Confederate States Army

A cartoon from the war, showing the Confederates forcibly drafting a Unionist man into the Confederate army. The Unionist man objects, with the Confederates threatening to lynch him if he does not comply.

Control and operation of the Confederate army were administered by the Confederate States War Department, which was established by the Confederate Provisional Congress in an act on February 21, 1861. The Confederate Congress gave control over military operations, and authority for mustering state forces and volunteers to the President of the Confederate States of America on February 28, 1861, and March 6, 1861. On March 8 the Confederate Congress passed a law that authorized Davis to issue proclamations to call up no more than 100,000 men.[20] The War Department asked for 8,000 volunteers on March 9, 20,000 on April 8, and 49,000 on and after April 16. Davis proposed an army of 100,000 men in his message to Congress on April 29.[21]

On August 8, 1861, the Confederacy called for 400,000 volunteers to serve for one or three years. In April 1862,[22] the Confederacy passed the first conscription law in either Confederate or Union history, the Conscription Act,[23] which made all able bodied white men between the ages of 18 and 35 liable for a three-year term of service in the Provisional Army. It also extended the terms of enlistment for all one-year soldiers to three years. Men employed in certain occupations considered to be most valuable for the home front (such as railroad and river workers, civil officials, telegraph operators, miners, druggists and teachers) were exempt from the draft.[24] The act was amended twice in 1862. On September 27, the maximum age of conscription was extended to 45.[25] On October 11, the Confederate Congress passed the so-called "Twenty Negro Law",[26] which exempted anyone who owned 20 or more slaves, a move that caused deep resentment among conscripts who did not own slaves.[27]

The Confederate Congress enacted several more amendments throughout the war to address losses suffered in battle as well as the United States' greater supply of manpower. In December 1863, it abolished the practice of allowing a rich drafted man to hire a substitute to take his place in the ranks. Substitution had also been practiced in the United States, leading to similar resentment from the lower classes. In February 1864, the age limits were extended to between 17 and 50.[28] Challenges to the subsequent acts came before five state supreme courts; all five upheld them.[29]

The southern churches met the shortage of Army chaplains by sending missionaries. The Southern Baptists sent a total of 78 missionaries, starting in 1862. Presbyterians were even more active, with 112 missionaries sent in early 1865. Other missionaries were funded and supported by the Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans. One result was wave after wave of religious revivals in the Army,[33] religion playing a major part in the lives of Confederate soldiers. Some men with a weak religious affiliation became committed Christians, and saw their military service in terms of satisfying God's wishes. Religion strengthened the soldiers' loyalty to their comrades and the Confederacy.[34][35][36][37] Military historian Samuel J. Watson argues that Christian faith was a major factor in combat motivation. According to his analysis, the soldiers' faith was consoling for the loss of comrades; it was a shield against fear; it helped reduce drinking and fighting in the ranks; it enlarged the soldiers' community of close friends and helped compensate for their long-term separation from home.[38][39]

In his 1997 book For Cause and Comrades, which examines the motivations of the American Civil War's soldiers, historian James M. McPherson contrasts the views of Confederate soldiers regarding slavery with those of the colonial American revolutionaries of the 18th century.[40] He stated that while the American rebel colonists of the 1770s saw an incongruity between owning slaves on the one hand, and proclaiming to be fighting for liberty on the other, the Confederacy's soldiers did not, as the Confederate ideology of white supremacy negated any contradiction between the two:

Unlike many slaveholders in the age of Thomas Jefferson, Confederate soldiers from slaveholding families expressed no feelings of embarrassment or inconsistency in fighting for their liberty while holding other people in slavery. Indeed, white supremacy and the right of property in slaves were at the core of the ideology for which Confederate soldiers fought.

— James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997), p. 106, emphasis added.[40]

McPherson states that Confederate soldiers did not discuss the issue of slavery as often as United States soldiers did, because most Confederate soldiers readily accepted as an obvious fact that they were fighting to perpetuate slavery and thus did not feel the need to debate over it:

[O]nly 20 percent of the sample of 429 Southern soldiers explicitly voiced proslavery convictions in their letters or diaries. As one might expect, a much higher percentage of soldiers from slaveholding families than from nonslaveholding families expressed such a purpose: 33 percent, compared with 12 percent. Ironically, the proportion of Union soldiers who wrote about the slavery question was greater, as the next chapter will show. There is a ready explanation for this apparent paradox. Emancipation was a salient issue for Union soldiers because it was controversial. Slavery was less salient for most Confederate soldiers because it was not controversial. They took slavery for granted as one of the Southern 'rights' and institutions for which they fought, and did not feel compelled to discuss it.

— James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997), pp. 109–110, emphasis added.[41]

Continuing, McPherson also stated that of the hundreds of Confederate soldiers' letters he had examined, none of them contained any anti-slavery sentiment whatsoever:

Although only 20 percent of the soldiers avowed explicit proslavery purposes in their letters and diaries, none at all dissented from that view.

— James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997), p. 110, emphasis in original.[41]

McPherson admits some flaws in his sampling of letters. Soldiers from slaveholding families were overrepresented by 100%:

Nonslaveholding farmers are underrepresented in the Confederate sample. Indeed, while about one-third of all Confederate soldiers belonged to slaveholding families, slightly more than two-thirds of the sample whose slaveholding status is known did so.

— James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997), p. ix. [42]

In some cases, Confederate men were motivated to join the army in response to the United States' actions regarding its opposition to slavery.[43] After U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, some Confederate soldiers welcomed the move, as they believed it would strengthen pro-slavery sentiment in the Confederacy and thus lead to greater enlistment of white men in the Confederate army.[43]

One Confederate soldier from Texas gave his reasons for fighting for the Confederacy, stating that "we are fighting for our property",[44] contrasting this with the motivations of Union soldiers, who, he claimed, were fighting for the "flimsy and abstract idea that a negro is equal to an Anglo American".[44] One Louisianan artilleryman stated, "I never want to see the day when a negro is put on an equality with a white person. There is too many free niggers ... now to suit me, let alone having four millions."[45] A North Carolinian soldier stated, "[A] white man is better than a nigger."[45]

In 1894, Virginian and former Confederate soldier John S. Mosby, reflecting on his role in the war, stated in a letter to a friend that "I've always understood that we went to war on account of the thing we quarreled with the North about. I've never heard of any other cause than slavery."[46][47]

At many points during the war, and especially near the end, the Confederate armies were very poorly fed. At home their families were in worsening condition and faced starvation and the depredations of roving bands of marauders. Many soldiers went home temporarily ("Absent Without Official Leave") and quietly returned when their family problems had been resolved. By September 1864, however, President Davis publicly admitted that two-thirds of the soldiers were absent, "most of them without leave". The problem escalated rapidly after that, and fewer and fewer men returned.[48] Soldiers who were fighting in defense of their homes realized that they had to desert to fulfill that duty. Historian Mark Weitz argues that the official count of 103,400 deserters is too low. He concludes that most of the desertions came because the soldier felt he owed a higher duty to his own family than to the Confederacy.[49]

Confederate policies regarding desertion generally were severe. For example, on August 19, 1862, General Stonewall Jackson approved the court-martial sentence of execution for three soldiers for desertion, rejecting pleas for clemency from the soldiers' regimental commander. Jackson's goal was to maintain discipline in a volunteer army whose homes were under threat of enemy occupation.[50][51]

Historians of the Civil War have emphasized how soldiers from poor families deserted because they were urgently needed at home. Local pressures mounted as Union forces occupied more and more of Confederate territory, putting more and more families at risk of hardship.[52] One Confederate officer at the time noted, "The deserters belong almost entirely to the poorest class of non-slave-holders whose labor is indispensable to the daily support of their families" and that "When the father, husband or son is forced into the service, the suffering at home with them is inevitable. It is not in the nature of these men to remain quiet in the ranks under such circumstances."[53]

Some soldiers also deserted from ideological motivations.[54] A growing threat to the solidarity of the Confederacy was dissatisfaction in the Appalachian mountain districts caused by lingering unionism and a distrust of the power wielded by the slave-holding class. Many of their soldiers deserted, returned home, and formed a military force that fought off regular army units trying to punish them.[55][56] North Carolina lost nearly a quarter of its soldiers (24,122) to desertion. This was the highest rate of desertion of any Confederate state.[57][58]

Young Mark Twain deserted the army long before he became a famous writer and lecturer, but he often commented upon the episode comically. Author Neil Schmitz has examined the deep unease Twain felt about losing his honor, his fear of facing death as a soldier, and his rejection of a Southern identity as a professional author.[59]

General Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy's most famous general

The army did not have a formal overall military commander, or general in chief, until late in the war. The Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, himself a former U.S. Army officer and U.S. Secretary of War,[65] served as commander-in-chief and 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 United States 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.[66]
• 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 field command following the Battle of Chattanooga) to January 31, 1865. This role was a military advisory position under Davis.[67]
• 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.[68]

The lack of centralized control was a strategic weakness for the Confederacy, and there are only a few examples of its armies acting in concert across multiple theaters to achieve a common objective. One instance occurred in late 1862 with Lee's invasion of Maryland, 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. Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown was an extreme case of a Southern States Rights advocate asserting control over Confederate soldiers: he defied the Confederate government's wartime policies and resisted the military draft. Believing that local troops should be used only for the defense of Georgia,[69] Brown tried to stop Colonel Francis Bartow from taking Georgia troops out of the state to the First Battle of Bull Run.[70]

Many of the Confederacy's senior military leaders (including Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, James Longstreet) and even President Jefferson Davis, were former U.S. Army and, in smaller numbers, U.S. Navy officers who had been opposed to, disapproved of, or were at least unenthusiastic about secession, but resigned their U.S. commissions upon hearing that their states had left the Union. They felt that they had no choice but to help defend their homes. President Abraham Lincoln was exasperated to hear of such men who professed to love their country but were willing to fight against it.

As in the U.S. Army, the Confederate Army's soldiers were organized by military specialty. The combat arms included infantry, cavalry, and artillery.

Although fewer soldiers might comprise a squad or platoon, the smallest infantry maneuver unit in the Army was a company of 100 soldiers. Ten companies were organized into an infantry regiment, which theoretically had 1,000 men. In reality, as disease, desertions and casualties took their toll, and the common practice of sending replacements to form new regiments took hold, most regiments were greatly reduced in strength. By the mid-war, most regiments averaged 300–400 men, with Confederate units slightly smaller on average than their U.S. counterparts. For example, at the pivotal Battle of Chancellorsville, the average U.S. Army infantry regiment's strength was 433 men, versus 409 for Confederate infantry regiments.[71]

Rough unit sizes for CSA combat units during the war:[72]

• Corps - 24,000 to 28,000
• Division - 6,000 to 14,000
• Brigade - 800 to 1,700
• Regiment - 350 to 400
• Company – 35 to 40

Regiments, which were the basic units of army organization through which soldiers were supplied and deployed, were raised by individual states. They were generally referred by number and state, for example 1st Texas, 12th Virginia. To the extent the word "battalion" was used to describe a military unit, it referred to a multi-company task force of a regiment or a near-regimental size unit. Throughout the war, the Confederacy raised the equivalent of 1,010 regiments in all branches, including militias, versus 2,050 regiments for the U.S. Army.[73]

Four regiments usually formed a brigade, although as the number of men in many regiments became greatly reduced, especially later in the war, more than four were often assigned to a brigade. Occasionally, regiments would be transferred between brigades. Two to four brigades usually formed a division. Two to four divisions usually formed a corps. Two to four corps usually formed an army. Occasionally, a single corps might operate independently as if it were a small army. The Confederate States Army consisted of several field armies, named after their primary area of operation. The largest Confederate field army was the Army of Northern Virginia, whose surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865 marked the end of major combat operations in the US Civil War.

Companies were commanded by captains and had two or more lieutenants. Regiments were commanded by colonels. Lieutenant colonels were second in command. At least one major was next in command. Brigades were commanded by brigadier generals although casualties or other attrition sometimes meant that brigades would be commanded by senior colonels or even a lower grade officer. Barring the same type of circumstances which might leave a lower grade officer in temporary command, divisions were commanded by major generals and corps were commanded by lieutenant generals. A few corps commanders were never confirmed as lieutenant generals and exercised corps command for varying periods as major generals. Armies of more than one corps were commanded by (full) generals.

• 
  Corporal of the Artillery division of the Confederate Army
• 
  Confederate mortar crew at Warrington, Florida in 1861, across from Fort Pickens
• 
  Confederate artillery at Charleston Harbor, 1863
• 
  Lt Col. E. V. Nash, 4th Georgia Infantry Doles-Cook Brigade, who was killed in 1864

Officer rank structure of the Confederate Army
General	Colonel	Lieutenant colonel	Major	Captain	First lieutenant	Second lieutenant

• 
  General (CSA)
• 
  Colonel (Infantry shown)
• 
  Lieutenant-colonel (Headquarters shown)
• 
  Major (Medical Corps shown)
• 
  Captain (Marine Corps shown)
• 
  1st Lieutenant (Artillery shown)
• 
  2nd Lieutenant (Cavalry shown)

An 1895 illustration showing the uniforms of the Confederate Army contrasted with those of the U.S. Army

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 seven men achieved the rank of (full) general;[74] the highest-ranking (earliest date of rank) was Samuel Cooper, Adjutant General and Inspector General of the Confederate States Army.

Officers' uniforms bore a braided 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.

Enlisted rank structure
Sergeant Major	Quartermaster Sergeant	Ordnance Sergeant	First Sergeant
Sergeant	Corporal	Musician	Private
		no insignia	no insignia

Branch colors were used for the 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. The Confederate Congress authorized the awarding of medals for courage and good conduct on October 13, 1862, but wartime 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.

The C.S. Army 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 United States. These major units were generally named after states or geographic regions (in comparison to the U.S. Army's custom of naming armies after rivers). Armies were usually commanded by full generals (there were seven in the C.S. Army) or lieutenant generals. Some of the more important armies and their commanders were:

A painting of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia fighting the U.S. Army at Spotsylvania in 1864

• Army of Central Kentucky – Simon B. Buckner, Albert Sidney Johnston
• Army of East Tennessee – Edmund Kirby Smith (later renamed Army of Kentucky)
• Army of Eastern Kentucky – Humphrey Marshall
• 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)
• Army of Louisiana – Braxton Bragg. Paul O. Hébert
• Army of Mississippi
  • March 1862 – November 1862: P. G. T. Beauregard, Albert Sidney Johnston, Braxton Bragg, William J. Hardee, Leonidas Polk, (also known as the Army of the Mississippi; redesignated Army of Tennessee on November 20, 1862)
  • December 1862 – July 1863: John C. Pemberton, Earl Van Dorn, (1863) William W. Loring (also known as Army of Vicksburg)
  • July 1863 – June 1864: William J. Hardee, Leonidas Polk, William W. Loring (also known as the Army of the Mississippi; redesignated III Corps, Army of Tennessee in May 1864, but continued to use its old name)
• Army of Middle Tennessee – John C. Breckinridge
• Army of Missouri – Sterling Price
• Army of Mobile – Jones M. Withers, Braxton Bragg, John B. Villepigue, Samuel Jones, William L. Powell, John H. Forney
• Army of New Mexico – Henry H. Sibley
• Army of Northern Virginia – Joseph E. Johnston, Gustavus W. Smith, Robert E. Lee
  • First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia
  • Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia
  • Third Corps, Army of Northern Virginia
  • Fourth Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, often styled "Anderson's Corps"
  • Cavalry Corps, Army of Northern Virginia
• Army of the New River – Henry Heth
• 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 Pensacola – Adley H. Gladden, Braxton Bragg, Samuel Jones
• Army of the Potomac – P. G. T. Beauregard, Joseph E. Johnston
• Army of the Shenandoah – 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
  • Third Corps, Army of Tennessee
  • Forrest's Cavalry Corps – Nathan Bedford Forrest
• Army of the Trans-Mississippi – Thomas C. Hindman, Theophilus Holmes, Edmund Kirby Smith (also known as the Army of the Southwest)
• Army of the Valley (also known as Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia) – Jubal Early
• Army of the West – Earl van Dorn, John P. McCown, Dabney H. Maury, Sterling Price
• Army of West Tennessee – Earl Van Dorn
• Army of Western Louisiana – Richard Taylor, John G. Walker

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, A. P. Hill, John B. Gordon.

A Cherokee Confederates reunion in New Orleans, 1903

Stand Watie, along with a few Cherokee, sided with the Confederate army, in which he was made colonel and commanded a battalion of Cherokee.[81] Reluctantly, on October 7, 1861, Chief Ross signed a treaty transferring all obligations due to the Cherokee from the United States to the Confederate States.[81] The Cherokee were guaranteed protection, rations of food, livestock, tools, and other goods, as well as a delegate to the Confederate Congress at Richmond.[81]

In exchange, the Cherokee would furnish ten companies of mounted men, and allow the construction of military posts and roads within the Cherokee Nation. However, no Indian regiment was to be called on to fight outside Indian Territory.[81] As a result of the Treaty, the 2nd Cherokee Mounted Rifles, led by Col. John Drew, was formed. Following the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, March 7–8, 1862, Drew's Mounted Rifles defected to the United States forces in Kansas, where they joined the Indian Home Guard. In the summer of 1862, U.S. troops captured Chief Ross, who was paroled and spent the remainder of the war in Washington and Philadelphia proclaiming Cherokee loyalty to the United States Army.[81]

William Holland Thomas, the only white chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, recruited hundreds of Cherokees for the Confederate army, particularly for Thomas' Legion. The Legion, raised in September 1862, fought until the end of the War.

Jackson McCurtain, Lieutenant Colonel of the First Choctaw Battalion in Oklahoma, CSA

Choctaw Confederate battalions were formed in Indian Territory and later in Mississippi in support of the southern cause. The Choctaws, who were expecting support from the Confederates, got little. Webb Garrison, a Civil War historian, describes their response: when Confederate Brigadier General Albert Pike authorized the raising of regiments during the fall of 1860, Seminoles, Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Cherokees responded with considerable enthusiasm. Their zeal for the Confederate cause, however, began to evaporate when they found that neither arms nor pay had been arranged for them. A disgusted officer later acknowledged that "with the exception of a partial supply for the Choctaw regiment, no tents, clothing, or camp, and garrison equipage was furnished to any of them."[86]

The Confederacy did not allow African Americans to join the army, neither free Negroes nor slaves. The idea of arming the Confederacy's slaves for use as soldiers was speculated on from the onset of the war, but such proposals were not seriously considered by Jefferson Davis or others in the Confederate administration until late in the war when severe manpower shortages were faced.[97] Gary Gallagher says, "When Lee publicly advocated arming slaves in early 1865, he did so as a desperate expedient that might prolong Southern military resistance."[98] After acrimonious debate the Confederate Congress agreed in March 1865. The war was nearly over by then and very few slaves ended up being enlisted before the Confederate armies all surrendered.[22]

As early as November 1864, some Confederates knew that the chance of securing victory against the U.S. was slim.[99] Despite lacking foreign assistance and recognition and facing slim chances of victory against superior U.S. assets, Confederate newspapers such as the Georgian Atlanta Southern Confederacy continued to maintain their position and oppose the idea of armed black men in the Confederate army, even late in the war as January 1865.[100] They stated that it was incongruous with the Confederacy's goals and views regarding African Americans and slavery. The Georgian newspaper opined that using black men as soldiers would be an embarrassment to Confederates and their children, saying that although African Americans should be used for slave labor, they should not be used as armed soldiers, opining that:

Such an act on our part would be a stigma on the imperishable pages of history, of which all future generations of Southrons would be ashamed. These are some of the additional considerations which have suggested themselves to us. Let us put the negro to work, but not to fight.

— Atlanta Southern Confederacy, (January 20, 1865), Macon, Georgia.[100]

Prominent Confederates such as R. M. T. Hunter and Georgian Democrat Howell Cobb opposed arming slaves, saying that it was "suicidal" and would run contrary to the Confederacy's ideology. Opposing such a move, Cobb stated that African Americans were untrustworthy and innately lacked the qualities to make good soldiers, and that using them would cause many Confederates to quit the army.[101][102][103][104]

The overwhelming support most Confederates had for maintaining black slavery was the primary cause of their strong opposition to using African Americans as armed soldiers. Maintaining the institution of slavery was the primary goal of the Confederacy's existence, and thus, using their slaves as soldiers was incongruous with that goal. According to historian Paul D. Escott:

[F]or a great many of the most powerful southerners the idea of arming and freeing the slaves was repugnant because the protection of slavery had been and still remained the central core of Confederate purpose ... Slavery was the basis of the planter class's wealth, power, and position in society. The South's leading men had built their world upon slavery and the idea of voluntarily destroying that world, even in the ultimate crisis, was almost unthinkable to them. Such feelings moved Senator R. M. T. Hunter to deliver a long speech against the bill to arm the slaves.[105]

Though most Confederates were opposed to the idea of using black soldiers, a small number suggested the idea. An acrimonious and controversial debate was raised by a letter from Patrick Cleburne[106] urging the Confederacy to raise black soldiers by offering emancipation; Jefferson Davis refused to consider the proposal and issued instructions forbidding the matter from being discussed.[107] It would not be until Robert E. Lee wrote the Confederate Congress urging them that the idea would take serious traction.[108]

On March 13, 1865,[22] the Confederate Congress passed General Order 14[109][110] by a single vote in the Confederate senate,[22][111] and Jefferson Davis signed the order into law. The order was issued March 23, but as it was late in the war, only a few African American companies were raised in the Richmond area before the town was captured by the U.S. Army and placed back under U.S. control.[112] According to historian James M. McPherson in 1994, "no black soldiers fought in the Confederate army, unless they were passing as white.[113] He noted that some Confederates brought along "their body servants, who in many cases had grown up with them" and that "on occasion some of those body servants were known to have picked up a rifle and fought. But there was no official recruitment of black soldiers in the Confederate army until the very end of the war..." He continued, "But Appomattox came only a few weeks later, and none of these men were ever put in uniform to fight."[22]

In some cases, the Confederates forced their African American slaves to fire upon U.S. soldiers at gunpoint,[91][92] such as at the first Battle of Bull Run. According to John Parker, a slave who was forced by the Confederates to fight Union soldiers, "Our masters tried all they could to make us fight ... They promised to give us our freedom and money besides, but none of us believed them; we only fought because we had to." Parker stated that had he been given an opportunity, he would have turned against his Confederate captors, and "could do it with pleasure".[91][92] According to abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet in 1862, he had met a slave who "had unwillingly fought on the side of Rebellion", but the slave had since defected to "the side of Union and universal liberty".[92]

During the Siege of Yorktown (1862), The United States Army's elite sniper unit, the 1st United States Sharpshooters, was devastatingly effective at shooting Confederate artillerymen defending the city. In response, some Confederate artillery crews started forcing slaves to load the cannons. "They forced their negroes to load their cannon," reported a U.S. officer. "They shot them if they would not load the cannon, and we shot them if they did."[114]

In other cases, under explicit orders from their commanders, Confederate armies would often forcibly kidnap free African American civilians during their incursions into Union territory, sending them south into Confederate territory and thus enslaving them, as was the case with the Army of Northern Virginia when it invaded Pennsylvania in 1863.[115][116]

The usage of black men as soldiers by the Union, combined with Abraham Lincoln's issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation, profoundly angered the Confederacy,[117] with the Confederates calling it uncivilized.[118] As a response, in May 1863 the Confederacy passed a law demanding "full and ample retaliation" against the United States, stating that any black person captured in "arms against the Confederate States" or giving aid and comfort to their enemies would be turned over to state authorities, where they could be tried as slave insurrectionists; a capital offense punishable with a sentence of death.[119][120] However, Confederate authorities feared retaliation, and consequently no black prisoner was ever put on trial and executed.[121]

James McPherson states that "Confederate troops sometimes murdered black soldiers and their officers as they tried to surrender. In most cases, though, Confederate officers returned captured black soldiers to slavery or put them to hard labor on southern fortifications."[122][123] African American soldiers who served in the United States Colored Troops were often singled out by the Confederates and suffered extra violence when captured by them.[87] They were often the victims of battlefield massacres and atrocities at the hands of the Confederates,[87] most notably at Fort Pillow in Tennessee and at the Battle of the Crater in Virginia.[124][125]

The Confederate law declaring black U.S. soldiers to be insurrectionist slaves, combined with the Confederacy's discriminatory mistreatment of captured black U.S. soldiers, became a stumbling block for prisoner exchanges between the United States and the Confederacy, as the U.S. government in the Lieber Code officially objected to the Confederacy's discriminatory mistreatment of prisoners of war on basis of color.[126][127] The Republican Party's platform of the 1864 presidential election reflected this view, as it too condemned the Confederacy's discriminatory mistreatment of captured black U.S. soldiers.[128] According to the authors of Liberty, Equality, Power, "Expressing outrage at this treatment, in 1863 the Lincoln administration suspended the exchange of prisoners until the Confederacy agree to treat white and black prisoners alike. The Confederacy refused."[126]

• Sheehan-Dean, Aaron. "The Blue and Gray in Black and White: Assessing the Scholarship on Civil War Soldiers," in 'Aaron Sheehan-Dean, ed., 'The View from the Ground: Experiences of Civil War Soldiers (University Press of Kentucky, 2007) pp 9–30.

• Confederate States. War Dept. Regulations for the Army of the Confederate States. Richmond: J.W. Randolph. 1863.
• Robson, John S. (2007). How A One-Legged Rebel Lives: Reminiscences of the Civil War; The Story of the Campaigns of Stonewall Jackson. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84685-665-5.
• U.S. War Department (1880–1901), The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, U.S. Government Printing Office