The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting against the United States forces to win the independence of the Southern states and uphold and expand the institution of slavery. On February 28, 1861, the Provisional Confederate Congress established a provisional volunteer army and gave control over military operations and authority for mustering state forces and volunteers to the newly chosen Confederate president, Jefferson Davis. Davis was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, and colonel of a volunteer regiment during the Mexican–American War. He had also been a United States senator from Mississippi and U.S. Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. On March 1, 1861, on behalf of the Confederate government, Davis assumed control of the military situation at Charleston, South Carolina, where South Carolina state militia besieged Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, held by a small U.S. Army garrison. By March 1861, the Provisional Confederate Congress expanded the provisional forces and established a more permanent Confederate States Army.
United States Colored Troops (USCT) were Union Army regiments during the American Civil War that primarily comprised African Americans, with soldiers from other ethnic groups also serving in USCT units. Established in response to a demand for more units from Union Army commanders, by the end of the war in 1865 USCT regiments, which numbered 175 in total, constituted about one-tenth of the manpower of the army. Approximately 20% of USCT soldiers were killed in action or died of disease and other causes, a rate about 35% higher than that of white Union troops. Numerous USCT soldiers fought with distinction, with 16 receiving the Medal of Honor. The USCT regiments were precursors to the Buffalo Soldier units which fought in the American Indian Wars.
During the American Civil War, the United States Army, the land force that fought to preserve the collective Union of the states, was often referred to as the Union Army, the Federal Army or the Northern Army. It proved essential to the restoration and preservation of the United States as a working, viable republic.
In the context of the American Civil War (1861–65), the border states were slave states that did not secede from the Union. They were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, and after 1863, the new state of West Virginia. To their north they bordered free states of the Union, and all but Delaware bordered slave states of the Confederacy to their south.
Quantrill's Raiders were the best-known of the pro-Confederate partisan guerrillas who fought in the American Civil War. Their leader was William Quantrill and they included Jesse James and his brother Frank.
The Lieber Code was the military law that governed the wartime conduct of the Union Army by defining and describing command responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity; and the military responsibilities of the Union soldier fighting in the American Civil War against the Confederate States of America.
The Confederate States Congress was both the provisional and permanent legislative assembly of the Confederate States of America that existed from 1861 to 1865. Its actions were for the most part concerned with measures to establish a new national government for the Southern proto-state, and to prosecute a war that had to be sustained throughout the existence of the Confederacy. At first, it met as a provisional congress both in Montgomery, Alabama, and Richmond, Virginia. As was the case for the provisional Congress after it moved to Richmond, the permanent Congress met in the existing Virginia State Capitol, a building which it shared with the secessionist Virginia General Assembly.
The American Civil War saw extensive use of horse-mounted soldiers on both sides of the conflict. They were vital to both the Union Army and Confederate Army for conducting reconnaissance missions to locate the enemy and determine their strength and movement, and for screening friendly units from being discovered by the enemy's reconnaissance efforts. Other missions carried out by cavalry included raiding behind enemy lines, escorting senior officers, and carrying messages.
The U.S. state of West Virginia was formed out of western Virginia and added to the Union as a direct result of the American Civil War, in which it became the only modern state to have declared its independence from the Confederacy. In the summer of 1861, Union troops, which included a number of newly formed Western Virginia regiments, under General George McClellan, drove off Confederate troops under General Robert E. Lee. This essentially freed Unionists in the northwestern counties of Virginia to form a functioning government of their own as a result of the Wheeling Convention. Before the admission of West Virginia as a state, the government in Wheeling formally claimed jurisdiction over all of Virginia, although from its creation it was firmly committed to the formation of a separate state.
Bushwhacking was a form of guerrilla warfare common during the American Revolutionary War, War of 1812, American Civil War and other conflicts in which there were large areas of contested land and few governmental resources to control these tracts. This was particularly prevalent in rural areas during the Civil War where there were sharp divisions between those favoring the Union and Confederacy in the conflict. The perpetrators of the attacks were called bushwhackers. The term "bushwhacking" is still in use today to describe ambushes done with the aim of attrition.
McNeill's Rangers was an independent Confederate military force commissioned under the Partisan Ranger Act (1862) by the Confederate Congress during the American Civil War. The 210 man unit was formed from Company E of the 18th Virginia Cavalry and the First Virginia Partisan Rangers. After the repeal of the Act on February 17, 1864, McNeill's Rangers was one of two partisan forces allowed to continue operation, the other being 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry. Both of these guerrilla forces operated in the western counties of Virginia and West Virginia. The Rangers were known to exercise military discipline when conducting raids. However, many Union generals considered Captain John Hanson McNeill (1815–1864) and his men to be "bushwhackers," not entitled to protection when captured, as was the case with other prisoners of war.
The 43rd Virginia Cavalry Battalion, also known as Mosby's Rangers, Mosby's Raiders, or Mosby's Men, was a battalion of partisan cavalry in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. Noted for their lightning strike raids on Union targets and their ability to consistently elude pursuit, the Rangers disrupted Union communications and supply lines.
The general officers of the Confederate States Army (CSA) were the senior military leaders of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War of 1861–1865. They were often former officers from the United States Army before the Civil War, while others were given the rank based on merit or when necessity demanded. Most Confederate generals needed confirmation from the Confederate States Congress, much like prospective generals in the modern U.S. armed forces.
Guerrilla warfare during the American Civil War (1861–1865) was a form of warfare characterized by ambushes, surprise raids, and irregular styles of combat. Waged by both sides of the conflict, but most notoriously by the Confederacy, it gathered in intensity as the war dragged.
The military forces of the Confederate States, also known as Confederate forces, were the military services responsible for the defense of the Confederacy during its existence (1861–1865).
The history of guerrilla warfare stretches back to ancient history. While guerrilla tactics can be viewed as a natural continuation of prehistoric warfare, the Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu, in his The Art of War, was the earliest to propose the use of guerrilla warfare. This directly inspired the development of modern guerrilla warfare. Communist leaders like Mao Zedong and North Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh both implemented guerrilla warfare in the style of Sun Tzu, which served as a model for similar strategies elsewhere, such as the Cuban "foco" theory and the anti-Soviet Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. While the tactics of modern guerrilla warfare originate in the 20th century, irregular warfare, using elements later characteristic of modern guerrilla warfare, has existed throughout the battles of many ancient civilizations.
John Hanson "Hanse" McNeill was a Confederate soldier who served as a captain in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He led McNeill's Rangers, an independent irregular Confederate military company commissioned under the Partisan Ranger Act.
The "Twenty Negro Law", also known as the "Twenty Slave Law" and the "Twenty Nigger Law", was a piece of legislation enacted by the Confederate Congress during the American Civil War. The law specifically exempted from Confederate military service one white man for every twenty slaves owned on a Confederate plantation, or for two or more plantations within five miles of each other that collectively had twenty or more slaves. Passed as part of the Second Conscription Act in 1862, the law was a reaction to United States President Abraham Lincoln's preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which was issued barely three weeks earlier. The law addressed Confederate fears of a slave rebellion due to so many white men being absent from home, as they were fighting in the Confederate Army. The Confederacy enacted the first conscription laws in United States history, and the percentage of Confederate soldiers who were conscripts was nearly double that of Union soldiers.
The 53rd Alabama Cavalry Regiment, also known as the 53rd Alabama Partisan Rangers, was a cavalry regiment that served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War.
On June 20, 1863 the U.S. government created a new state from 50 western counties of Virginia to be named "West Virginia". This was done on behalf of a Unionist government in Wheeling, Virginia, approved by Congress and President Lincoln, though it was done with a low participation of the citizens within the new state. There remained a large number of counties and citizens who still considered themselves as part of Virginia and the Confederacy which, in turn, considered the new state as part of Virginia and the Confederacy. In 1861 the 50 counties contained a population of 355,544 whites, 2,782 freemen, 18,371 slaves, 79,515 voters and 67,721 men of military age. West Virginia was the 6th most contested state during the war, with 632 battles, engagements, actions and skirmishes.
