Characteristics of Union and Confederate armies during the ACW

[Jase]

Hello,

For a project I'm working on I'm looking for some information regarding the characteristics of the Union and Confederate armies. As far as I'm concerned they used basically the same structure (how a regiment is formed, brigade, corps etc.) However, what were the distinctive differences between the two armies? For example, the Confederate cavalry was (at least in the early stages of the war) much more proficient than the Union cavalry, while on the other hand the Union had better access to weaponry, so that their artillery batteries were much larger than the Confederate batteries.

So, who can tell me more about the distinctivenesses of the respective armies in regard to troop types, troop organisation, morale etc. Wiki hasn't been much help and neither have the books I have in my library.

Cheers
Jase

[Cory]

By and large the two armies over the course of the war were nearly identical. While in individual campaigns regiments, brigades and even whole armies could show certain characteristics, overall the only real war wide difference was that the South had trouble supplying its forces in the beginning and things got a lot worse from there.

[Trooper]

Jase,

to give you a proper answer would take a book all of it's own. As the ACW is a particular favourite period of mine I will give you my thoughts and hope they are some help to you. At the start of the war, the federal government (Union) had  a very small standing army and navy. Many of the men who became generals on both sides were serving officers in this army. The militia movement was very popular, and nearly all states had several militia units organized on very a local basis, down to county level. The militias were military style groups, and drilled during the year. But they were also quite democratic, in that they elected their officers, and there was no standard laid down nationally for uniforms and equipment. Generally the units opted for very colourful and not very practical uniforms based on military fashions from Europe in the main. French style was the most popular, hence all the zouave units.

At the outbreak of the war, after those officers etc who supported the Confederacy left the regular army and returned to their respective states, President Lincoln was obliged to call for volunteers to make up an army. Naturally these mainly came from militias. They all enlisted for three months. This was the army that fought at 1st Bull Run for the Union.
The Confederate states did pretty much the same thing, forming regiments within their states form militia units and volunteers. So by and large the two armies who fought each other at Bull Run in 1861 had minimal military experience, luckily most of the officers had some experience, drawn from frontier service and the Mexican War. However this is going to take too long for me to go on here. If you are interested, pm me and we can talk at length.

 

[warrenpeace]

New regiments often had 500 to 800 men.  But during a campaign or two the regiment would suffer enough losses from battle and desease and starvation to drive the numbers down to 50 to 200 men. I think the Confederate states were more likely to send drafts of men to bring up the strength of existing regiments.  This allowed a mix of veterans and recruits to perform pretty well most of the time.  I think the Union states were more likely to just raise new regiments, leaving the raw new units to react in whatever random way raw units behave, while the veteran units were left to melt away, sometimes behaving as brittle units as the few survivors suffered from the shock of so many battles.

Confederate cavalry was often armed with pistols, muskets, or rifles, though some regiments were armed with breachloading carbines.  The Union cavalry regiments were generally armed with breachloading carbines as the war progressed, and even repeating rifles.  Some Union infantry was also armed with repeating rifles, including those from Henry, Colt, and Spencer.  It was pretty tough on the Confederate infantry that had to charge Union infantry or cavalry armed with repeaters.

Infantry brigades were often formed from regiments which were all from the same state, and often from a mix of regiments from two states. and sometimes there were brigades with a mix of regiments from multiple states.

There were very few federal regular infantry regiments (but those were good!), and even fewer national confederate regiments.  There were a few regiments designated as "sharpshooters," and some of those had special rifles, though many of them just used ordinary muzzle loading rifles. Many troops started the war using smooth bore muskets, but these were replaced with rifles as those became available.

Quite a few batteries on the confederate side had a mix of gun types, as the confederate artillery had to make do with whatever they could get. Batteries in the early war were often attached to brigades, particularly in the west. But as the war progressed the aritllery was often attached to divisions and/or placed in corps reserve battalions.

[zebcook]

It is a book length subject. I'd highly recommend "Confederates and Federals at War" by Col. H.C.B. Rogers. It's a chapter by chapter comparison of most all aspects of all services on the two sides.

[Jase]

Thanks for all the replies! I have just ordered the Rogers book from Amazon, so hope to have that soon.

@Trooper: I'll send you a PM.