On the outbreak
of the American Civil War, 313 officers
left the United States Army to join the
Confederate Army. President Jefferson Davis
called for 82,000 volunteers but this was clearly not enough and in
August, 1861, the Confederate Congress authorized the recruitment
of 400,000 men. It was the responsibility of the individual states
to recruit these men.
At the beginning of 1862 Davis announced that the South could not
win the war without conscription. In April, the Confederate Congress
passed the Conscription Act which
drafted white men between eighteen and thirty-five for three years'
service.
In the Confederate Army all officers below the rank of brigadier were
elected by the troops. There were no medals awarded as it was claimed
they were all heroes and it would be wrong to single anyone out. The
highest honor was to be mentioned in dispatches.
Some soldiers in the Confederate Army was willing to defend the South
from the Union Army but objected to offensive
operations. When Robert E. Lee decided
to take the war to the north in the summer of 1863, an estimated 50,000
men deserted. This number increased after the defeats at Vicksburg
and Gettysburg. By the end of the
war there were an estimated 100,000 deserters at large in the South.
A total of 1,406,180 men enlisted in the Confederate Army during the
war. An estimated 52,954 men who were killed in action, 21,570 died
of their wounds and 59,297 were the victims of disease. At the end
of the war 174,223 men surrendered to the Union
Army.
(1)
Robet Dabney, who served under Thomas
Stonewall Jackson,
wrote about him in his book Life and Campaigns of Lieutenant-General
Thomas Jackson (1866)
A part of the men of the 27th Regiment, in the
Stonewall Brigade, who had volunteered for twelve months, now found
their year just expired. Assuming that the application of the last
conscription act was a breach of faith to them, they demanded their
discharge, and laying down their arms refused to serve another day.
Their Colonel, Grigsby, referred the case to General Jackson for instructions.
On hearing it detailed, he exclaimed, his eye flashing, and his brow
rigid with a portentous sternness, "What is this bit mutiny?
Why does Colonel Grigsby refer to me to know what to do with a mutiny?
He should shoot them where they stand." He then turned to his
adjutant, and dictated an order to the Colonel to parade his regiment
instantly, with loaded muskets, to draw up the insubordinate companies
in front of them, disarmed, and offer them the alternative of returning
to duty, or being fusiladed on the spot. The order was obeyed, and
the mutineers, when confronted with instant death, promptly reconsidered
their resolution.
(2)
John Worsham wrote about his experiences in the Confederate Army under
Thomas
Stonewall Jackson
in his book One of Jackson's Foot Cavalry.
One afternoon the whole division was ordered
out to witness the execution of three Confederate soldiers from, another
division. They were to be shot for some violation of the laws of the
army. The division formed three sides of a hollow square, the forth
being open. Three stakes were fixed in the ground about the centre
of this open side. Soon after our formation, an officer and a guard
appeared with the prisoners. The condemned were made to kneel with
their backs to the stakes to which they were securely tied. The guns
had already been loaded. It is said that six had balls and six did
not - so no man would know whether he killed one of the prisoners.
The twelve men took their places about thirty feet in front of the
three prisoners. The order to fire was given and, at the report of
the guns, two men were killed - the balls going through each. The
third man, while shot, was not killed. One of the detail was ordered
to place another gun against the man's breast and to fire. The shot
killed him instantly.
(3)
Thomas
Stonewall Jackson
developed a reputation as a strict disciplinarian. G. G. Henderson
wrote about one incident in his book Stonewall Jackson (1900)
Once on the march, fearing lest his men
might stray from the ranks and commit acts of pillage, he had issued
an order that the soldiers should not enter the private dwellings.
Disregarding the order, a soldier entered a house, and even used insulting
language to the woman of the family. This was reported to Jackson,
who had the man arrested, tried by court-martial, and shot in twenty
minutes.
(4)
John Worsham served under General Thomas
Stonewall Jackson.
After the war he explained how the Confederate Army was always short
of weapons.
At
the commencement of the war, the Southern army was as poorly armed
as any body of men ever had been. In the infantry, my own regiment
as an example, one company had Springfield muskets, one had Enfield,
one had Mississippi rifles, the remainder the old smooth bore flint-lock
musket that had been altered to a percussion gun. The cavalry was
so badly equipped that hardly a company was uniform in that particular;
some had sabres, nothing more, some had double-barrel guns, some had
nothing but lances. It did not take long for the army of Northern
Virginia to arm itself with better material. When Jackson's troops
marched from the Valley to Richmond to join Lee in his attack on McClellan,
they had captured enough arms from the enemy to replace all that were
inferior, and after the battles around Richmond all departments of
Lee's army were as well armed.
(5)
General
Oliver
Howard
of the Union Army summarized the state
of the Confederate Army after the battle of Chancellorsville
in May, 1863.
We could gather little hope from the splendid
condition of Lee's army. It had been reorganized. Its numerous brigades
were grouped into divisions and the divisions into three army corps,
and cavalry. Stonewall Jackson, it is true, was no more, but the three
lieutenant generals - Longstreet, A. P. Hill, and Ewell - were not
wanting in ability or experience. They were trusted by Lee and believed
in by the troops and people.
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