Actually, it seems to me as if you are asking questions that your local librarian should be able to help you with. (S)He may or may not come up with specific information about Alabama troops, but things like the weather or personalities at the time would be fair game and easily doable. Incidentally, I'd like to plug a good book for people such as yourself, who need incidental information on a daily basis. Try E. B. Long's The Civil War Day By Day : An Almanac, 1861-1865, first published in 1971. Long was a researcher for Bruce Catton's Centennial History of the Civil War, and he later gathered those notes into a daily account of the war, even including weather conditions. Indispensable, I have found, for checking on what is happening in various theatres of war on given dates.