Confederate States Army

The Confederate States Army (CSA), also called the Confederate army or the Southern army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting against the United States (also known as Union) forces to support the rebellion of the Southern states. 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 States president, Jefferson Davis (1808–1889). Davis was a graduate of the United States Military Academy, on the Hudson River at West Point, New York, and colonel of a volunteer regiment during the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). He had also been a United States senator from Mississippi and served as U.S. Secretary of War under 14th president Franklin Pierce. On March 1, 1861, on behalf of the new Confederate States government, Davis assumed control of the military situation at Charleston Harbor in Charleston, South Carolina, where South Carolina state militia had besieged the longtime Federal Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, held by a small U.S. Army garrison under the command of Major Robert Anderson (1805–1871). By March 1861, the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States meeting in the temporary capital of Montgomery, Alabama, expanded the provisional military forces and established a more permanent regular Confederate States Army. An accurate count of the total number of individuals who served in the Military forces of the Confederate States (Army, Navy and Marine Corps) is not possible due to incomplete and destroyed/burned Confederate records and archives. Estimates of the number of Confederate soldiers, sailors and marines are between 750,000 and over 1,000,000 troops. This does not include an unknown number of enslaved Black people who were pressed into performing various tasks for the army, such as the construction of fortifications and defenses or driving wagons. Since these figures include estimates of the total number of soldiers who served at any time during the war, they do not represent the size of the army at any given date. These numbers also do not include sailors/marines who served in the Confederate States Navy. Although most of the soldiers who fought in the American Civil War were volunteers, both sides by 1862 resorted to conscription as a means to supplement the volunteer soldiers. Although exact records are unavailable, estimates of the percentage of Confederate Army soldiers who were drafted are about double the 6 percent of Union Army soldiers who were drafted. According to the National Park Service, "Soldier demographics for the Confederate Army are not available due to incomplete and destroyed enlistment records." Their estimates of Confederate military personnel deaths are about 94,000 killed in battle, 164,000 deaths from disease, and 25,976 deaths in Union prison camps. One estimate of the total Confederate wounded is 194,026. In comparison, the best estimates of the number of Union military personnel deaths are 110,100 killed in battle, 224,580 deaths from disease, and 30,218 deaths in Confederate prison camps. The estimated figure for Union Army wounded is 275,174. The main Confederate armies, the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee and the remnants of the Army of Tennessee and various other units under General Joseph E. Johnston, surrendered to the U.S. on April 9, 1865 (officially April 12), and April 18, 1865 (officially April 26). Other Confederate forces further south and west surrendered between April 16, 1865, and June 28, 1865. By the end of the war, more than 100,000 Confederate soldiers had deserted, and some estimates put the number as high as one-third of all Confederate soldiers. The Confederacy's government effectively dissolved when it evacuated the four-year old capital of Richmond, Virginia, on April 3, 1865, and fled southwest by railroad train with President Jefferson Davis and members of his cabinet. It gradually continued moving southwestward first to Lynchburg, Virginia, and lost communication with its remaining military commanders, soon exerting no control over the remaining armies. They were eventually caught and captured near Irwinville, Georgia, a month later in May 1865.

== Prelude == By the time Abraham Lincoln took office as President of the United States on March 4, 1861, the seven seceding slave states had formed the Confederate States. They seized federal property, including nearly all U.S. Army forts, within their borders. Lincoln was determined to hold the forts remaining under U.S. control when he took office, especially Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. On February 28, shortly before Lincoln was sworn in as president, the Provisional Confederate Congress had authorized the organization of a large Provisional Army of the Confederate States (PACS). Under orders from Confederate President Jefferson Davis, C.S. troops under the command of General Pierre Gustave Toutant / P. G. T. Beauregard military forces surrounding the city harbor began bombarding Fort Sumter on April 12–13, 1861 and forced its capitulation on April 14. The remaining loyal United States in the North, outraged by the Confederacy's attack, demanded war. It rallied behind new 16th President Lincoln's call on April 15 for all the loyal states to send their state militia units and volunteer troops to reinforce and protect the national federal capital of Washington, D.C., to recapture the various forts, arsenals, shipyards and other seized federal installations from the secessionists, to put down and suppress the rebellion and to save the Union. Four more upper border slave states (North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas and finally Virginia) then joined the Confederacy, making eleven seceded states, rather than fight fellow Southerners. The Confederacy then moved its national capital from temporary Montgomery, Alabama to the state capital of Virginia in Richmond. Both the United States and the Confederate States began in earnest to raise large, mostly volunteer, armies, with the opposing objectives: putting down the rebellion and preserving the Union on the one hand, and establishing Southern independence from the northern United States on the other.

Establishment

The Confederate States Congress provided for a regular Confederate States Army, patterned after its parent in the United States Army (established 1775 / 1789). It was to consist of a large provisional force to exist only in time of war and a small permanent regular army. The provisional, volunteer army was established by an act of the Provisional Confederate Congress passed on February 28, 1861, one week before the act which established the permanent regular army organization, passed on March 6. Although the two forces were to exist concurrently, little was done to organize the Confederate regular army.

The Provisional Army of the Confederate States (PACS) began organizing on April 27. Virtually all regular, volunteer, and conscripted men preferred to enter this organization since officers could achieve a higher rank in the Provisional Army than they could in the Regular Army. If the war had ended successfully for them, the Confederates intended that the PACS would be disbanded, leaving only the ACSA. The Army of the Confederate States of America (ACSA) was the regular army and was authorized to include 15,015 men, including 744 officers, but this level was never achieved: only 1600 men and officers ever served at in the Regular Army. The organization of the ACSA did not proceed beyond the appointment and confirmation of some officers and staff departments such as the Corps of Engineers. The highest-ranking Confederate generals, such as Samuel Cooper and Robert E. Lee, were enrolled in the ACSA to ensure that they outranked all militia officers. Some PACS units consisting of companies from multiple states received "Confederate" designations (i.e. 1st Confederate Infantry), but they were not part of the ACSA. Members of all the military forces of the Confederate States (the army, the navy, and the marine corps) are often referred to as "Confederates", and members of the Confederate army were referred to as "Confederate soldiers". Supplementing the Confederate army were the various state militias of the Confederacy:

Confederate States State Militias were organized and commanded by the state governments, similar to those authorized by the United States' Militia Act of 1792. Some of these militia forces, in the early days of the Confederacy, had operated as stand alone military forces before being incorporated into the Confederate Army; one of the more well known was the Provisional Army of Virginia.

Control and conscription

Control and operation of the Confederate army were administered by the Confederate States War Department, which was established by the Confederate Provisional Congress in an act on February 21, 1861. The Confederate Congress gave control over military operations, and authority for mustering state forces and volunteers to the President of the Confederate States of America on February 28, 1861, and March 6, 1861. On March 8, the Confederate Congress passed a law that authorized President Davis to issue proclamations to call up no more than 100,000 men. The C.S. War Department asked for 8,000 volunteers on March 9, 20,000 on April 8, and 49,000 on and after April 16. Davis proposed an army of 100,000 soldiers in his message to Congress on April 29. On August 8, 1861, the Confederacy called for 400,000 volunteers to serve for one or three years. Eight months later in April 1862, the Confederacy passed the first conscription law in either Confederate or Union history, the Conscription Act, which made all able bodied white men between the ages of 18 and 35 liable for a three-year term of service in the Provisional Army. It also extended the terms of enlistment for all one-year soldiers to three years. Men employed in certain occupations considered to be most valuable for the home front (such as railroad and river workers, civil officials, telegraph operators, miners, druggists and teachers) were exempt from the draft. The act was amended twice in 1862. On September 27, the maximum age of conscription was extended to 45. On October 11, the Confederate States Congress passed the so-called "Twenty Negro Law", which exempted anyone who owned 20 or more slaves, a move that caused deep resentment among conscripts who did not own slaves. The C.S. Congress enacted several more amendments throughout the war to address losses suffered in battle as well as the United States' greater supply of manpower. In December 1863, it abolished the previous practice of allowing a rich drafted man to hire a substitute to take his place in the ranks. Substitution had also been practiced in the United States, leading to similar resentment from the lower classes. In February 1864, the age limits were extended to between 17 and 50. Challenges to the subsequent acts came before five state supreme courts; all five upheld them.

Morale and motivations

In his 2010 book Major Problems in the Civil War, historian Michael Perman says that historians are of two minds on why millions of men seemed so eager to fight, suffer and die over four years:

Some historians emphasize that Civil War soldiers were driven by political ideology, holding firm beliefs about the importance of liberty, Union, or state rights, or about the need to protect or to destroy slavery. Others point to less overtly political reasons to fight, such as the defense of one's home and family, or the honor and brotherhood to be preserved when fighting alongside other men. Most historians agree that, no matter what he thought about when he went into the war, the experience of combat affected him profoundly and sometimes affected his reasons for continuing to fight. Educated soldiers drew upon their knowledge of American history to justify their costs. Historian James M. McPherson says:

Confederate and Union soldiers interpreted the heritage of 1776 in opposite ways. Confederates professed to fight for liberty and independence from a too radical government; Unionists said they fought to preserve the nation conceived in liberty from dismemberment and destruction ... The rhetoric of liberty that had permeated the letters of Confederate volunteers in 1861, grew even stronger as the war progressed. Before and during the Civil War, the popular press of Richmond, including its five major newspapers, sought to inspire a sense of patriotism, Confederate identity, and the moral high ground in the southern population.

=== Religion === The southern churches met the shortage of Army chaplains by sending missionaries. The Southern Baptists sent a total of 78 missionaries, starting in 1862. Presbyterians were even more active, with 112 missionaries sent in early 1865. Other missionaries were funded and supported by the Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans. One result was wave after wave of Christian revivals in the Army, religion playing a major part in the lives of Confederate soldiers. Some men with a weak religious affiliation became committed Christians, and saw their military service in terms of satisfying God's wishes. Religion strengthened the soldiers' loyalty to their comrades and the Confederacy. Military historian Samuel J. Watson argues that Christian faith was a major factor in combat motivation. According to his analysis, the soldiers' faith was consoling for the loss of comrades; it was a shield against fear; it helped reduce drinking and fighting in the ranks; it enlarged the soldiers' community of close friends and helped compensate for their long-term separation from home.

=== Slavery and white supremacism === In his 1997 book For Cause and Comrades, which examines the motivations of the American Civil War's soldiers, noted Princeton University war historian and author James M. McPherson (born 1936), contrasts the views of Confederate soldiers regarding slavery with those of the colonial American revolutionaries of the earlier 18th century. He stated that while the American rebel colonists of the 1770s saw an incongruity between owning slaves on the one hand, and proclaiming to be fighting for liberty on the other, the later Confederacy's soldiers did not, as the Confederate ideology of white supremacy negated any contradiction between the two:

Unlike many slaveholders in the age of Thomas Jefferson, Confederate soldiers from slaveholding families expressed no feelings of embarrassment or inconsistency in fighting for their liberty while holding other people in slavery. Indeed, white supremacy and the right of property in slaves were at the core of the ideology for which Confederate soldiers fought. McPherson states that Confederate States Army soldiers did not discuss the issue of slavery as often as the opposing United States Army soldiers did, because most Confederate soldiers readily accepted as an obvious fact that they were fighting to perpetuate slavery and thus did not feel the need to debate over it:

[O]nly 20 percent of the sample of 429 Southern soldiers explicitly voiced proslavery convictions in their letters or diaries. As one might expect, a much higher percentage of soldiers from slaveholding families than from non-slaveholding families expressed such a purpose: 33 percent, compared with 12 percent. Ironically, the proportion of Union soldiers who wrote about the slavery question was greater, as the next chapter will show. There is a ready explanation for this apparent paradox. Emancipation was a salient issue for Union soldiers because it was controversial. Slavery was less salient for most Confederate soldiers because it was not controversial. They took slavery for granted as one of the Southern 'rights' and institutions for which they fought, and did not feel compelled to discuss it. Continuing, retired Professor McPherson also stated that of the hundreds of Confederate soldiers' letters he had examined, none of them contained any anti-slavery sentiment whatsoever:

Although only 20 percent of the soldiers avowed explicit proslavery purposes in their letters and diaries, none at all dissented from that view. McPherson admits some flaws in his sampling of letters. Soldiers from slaveholding families were overrepresented by 100%:

Nonslaveholding farmers are underrepresented in the Confederate sample. Indeed, while about one-third of all Confederate soldiers belonged to slaveholding families, slightly more than two-thirds of the sample whose slaveholding status is known did so. In some cases, Confederate men were motivated to join the army in response to the United States' actions regarding its opposition to slavery. After the U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862–1863, some Confederate soldiers welcomed the move, as they believed it would strengthen pro-slavery sentiment in the Confederacy, and thus lead to greater enlistment of soldiers in the Confederate armies. One Confederate soldier from the West in Texas gave his reasons for fighting for the Confederacy, stating that "we are fighting for our property", contrasting this with the motivations of Union soldiers, who, he claimed, were fighting for the "flimsy and abstract idea that a negro is equal to an Anglo American". One Louisianan artilleryman stated, "I never want to see the day when a negro is put on an equality with a white person. There is too many free niggers ... now to suit me, let alone having four millions." A North Carolinian soldier stated, "[A] white man is better than a nigger." Decades later in 1894, Virginian and former famous Confederate cavalry leader, John S. Mosby (1833–1916), reflecting on his role in the war, stated in a letter to a friend that "I've always understood that we went to war on account of the thing we quarreled with the North about. I've never heard of any other cause than slavery." As stated by researcher / authors Andrew Hall, Connor Huff and Shiro Kuriwaki in the article Wealth, Slaveownership, and Fighting for the Confederacy: An Empirical Study of the American Civil War, research done using an 1862 Georgia Lottery showed that rich white Southern men actually enlisted at a higher rate than poor men because they had more to lose. Slavery helped provide them with wealth and power, and they felt that the Civil War would destroy everything that they had if they lost because they saw slavery as the foundation of their wealth, which was under threat and caused them to fight hard.

Desertion

At many points during the war, and especially near the end, the Confederate soldiers' families back home were in deep trouble. Many faced starvation and the depredations of roving bands of marauders. Conditions were worst in North Carolina. Many soldiers went home temporarily (A.W.O.L. – "Absent Without Official Leave") and quietly returned when their family problems had been resolved. By September 1864, however, President Davis publicly admitted that two-thirds of the soldiers were absent, "most of them without leave". The problem escalated rapidly after that, and fewer and fewer men returned. Soldiers who were fighting in defense of their homes realized that they had to desert to fulfill that duty. Historian Mark Weitz argues that the official count of 103,400 deserters is too low. He concludes that most of the desertions came because the soldier felt he owed a higher duty to his own family than to the Confederacy.

Confederate policies regarding desertion could be severe. For example, on August 19, 1862, famed General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (1824–1863), approved the court-martial sentence of execution for three soldiers for desertion, rejecting pleas for clemency from the soldiers' regimental commander. General Jackson's goal was to maintain discipline in a volunteer army whose homes were under threat of enemy occupation. While upwards of 100,000 soldiers may have deserted Confederate arms for varying periods and at varying times during the war, it has been estimated that the Confederate Army only executed about 230 deserters over the course of the war, with others suggesting that the figure may have been somewhat higher. This contrasts with approximately 147 soldiers executed by the Union Army for desertion, which was confronted with an overall higher number of deserters. Historians of the Civil War have emphasized how soldiers from poor families deserted because they were urgently needed at home. Local pressures mounted as Union forces occupied more and more Confederate territory, putting more and more families at risk of hardship. One Confederate Army officer at the time noted, "The deserters belong almost entirely to the poorest class of non-slave-holders whose labor is indispensable to the daily support of their families" and that "When the father, husband or son is forced into the service, the suffering at home with them is inevitable. It is not in the nature of these men to remain quiet in the ranks under such circumstances." Some soldiers also deserted for ideological reasons. A growing threat to the solidarity of the Confederacy was dissatisfaction in the Appalachian Mountains districts caused by lingering Unionism and a distrust of the power wielded by the slave-holding class. Many of their soldiers deserted, returned home, and formed a military force that fought off Regular Army units trying to capture and punish them. North Carolina lost nearly a quarter of its soldiers (24,122) to desertion. This was the highest rate of desertion of any Confederate state. Young Samuel Clemens (1835–1910, later to be known as Mark Twain) soon deserted the Southern army long before he became a world-famous writer, journalist and lecturer, but he often commented upon that episode in his life comically, even writing a book about it. Author Neil Schmitz has examined the deep unease Twain felt about losing his honor, his fear of facing death as a soldier, and his rejection of a Southern identity as a professional author.

Organization

Because of the destruction of any central repository of records in the capital at Richmond in 1865 and the comparatively poor record-keeping of the time, there can be no definitive number that represents the strength of the Confederate States Army. Estimates range from 500,000 to 2,000,000 soldiers who were involved at any time during the war. Reports from the C.S. War Department beginning at the end of 1861 indicated 326,768 men that year, 449,439 in 1862, 464,646 in 1863, 400,787 in 1864, and "last reports" showed 358,692. Estimates of enlistments throughout the war range from 1,227,890 to 1,406,180. The following calls for soldiers were issued:

March 6, 1861: 100,000 volunteers and militia January 23, 1862: 400,000 volunteers and militia April 16, 1862, the First Conscription Act: passed by the Confederate States Congress conscripted white men ages 18 to 35 for the duration of hostilities September 27, 1862, the Second Conscription Act: expanded the age range to 18 to 45, with implementation beginning on July 15, 1863 February 17, 1864, the Third Conscription Act: expanded further to ages 17 to 50 March 13, 1865, authorized finally up to 300,000 African American slaves as troops but was never fully implemented. The C.S.A. was initially a (strategically) defensive army, and many soldiers were resentful when General Robert E. Lee led his Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River in his first invasion of the North in the Antietam campaign in Maryland in September 1862.

Command

The Confederate States Army did not have a formal overall military commander, or general in chief, until late in the war. The Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, himself a former U.S. Army officer and U.S. Secretary of War, served as commander-in-chief and provided the overall strategic direction for Confederate land and naval forces in both eastern and western theaters. The following men had varying degrees of control:

Robert E. Lee was "charged with the conduct of military operations in the armies of the Confederacy" from March 13 to May 31, 1862. He was referred to as President Davis' military adviser but exercised broad control over the strategic and logistical aspects of the Army, a role similar in nature to the current Chief of Staff of the United States Army (not developed until beginning in the early 20th century). On June 1, he assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia, which was considered the most important of all the Confederate field armies. Braxton Bragg was similarly "charged with the conduct of military operations in the armies of the Confederacy" from February 24, 1864 (after he was relieved of field command following the Battle of Chattanooga) to January 31, 1865. This role was a military advisory position under Davis. Lee was formally designated General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States by an act of Congress (January 23, 1865) and served in this capacity from January 31 to April 9, 1865. The lack of centralized control was a strategic weakness for the Confederacy, and there are only a few examples of its armies acting in concert across multiple theaters to achieve a common objective. One instance occurred in late 1862 with Lee's invasion of Maryland, coincident with two other actions: Bragg's invasion of Kentucky and Earl Van Dorn's advance against Corinth, Mississippi. All three initiatives were unsuccessful, however. Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown was an extreme case of a Southern States Rights advocate asserting control over Confederate soldiers: he defied the Confederate government's wartime policies and resisted the military draft. Believing that local troops should be used only for the defense of Georgia, Brown tried to stop Colonel Francis Bartow from taking Georgia troops out of the state to the First Battle of Bull Run. Many of the Confederacy's senior military leaders (including Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, and James Longstreet) and even President Jefferson Davis, were former U.S. Army and, in smaller numbers, U.S. Navy officers who had been opposed to, disapproved of, or were at least unenthusiastic about secession, but resigned their U.S. commissions upon hearing that their states had left the Union. They felt that they had no choice but to help defend their homes. President Abraham Lincoln was exasperated to hear of such men who professed to love their country but were willing to fight against it.

=== Personnel organization === As in the U.S. Army, the Confederate Army's soldiers were organized by military specialty. The combat arms included infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Although fewer soldiers might comprise a squad or platoon, the smallest infantry maneuver unit in the Army was a company of 100 soldiers. Ten companies were organized into an infantry regiment, which theoretically had 1,000 men. In reality, as disease, desertions and casualties took their toll, and the common practice of sending replacements to form new regiments took hold, most regiments were greatly reduced in strength. By the mid-war, most regiments averaged 300–400 men, with Confederate units slightly smaller on average than their U.S. counterparts. For example, at the pivotal Battle of Chancellorsville, the average U.S. Army infantry regiment's strength was 433 men, versus 409 for Confederate infantry regiments. Rough unit sizes for CSA combat units during the war:

Corps - 24,000 to 28,000 Division - 6,000 to 14,000 Brigade - 800 to 1,700 Regiment - 350 to 400 Company – 35 to 40 Regiments, which were the basic units of army organization through which soldiers were supplied and deployed, were raised by individual states. They were generally referred by number and state, for example 1st Texas, 12th Virginia. To the extent the word "battalion" was used to describe a military unit, it referred to a multi-company task force of a regiment or a near-regimental size unit. Throughout the war, the Confederacy raised the equivalent of 1,010 regiments in all branches, including militias, versus 2,050 regiments for the U.S. Army. Four regiments usually formed a brigade, although as the number of soldiers in many regiments became greatly reduced, especially later in the war, more than four were often assigned to a brigade. Occasionally, regiments would be transferred between brigades. Two to four brigades usually formed a division. Two to four divisions usually formed a corps. Two to four corps usually formed an army. Occasionally, a single corps might operate independently as if it were a small army. The Confederate States Army consisted of several field armies, named after their primary area of operation. The largest Confederate field army was the Army of Northern Virginia, whose surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865 marked the end of major combat operations in the U.S. Civil War. Companies were commanded by captains and had two or more lieutenants. Regiments were commanded by colonels. Lieutenant colonels were second in command. At least one major was next in command. Brigades were commanded by brigadier generals although casualties or other attrition sometimes meant that brigades would be commanded by senior colonels or even a lower grade officer. Barring the same type of circumstances that might leave a lower grade officer in temporary command, divisions were commanded by major generals and corps were commanded by lieutenant generals. A few corps commanders were never confirmed as lieutenant generals and exercised corps command for varying periods as major generals. Armies of more than one corps were commanded by (full) generals.

Ranks and insignia

There were four grades of general officer (general, lieutenant general, major general, and brigadier general), but all wore the same insignia regardless of grade. This was a decision made early in the conflict. The Confederate Congress initially made the rank of brigadier general the highest rank. As the war progressed, the other general-officer ranks were quickly added, but no insignia for them was created. (Robert E. Lee was a notable exception to this. He chose to wear the rank insignia of a colonel.) Only seven men achieved the rank of (full) general; the highest-ranking (earliest date of rank) was Samuel Cooper, Adjutant General and Inspector General of the Confederate States Army. Officers' uniforms bore a braided design on the sleeves and kepi, the number of adjacent strips (and therefore the width of the lines of the design) denoting rank. The color of the piping and kepi denoted the military branch. The braid was sometimes left off by officers since it made them conspicuous targets. The kepi was rarely used, the common slouch hat being preferred for its practicality in the Southern climate.

Branch colors were used for the color of chevrons—blue for infantry, yellow for cavalry, and red for artillery. This could differ with some units, however, depending on available resources or the unit commander's desire. Cavalry regiments from Texas, for example, often used red insignia and at least one Texas infantry regiment used black. The CSA differed from many contemporaneous armies in that all officers under the rank of brigadier general were elected by the soldiers under their command. The Confederate Congress authorized the awarding of medals for courage and good conduct on October 13, 1862, but wartime difficulties prevented the procurement of the needed medals. To avoid postponing recognition for their valor, those nominated for the awards had their names placed on a Roll of Honor, which would be read at the first dress parade after its receipt and be published in at least one newspaper in each state.

=== Armies and prominent leaders === The C.S. Army was composed of independent armies and military departments that were constituted, renamed, and disbanded as needs arose, particularly in reaction to offensives launched by the United States. These major units were generally named after states or geographic regions (in comparison to the U.S. Army's custom of naming armies after rivers). Armies were usually commanded by full generals (there were seven in the C.S. Army) or lieutenant generals. Some of the more important armies and their commanders were:

Army of Central Kentucky – Simon B. Buckner, Albert Sidney Johnston Army of East Tennessee – Edmund Kirby Smith (later renamed Army of Kentucky) Army of Eastern Kentucky – Humphrey Marshall Army of the Kanawha – Henry A. Wise, John B. Floyd, Robert E. Lee Army of Kentucky – Edmund Kirby Smith (eventually commander of all forces West of the Mississippi) Army of Louisiana – Braxton Bragg. Paul O. Hébert Army of Mississippi March 1862 – November 1862: P. G. T. Beauregard, Albert Sidney Johnston, Braxton Bragg, William J. Hardee, Leonidas Polk, (also known as the Army of the Mississippi; redesignated Army of Tennessee on November 20, 1862) December 1862 – July 1863: John C. Pemberton, Earl Van Dorn, (1863) William W. Loring (also known as Army of Vicksburg) July 1863 – June 1864: William J. Hardee, Leonidas Polk, William W. Loring (also known as the Army of the Mississippi; redesignated III Corps, Army of Tennessee in May 1864, but continued to use its old name) Army of Middle Tennessee – John C. Breckinridge Army of Missouri – Sterling Price Army of Mobile – Jones M. Withers, Braxton Bragg, John B. Villepigue, Samuel Jones, William L. Powell, John H. Forney Army of New Mexico – Henry H. Sibley Army of Northern Virginia – Joseph E. Johnston, Gustavus W. Smith, Robert E. Lee First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia Third Corps, Army of Northern Virginia Fourth Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, often styled "Anderson's Corps" Cavalry Corps, Army of Northern Virginia Army of the New River – Henry Heth Army of the Northwest – Robert S. Garnett, Henry R. Jackson, William W. Loring, Edward Johnson Army of the Peninsula – John B. Magruder, Daniel H. Hill Army of Pensacola – Adley H. Gladden, Braxton Bragg, Samuel Jones Army of the Potomac – P. G. T. Beauregard, Joseph E. Johnston Army of the Shenandoah – Joseph E. Johnston Army of Tennessee – Braxton Bragg, Samuel Gibbs French, William J. Hardee, Daniel H. Hill, John Bell Hood, Joseph E. Johnston, Richard Taylor First Corps, Army of Tennessee Second Corps, Army of Tennessee Third Corps, Army of Tennessee Forrest's Cavalry Corps – Nathan Bedford Forrest Army of the Trans-Mississippi – Thomas C. Hindman, Theophilus Holmes, Edmund Kirby Smith (also known as the Army of the Southwest) Army of the Valley (also known as Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia) – Jubal Early Army of the West – Earl van Dorn, John P. McCown, Dabney H. Maury, Sterling Price Army of West Tennessee – Earl Van Dorn Army of Western Louisiana – Richard Taylor, John G. Walker Some other prominent Confederate generals who led significant units operating sometimes independently in the CSA included Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, James Longstreet, J. E. B. Stuart, Gideon Pillow, A. P. Hill, John B. Gordon.

=== Military departments === In addition to the Confederate field armies, the Confederate States itself was divided into several military territorial organizations, known as departments. These departments were mainly administrative in nature, organizing recruiting, supply distribution, and coordinating with the field armies in the event of Union invasions. The military departments were also the ultimate authority for all Confederate forts within their region, as well as commanding all garrison forces and units of the Confederate Home Guard. Unlike the Union, which had fairly stable military departments through most of the Civil War, Confederate departments were constantly being formed, reformed, and renamed as the war progressed. The original two departments, formed at the beginning of the Civil War, were "Department No 1" (later incorporated into the Department of Louisiana) and "Department No 2" (later becoming the Western Department). In Virginia, where hostilities broke out almost immediately after the start of the war, the "Alexandria line" was established as the first Confederate administrative body in this area. This was later expanded to formal military departments in the following order:

Department of Alexandria Department of the Potomac Department of Northern Virginia Virginia also maintained the following smaller departments which fluctuated as the war progressed:

Department of Norfolk Department of Fredericksburg Department of Richmond (operated in tandem with the Department of Henrico) Department of Southwestern Virginia Department of the Peninsula In the Shenandoah Valley, the first Confederate administrative command was set up at Harper's Ferry, later becoming the Valley District, directly subordinate to the Army of the Shenandoah. The Shenandoah Valley was without a department for most of the war, militarily controlled by Army of the Northwest and the Army of the Valley, before finally being declared the Trans-Allegheny Department. Elsewhere in the Confederacy, the following major departments were formed which operated throughout most of the war:

Department of Louisiana Department of Tennessee Department of North Carolina Department of South Carolina Department of Georgia The Union attack on Vicksburg, Mississippi also brought about a succession of departments known as:

Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana Department of Alabama and East Mississippi Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and Eastern Louisiana The entire Mississippi region was eventually merged into the Trans-Mississippi Department, one of the largest departments of the war. At the same time, departments were being formed further west as the:

Western Department Department of Texas Department of the Indian Territory Battles in Tennessee, and shifting fronts in that region, also brought about the need for new departments in that region, most of which reported directly to the Army of Tennessee under John Bell Hood. Hood would directly command the following three departments at the same time as his service as an Army commander: