The Confederate States Army (CSA) was organized in February 1861 to defend the newly formed Confederate States of America from military action by the United States government during the American Civil War. As many as 1.4 million men fought in the Army throughout the war. Although it won a significant number of battles (particularly in the Eastern Theater under famed General Robert E. Lee), a lack of centralized control of the Army and the logistical and manpower advantages of the United States doomed the CSA to eventual failure and the last of its field armies surrendered in May 1865.

Organization

The Confederate War Department was established by the Confederate Congress in an act on February 21, 1861. The Confederate States Army was actually three organizations:

• The Army of the Confederate States of America (ACSA) was the regular army, organized by Act of Congress on March 6, 1861. It was authorized to include 15,015 men, including 744 officers, but this level was never achieved. The men serving as (full) generals, such as Samuel Cooper and Robert E. Lee, were enrolled in the ACSA to ensure that they outranked all militia officers.
• The Provisional Army of the Confederate States (PACS) was authorized by act of Congress on February 28, 1861, and began organizing on April 27. Virtually all regular, volunteer, and conscripted men preferred to enter this organization since officers could achieve a higher rank in the Provisional Army than they could in the Regular Army. If the war had ended successfully for them, the Confederates intended that the PACS would be disbanded, leaving only the ACSA.
• State Militias were organized and commanded by the state governments, similar to those authorized by the United States Militia Act of 1792.

Because of poor record-keeping, there is no accurate number that represents the strength of the Confederate States Army. Estimates range from 500,000 to 1,500,000 men who were involved at any time during the war. Reports from the War Department began at the end of 1861 (326,768 men), 1862 (449,439), 1863 (464,646), 1864 (400,787), and "last reports" (358,692). Estimates of enlistments throughout the war were 1,227,890 to 1,406,180.

The following calls for men were issued:

• March 6, 1861: 100,000 volunteers and militia
• January 23, 1862: 400,000 volunteers and militia
• April 16, 1862, the First Conscription Act: conscripted white men ages 18 to 35 for the duration of hostilities
• September 27, 1862, the Second Conscription Act: expanded the age range from 18 to 45, with implementation beginning on July 15, 1863
• February 17, 1864, the Third Conscription Act: ages 17 to 50
• March 13, 1865, authorized up to 300,000 Negroes as troops but was never implemented.

The CSA was initially a (strategically) defensive army, and many soldiers were resentful when Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia in an invasion of the North in the Antietam Campaign. As many as 50,000 men deserted during the start of the campaign, claiming that their enlistments were for defense of their homeland, not invasion. After the losses at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, the number rose to 100,000.

Command

The army did not have a formal overall military commander, or general-in-chief, until late in the war. Confederate President Jefferson Davis, himself a former U.S. Army officer and U.S. Secretary of War, provided the strategic direction for Confederate land and naval forces. The following men had varying degrees of control:

• Robert E. Lee was "charged with the conduct of military operations in the armies of the Confederacy" from March 13 to May 31, 1862. He was referred to as Davis' military adviser but exercised broad control over the strategic and logistical aspects of the Army, a role similar in nature to the current Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. On June 1, he assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia, which was considered the most important of all the Confederate field armies.
• Braxton Bragg was similarly "charged with the conduct of military operations in the armies of the Confederacy" from February 24, 1864 (after he was relieved of command following the Battle of Chattanooga) to January 31, 1865. This role was a military advisory position under Davis.
• Lee was formally designated general-in-chief by an act of Congress (January 23, 1865) and served in this capacity from January 31 to April 9, 1865.

The lack of centralized control was a strategic weakness for the Confederacy, and there are few instances of multiple armies acting in concert across multiple theaters to achieve a common objective. (An exception to this was in late 1862 when Lee's invasion of Maryland was coincident with two other actions: Bragg's invasion of Kentucky and Earl Van Dorn's advance against Corinth, Mississippi. All three initiatives were unsuccessful, however.)

Ranks and insignia

For more details on this topic, see Ranks and insignia of the Confederate States.

There were four grades of general officer (general, lieutenant general, major general, and brigadier general), but all wore the same insignia regardless of grade. This was a decision made early in the conflict. The Confederate Congress initially made the rank of brigadier general the highest rank. As the war progressed, the other general-officer ranks were quickly added, but no insignia for them was created. (Robert E. Lee was a notable exception to this. He chose to wear the rank insignia of a colonel.) Only eight men achieved the rank of (full) general; the highest ranking (earliest date of rank) was Samuel Cooper, Adjutant General and Inspector General of the CSA.

Officers' uniforms bore a braid design on the sleeves and kepi, the number of adjacent strips (and therefore the width of the lines of the design) denoting rank. The color of the piping and kepi denoted the military branch. The braid was sometimes left off by officers since it made them conspicuous targets. The kepi was rarely used, the common slouch hat being preferred for its practicality in the Southern climate.

Branch colors were used for color of chevrons. Blue for infantry, yellow for cavalry, and red for artillery. This could differ with some units, however, depending on available resources or the unit commander's desire. Cavalry regiments from Texas, for example, often used red insignia and at least one Texas infantry regiment used black.

The CSA differed from many contemporaneous armies in that all officers under the rank of brigadier general were elected by the soldiers under their command. Congress authorized the awarding of medals for courage and good conduct on October 13, 1862, but war time difficulties prevented the procurement of the needed medals. To avoid postponing recognition for their valor, those nominated for the awards had their names placed on a Roll of Honor, which would be read at the first dress parade after its receipt and be published in at least one newspaper in each state.

Armies and prominent leaders

The CSA was composed of independent armies and military departments that were constituted, renamed, and disbanded as needs arose, particularly in reaction to offensives launched by the Union. These major units were generally named after states or geographic regions (in comparison to the Union's custom of naming armies after rivers). Armies were usually commanded by full generals (there were eight in the CSA) or lieutenant generals. Some of the more important armies and their commanders were:

• Army of Northern Virginia — Joseph E. Johnston, Gustavus W. Smith, Robert E. Lee commanding
• First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia
• Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia
• Third Corps, Army of Northern Virginia
• Anderson's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia
• Cavalry Corps, Army of Northern Virginia
• Army of Mississippi — P.G.T. Beauregard, Albert Sidney Johnston, Braxton Bragg, William J. Hardee, Leonidas Polk, (also known as the Army of Vicksburg from December 1862) John C. Pemberton, Earl Van Dorn, (1863) William W. Loring
• Army of the Kanawha — Henry A. Wise, John B. Floyd, Robert E. Lee
• Army of Kentucky — Edmund Kirby Smith (Eventually commander of all forces West of the Mississippi)
• Central Army of Kentucky — Albert Sidney Johnston
• Army of Middle Tennessee — John C. Breckinridge
• Army of New Mexico — Henry H. Sibley
• Army of the Northwest — Robert S. Garnett, Henry R. Jackson, William W. Loring, Edward Johnson
• Army of the Peninsula — John B. Magruder, Daniel H. Hill
• Army of the Potomac (Confederate) — P.G.T. Beauregard, Joseph E. Johnston
• Army of Tennessee — Braxton Bragg, Samuel Gibbs French, William J. Hardee, Daniel H. Hill, John Bell Hood, Joseph E. Johnston, Richard Taylor
• First Corps, Army of Tennessee
• Second Corps, Army of Tennessee
• Forrest's Cavalry Corps — Nathan Bedford Forrest
• Trans-Mississippi Army — Thomas C. Hindman, Edmund Kirby Smith,
• Army of the Valley (aka Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia) — Jubal Early
• Army of the West — Earl Van Dorn, John P. McCown, Dabney H. Maury, Sterling Price

Some other prominent Confederate generals who led significant units operating sometimes independently in the CSA included Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, James Longstreet, J.E.B. Stuart, Gideon Pillow, and A.P. Hill.

Supply

Much like the Continental Army in the American Revolution, soldiers were supposed to be supplied by their state governments. The supply situations for most of the Confederate Armies however were in a dismal state even in times of victory. The lack of Central authority and effective railroads combined with the Southern state governments' frequent unwillingness or inability to provide adequate funding were key factors in the Army's demise. Individual commanders had to "Beg, borrow or steal" food and ammunition from whatever sources were available, including captured Union depots and encampments and private citizens regardless of their loyalties. Lee's campaign against Gettysburg and southern Pennsylvania (a rich agricultural region) was driven in part by his desperate need of supplies, namely food. Not surprisingly, in addition to slowing the Confederate advance such foraging aroused anger in the North in led many Northerners to support General Sherman's total warfare tactics as retaliation. Scorched earth policies especially in Georgia, South Carolina and the Virginian Shenandoah Valley proved far more devastating than anything Pennsylvania had suffered and further reduced the capacity of the increasingly-effectively blockaded Confederacy to feed even its civilian population, let alone its Army. At many points during the war and especially near the end, Confederate Armies were described as starving and indeed many died from the lack of food and related illnesses. Towards more desperate stages of the war, this lack of food also became a principal driving force for desertion.

References

• Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
• The Story of a Confederate Boy in the Civil War (Serving in the 7th Virginia Infantry Regiment) David E Johnston, ISBN 978-1846856662
• How a One-Legged Rebel Lives John S Robson, ISBN 978-1846856655

External links

• Civil War rank insignia
• A Manual of Military Surgery (1863). The manual used by doctors in the CSA.

•  • [ e] Armies of the Confederacy
Army of Mississippi