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Confederate Soldiers, Equipment, & Demeanor

This posting is rather lengthy, but I think that it gives an excellent description of the Confederate soldier, his uniform, and his equipment from the prespective of a unbiased source. An English writer visiting in Louisiana and Virginia. Everyone enjoy.

The Blue and the Grey, The story of the Civil War as told by participants, edited by Henry Steele Commager. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., publishers, Indianapolis-New York. Copyright, 1950, by the Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. Printed in the United States of America.

Page 64-65

“Here we have two English Views of the Confederate Army and soldiers. As neither of them are signed it is difficult to know when these visitors got their glimpse of the Confederacy, but it was clearly in 1861 and 1862.

A. The Personnel of the Army is Very Varied.
The appearance of a regiment on parade is remarkable to the eye of an European. Many are composed of companies who have uniforms of different colours; but in these case there is always some distinctive badge by which their particular corps can be easily told. This defect, consequent upon the companies being raised in different neighbors, is being quickly remedied, and we saw numerous regiments which has lately arrived, whose dress was all that the Horse Guards could desire.

The personnel of the army is very varied. For instance, in the Louisiana regiments are seen the bronzed and fiery-eyed French creoles mingled with many Irish and native Americans from New Orleans. The Alabamians, proud of their gallant 4th, their flying artillery, and other regiments, may be known by their strong frames, gay manners, and devil-may-care air. The South Carolinians, sallow in complexion, tall in stature, seldom need the Palmetto to tell the stranger the state from which they come; but in all regiments it is easy to perceive differences in manner and bearing, indicative of the various classes of which the army is composed.

Numbers of wealthy planters serve as privates side by side with the professional man, the shopkeeper, the clerk, the labourer, and all go through the ordinary fatigue duties incident to camp-life. We saw a poor Negro servant actually shedding tears because his master, on being told off to dig a trench around a battery, would not allow him “to lend a hand.” “Twil nebber do, massa,” he said: I go “tarnal mad wid dem darn’d Yankees.”

One day we heard a lad to one of a different regiment of the number of gentlemen in his company who had thousands of dollars at their command. The latter replied “Oh, of course they fight; but we have some in ours who have not got a cent!” The Washington artillery, composed of the best blood in New Orleans. The gunners dressed in light-blue uniforms, are all men of independent means. General Beauregard’s son, for instance, left his father’s staff, and entered as a private.
The drivers are regularly enlisted into the army, and paid by the regiment, so here is a force which does not cost the country a single farthing. Their efficiency is undoubted, and the execution which they did at Bull’s Run has led to their material augmentation, and the formation of others on similar principles. From the same city comes a very different regiment, called the New Orleans “Zouaves”, dressed in red caps, blue braided jackets, and trousers striped with light grey and red. These men look like pirates—bearded, fierce-looking fellows….As they marched past the General with a long swinging step, singing a wild martial air, we though they were a formidable a body of men as we should care to see.

The drill of the army is the same as the French, the step even quicker than the Zouaves, and a good deal longer than that of the English infantry. Movements are executed with considerable precision and as rapidly as in English light-infantry battalions.

From the reports we had heard in the North, we expected to find ragged and half-clad regiments; instead of which we failed, during many rides through the various camps, to see one man who was not clad in serviceable attire. It was expected that winter clothing would be served out before the 1st of November, and that dress would then become more uniform.

But the point to which the chief attention of officers and men is directed is the arms. Besides the Enfield rifle, most of the privates in the army carry at least one revolver and a bowie-knife: these are invariable kept bright and in good condition; and the early training which all Southerners undergo in shooting squirrels as soon as they are able to handle a gun, gives them a facility of using their weapons and a correctness of aim that renders their fire unusually formidable.
--Anonymous, “A Month with the ‘Rebels’”

Page 65-66
B. “The High Standards of Intelligence”
“The Confederate soldier at first sight certainly presented a somewhat uncouth and even sorry appearance: about his person any kind of coat, or more commonly northing beyond shirt and pantaloons, on his head, as the case might be, a cap, a straw hat, a slouch hat, or no hat at all. A closer scrutiny, however, showed that essentials were well provided. Besides his musket and cartridge-box, every man had a canteen, most men a blanket and a haversack. A more suitable equipment for summer service in Virginia could hardly have been devised.

What gives peculiar interest to the Confederate soldier’s dress is the individual history which attaches to each separate article. From the blanket he sleeps on to the cartridge he shoots with, almost everything has been appropriated from the enemy at one time or another. This rifle was exchanged for the old flint-lock on the field of Manassas; the canteen was taken at Shiloh; the grey mare yonder, with M’Clellan’s saddle, was captured in the cavalry charge at Williamsburg; these boots were taken out of the Yankee stores at Winchester. The Negro who is following with the saucepan and the extra blanket, being wiser than his master, has consulted comfort rather than prejudice, and prevailed upon himself to wear a Yankee uniform, in consideration that the former proprietor was a full colonel.

Entire batteries pass down the road, with “U.S.” in prominent white letters on the caissons. It is no exaggeration to say that a great part of the Confederate army has been equipped at the expense of the United States. Flint-locks and fowling-pieces have been exchanged for good Minie rifles. There was, however, still so great of want of small-arms, that a considerable part of the army were armed with smooth-bore of home manufacture, loaded with a ball and three buckshot. This deficiency has, perhaps, not been altogether a disadvantage, inasmuch as the necessity of getting to close quarters, in order to put themselves on an equality with their opponents, has in no small degree produced among the Confederates that habit of closing with the enemy which has proved so inconvenient to the Northern troops. It seems inconceivable until witnessed, that the same men who have been marching, or rather carelessly lounging, along the road in loose and slovenly array, should, at the sound of the first shell that whistles overhead, form up at the words of their officers, with ease and rapidity, into a line so close and compact, that the sight of it would give joy to a martinet’s heart. The soldiers of the Southern army were scrambled together in a few months, and the greater part of them never have gone through any regular course of drill, and are, therefore, wanting in smartness and precision which distinguish good troops in Europe. Men take off their hats instead of saluting; orders are given in a loose conversational tone, and the gunner in a battery will suggest an opinion to the captain. But though, for these reasons, the troops might not be presentable on parade, a year’s hard service has rendered them efficient for the field.

The very high standard of individual intelligence, moreover, supplies the want of order in a great measure. Things which, in other armies, if not done on strict rule, would be altogether neglected, somehow “get themselves done” in this volunteer army….

The great strength and power of the Southern army lies in the individual resolution of the men. Every private feels a determination, not only to carry his regiment through the fight, but to see his country through his war. Boys of fifteen may b e seen by the side of grey-haired men. Men who could not obtain arms have been known to fall in with the rear rank, and go into action on the chance of picking up a musket at the first opportunity. It has been described how, at the commencement of the war, all the wealthiest men crowded into the ranks: there has been time for the first enthusiasm to wear away, and yet there are no signs of any flinching from the contest. Scores of names could be mentioned of men who, after having served out their first term of enlistment (twelve months), spent a week with their relations, and then returned to volunteer for three years or for the war. Indeed, no man who shrank from the war could ever again venture to address a lady.

Such was the condition and such the material of the army under General Lee, who, after having waited for weeks awaited an onward move to Richmond on the part of the Federal army, was now about to take the initiative.

Anonymous, Ten Days in Richmond”

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