My particular interest is the Hampton Legion. The original Legion consisted of a six-company infantry battalion, a four-company cavalry battalion, and a single six gun artillery battery. Due to lack of transportation, the cavalry and artillery were left behind, and only the infantry battalion wnet by rail to Manassas, arriving at daylight on the morning of 21 Jul. It sustained over 25% casualties in defending the Confederate left. Three ocmpanies of the cavalry arrived three days after the battle; the artillery and the fourth company of cavalry did not arrive until August. In September, a seventh infantry company was added, and in September a second aritllery battey. The Legion operated as a unit form August 1861 until March, 1862 in patrolling the lower Occoquan, but by April, 1862, the component aprts were operating separately de facto, if not de jure. The Legion cavalry was engaged at Williamsburg, while the Legion infantry was engaged separately at Eltham's Landing and at Seven Pines (Fair Oaks). The final break came in early August, when the War Department formally separated the parts. The infantry battalion, by then augmented to eight companies, under LCOL Martin W. Gary, was brigaded with trhe 18 GA and the three Texas regiments in Hood's Texas Brigade from Gaines Mill through Sharpsburg. It was augmented to a ten company regiment in Ovember, 1862, and eventually reassigned as moutned infantry in March, 1864.
The cavalry battalion under LCOL Matthew C. Butler was assigned to the newly formed 2 S.C. Cavalry, which Butler commanded as a colonel. He later rose to command a division of cavalry in the ANV and then the Army of Tennessee. Soemtimes that unit is referred to as the Hampton Legion, which is techincally incorrect.
Stephen D. Lee started the war as a lieutenant in the Provisional CS army, in a boat in Charleston Harbor taking the laswt message for surrender, which had been refused. He then was commssioned captain of the Washington Light Artillery, assigned to the Legion. When the second battery was addedx, Lee was promoted to Major commanding the artillery battalion. In the spring of 1862 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of cavalry, then back to the artilllery as commander of a battalion commander, in which he served with distinction at 2 Manassas and Antietam. He was then promtoed to BGEN and sent west to comamnd infantry. He of course ended the war as a full lieutenant general. His battery became Hart's Battery, assigned to the Cavalry Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia.
The second artillery battery was Bachman's German Artillery, which served with distinction in the artillery of the ANV. Almost all of the men were German immigrants living in Charleston; their descendants became prominent in the business an social life of the city.
The Legions were ill-suited to the tactics of the 19th Century as dictated by the weaponry of that era. Cobb's and Phillips Legions of Goergia never foought togehter as a unit to my knowledge. The Holcombe Legion of South Carolina also tired the same formula, but the component parts never operated together. Other Legions in this part of the South included Manigualt's Battalion, which had two companies of cavalry, a battery, and 4 companies of infnatry. it was a failure and was soon dismantled. The 20 S.C. Infantry had two attached cavalry companies for several years, but during that time the 20th was largley passive along the Carolina coast.
During the 1960's the services resurrected the concept with combat action teams, but these were organized on a oepration by operation basis.
Lee