April 1865) forced Mobile to surrender the last major Confederate port, in the heart of Dixie.After the election of Abraham Lincoln from the anti-slavery Republican Party in 1860, plus the prior secession declarations of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Florida, the Alabamian delegates also voted to secede from the United States, on January 11, 1861, in order to join and form a slaveholding Southern Republic, mostly of the Cotton States.