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Writing the Civil War, the why and how it was fought
America has always approached its conflicts as if extending the
thought of the uniquely American way of life, that is to say as
if to leave each man to his own devices and choices free to make
or break his own way into life as he has been endowed by his
creator. National defense, up until the advent of the Second
World War was something for a small national army to attend to.
The American Civil War was fought not by professional armies but
by armies filled with patriots who answered the call of their
respective side and put aside all personal want or gain for the
larger call of defending their nation. As a historian and
writer, I've collected some of my knowledge and research into
this article to aid fellow writers in their desires to write
short stories and novels set in the Civil War.
Why we fought
Reasons for volunteering are as varied as the individuals who
fought. They can however be broken down into one of several
categories and these can be considered as typical for the
majority of soldiers on both sides of the war.
At the start of the war, patriotism was the primary reason
hundreds of thousands gathered at town meetings, churches, court
houses, and post offices to hear speeches, calls for patriotism,
and opportunities for adventure. Volunteers on both sides of the
Mason Dixon line saw the other in terms of five decades of
sectional tensions and propaganda. For the typical northerner,
the southern states that one by one voted to secede from the
Union were traitors, rebelling against the lawful and legitimate
government in Washington. Slavery was considered "that peculiar
institution" by the typical volunteer and the cause of the
tensions politically, and an otherwise inconsequential issue to
the greater problem of the break up of the country along
sectional lines. The call for volunteers was more often made for
the restoration of the country than for the end of slavery.
Depending on where one hailed from, the ardor for restoration
vs. the abolitionist call for slavery's end was proportionate to
what state or region one lived.
New England states, with a long history and the first to end
slavery after colonization tended to be more Abolitionist in
sentiment. Wealth also played a part, the wealthy tending
towards abolitionism as well as restoration of the Union over
just for restoration. Western soldiers tended to be a little
more restoration oriented and less concerned for slavery as an
institution. No matter what state one lived in, it is clear from
letters home and biographical information that the majority of
soldiers volunteered for restoring the Union, only a minority
having any philosophical qualms about the south and its slaves.
After the Emancipation Proclamation, desertions in the Federal
army rose and attributed to the change in what many thought was
the unacceptable shift in the war's direction. Obviously, those
that deserted where another minority, the majority not caring
enough about the change or accepting it as the normal
consequence of the goal of victory and restoration of the Union
to see the job through.
For the typical southerner, the protection of "the sacred soil"
and the right to choose ones destiny motivated them to
volunteer. Again, for the southern soldier, the fight to keep
slavery as an institution was less a question of if it where
right or not to keep a human in bondage, but the threat that the
federal government would swoop down and dictate policy and
society to a sovereign state was unacceptable. Knowing that the
Union would not countenance the rebellion, southern strategy was
based upon the defense - hoping that they could outlast the
federal assaults and ware them down, a victory achieved by
buying time and concessions. Having fewer resources and half the
population, this was the only course to take. Accordingly,
volunteers were drummed up by appealing to the manly virtue of
protecting ones hearth and home from the hordes of northern
hirelings and foreigners. It is fairly common knowledge that
only a small percentage of the southern population owned even
one slave. Again, the decades of sectional conflict had created
a mutual distrust of the motives of either side, and the average
southern soldier only saw the threat of northern aggression.
When South Carolina signed the ordinance of secession, the
opportunity to express the pent up frustration at the economic,
social, and political siege the south felt it had been under
since the 1840's was realized. Although a majority felt for the
Union even afterwards, states like Virginia where politicians
successfully voted against drawing up an ordinance of secession
even after Ft. Sumter was fired upon, changed their minds when
Lincoln called for the 90 day volunteers to put down the
rebellion. Reasoning that it was better to stand with the other
states on the concept of states rights than to allow a federal
army to march on its soil, Virginia became one of the last
states to vote to secede.
The average southern soldier, if asked why he volunteered would
have stated that he fought to protect his home, which in many
cases was literal. The famous Stonewall brigade spent most of
the war fighting in its backyard in the Shenandoah Valley. He
would have had little to say about slavery, other than his
belief that no one had the right to dictate to him how to live
his life or how.
How it was fought
Like any organization, an army will not stay static. The Union
armies, more so than the confederate army, went through numerous
reorganizations. Depending on what time period being considered
for a story the military situation will be different based on
early war, mid war, and late war.
Both sides came from a common military tradition, a common
military training from West Point, and their leaders had served
with one another in the Mexican war and in the westward
expansions and Indian conflicts. Having this commonality, the
way regiments were raised on both sides where practically the
same and both armies went through similar transitions as they
grew.
Recruiting for the volunteer regiments on both sides followed
similar lines. In the North, each state was given a quota of men
to fill into regiments after Lincoln's call for ninety day
volunteers. The Governors of each state commissioned well to do
politicians and retired or current military men to raise
regiments. These men then would then build a staff of lower
ranking officers and send them out to recruit from the counties
enough men to fill a company. The typical scene would be a town
meeting, where patriotic speeches and music would rouse the
fervor of those in attendance and names would be taken down for
muster, a time and place being designated as the muster point.
Seldom would one find a permanent recruiters point in any
location, recruiting taking place sporadically. The philosophy
at the time held that men who knew one another were more apt to
serve with distinction than with total strangers. The United
States had a long history of raising volunteer units in times of
crises, and this more than anything lead to how units were
raised in the civil war. The federal government still maintained
active recruiting for the regular army, but the majority of
soldiers who fought were three year volunteers who fought in
regiments raised by the member states, which maintained their
unique identity throughout the war, and were mustered out at its
end.
Once
the company had been recruited, the practice of electing
company officers took place, although this was not a uniform
practice, this would remain the identifying trademark of all
volunteer units and point of contention at times between the
regular officers who had to command them. The companies thus
recruited would then be marched to a central location in the
state to be united with their sister companies and designated as
a regiment of the state. Taking the oath of federal service was
the last act that would officially take the volunteers into the
army.
Being virtually identical in the south, there is no need to
describe a southern vs. northern way of recruiting. The south
also maintained a regular army though again, the majority of its
soldiers served in volunteer units. Though the confederate
regular army regiments never were developed to the size of the
federal standing army, they did see service in several battles.
There was a big difference in the way both sides treated the
need for more men. On the Federal side, the states chose to
raise more regiments instead of sending men to fill the
vacancies in the current units. Though all units occasionally
sent officers back home to recruit for the regiment, the need
for manpower was usually acute in the existing units. At times
units would be combined with others from the same state as they
became too small to function on their own.
In the confederacy, as time went on and a unit's attrition
whittled it down, recruits would be raised from the state that
raised the regiment to fill the vacancies.
Another difference between the two sides was the use of bounties
and the draft. The confederacy never could levee a draft, the
constitution ratified that created the confederation of southern
states would not allow a strong central control over the
constituent states, which at times created the situation where a
state could and often did withhold vital resources in material
and manpower claiming the sovereignty of the state as the
excuse. In the north however, the draft and bounty created
several problems for the regiments in the field. Men raised by
bounty, whose motivation was purely money, often proved
themselves to be poor soldiers, where more likely to desert and
in general were of poor quality. Regiments whose numbers where
bolstered by bounty men often saw their effectiveness in combat
fall. The other factor was that the bounty men often lowered the
unit's morale. The draft, the last resort of the federal
government, brought an even lower quality to the manpower sent
to the regiments. For the men who had volunteered to preserve
the union, who had survived from the beginning of the war, the
advent of the bounty men and the practice of avoiding duty by
sending a replacement after the draft left many feeling that
their sacrifice and the sacrifice of those that had died had
been cheapened.
Organization
The primary organization throughout the war was the brigade. The
brigade was made up of from three to five regiments of infantry.
Early in the war, brigades also had a constituent artillery
battery assigned to it. This however was then moved to the
division structure to be allocated as needed although brigades
and batteries often still fought next to one another. The
organization into divisions for both sides followed the battle
of Bull Run.
Division The use of divisions in army structure was the next
form of organization. The division would consist of from two to
four brigades and supporting cavalry and artillery units
attached. Cavalry for the federals were not used in organic
structures until mid war, unlike the confederacy which used
larger cav forces. The division became the primary means of
command and control as the war progressed. Although a soldiers
primary loyalty usually lay within his regiment or brigade, the
division would be the primary means of moving forces about on
the battle filed. Corps The corps structure would not see use
until after Fredericksburg for the Federal army. Joseph Hooker
would re-organize the Army of the Potomac into Corps and assign
each a singular badge of recognition, knowing that eventually
this badge would not only be a means of identifying a unit on
the field, but also a badge of honor and pride for the rank and
file. Each division with in the Corps, usually from two to
three, would have a specific color to their badge, thus again
identifying them further in organization.
The confederates did not adopt a similar structure and their
Corps and division were usually larger in compliment than their
federal counter parts.
Army It would then stand to reason that an army would be made up
of between two to five Corps. There did not seem to be any hard
and fast rule for the organization of armies and how many corps
would make up each. Location of manpower and other resources
usually was the deciding factor. The Army of the Potomac at
times numbered up to one hundred thousand men at times, while
other armies would maybe number twenty to sixty thousand. Area
of the country also played a part in where one served. Due to
transportation limitations and the need to cover a large front,
the Union armies tended to be divided by east and west. Those
from western states, with the notable exception of the Iron
Brigade and a smattering of other western units who found
themselves in the East, usually stayed in the west. The same
held true for eastern units with the exception of the two Corps
who were sent west after Rosecrans was defeated at Chickamauga
to break the siege of Chattanooga. These two Corps then stayed
in the west and participated in the March to the sea under
Sherman.
Due to the constant state of flux that the armies underwent,
choosing a unit to place your characters will depend on the time
period. Early war, your unit would belong to a brigade denoted
by the officer in command of that brigade, i.e. Hatcher's
brigade, Sherman's brigade, etc. Mid war, the division and army
would be the identifying marks, and mid to late war, the corps
belonged to. If writing about Bull Run, or Fredericksburg, or
the Seven Days battles, you would not have a Corps structure, as
all of these battles took place between 1861 and 1862.
Although Corps and Divisions had numbers on paper in an armies
organization chart, they were referred to in orders and other
documentation by the leader in command. Regiments kept their
state designations, but brigades and divisions went by the
leaders. Artillery batteries also went by the commander, often
being designated by both the battery state of origins and the
leader's name. Cavalry units kept their state designations. This
held true on both sides. Armies on the other hand, kept the same
designations. Federal armies went by the principle water ways
that they were organized in or primarily served in. Confederate
armies went by the states they served in or were organized in.
Some armies changed names over time as they were organized then
re-organized.
©2005 by Phil Bryant
About the author:
Phil Bryant is a Systems administrator for a Fortune 500 company
and a writer/actor/director of numerous locally produced stage
plays and shorter dramas. Phil recieved his Bachelors of Arts in
History from the University of New Mexico. Phil is an author on
a site for writers http://www.Writing.Com/ and his portfolio can
be visited at http://phil1861.Writing.Com/.
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