First To Go

As it should be obvious, by now, the war took even those who were preparing for it’s eventuality, by surprise. The mobilization plans of the day, for all those involved, were relatively rapid compared to past wars, as they utilized every bit of modern technology at their disposal. The most prominent of these inventions were, quite naturally, the railroad and telegraph. Even with such modern wonders, at their beck and call, it would still take time for each of the belligerents to bring their weight to bare. There simply was no way to mobilize millions of men and shift them to their assigned stations in the blink of an eye. This is a feat that we cannot even do today and probably never will.

The standing armies of the day, the full time regular soldiers, were largely defensive in nature and in most of the countries in question they did not represent the bulk of the total forces after full mobilization. It greatly depended on the nation as to the exact disposition of these cadre’s of regular troops. Each nation had it’s own needs, prior to the war, so, if you were a soldier in any given national army you could find yourself doing a wide variety of duties.

The richer nations had the advantage here. Soldiering, like any other profession, requires practice to obtain proficiency. Military formations that spend all of their time practicing will do their jobs much better than those who do not. It takes a great deal of disposable wealth for a nation to feed, clothe, shelter, and then pay a large group of men to do nothing else but run around in the forest and pretend to shoot at each other. On the eve of war there were several such armies in existence but, all of them were a fraction of the size the armies would swell too, once the war began.  

The largest standing army in the world, at the time, belonged to Nicholas II of Russia. He had an estimated 1.2 million men under arms before the first reservist even reported for duty. This number may sound incredible in comparison, to say, the Germans who were his most likely enemy. The Germans only kept some 600,000 soldiers on full time duty, before the war. If it were a contest of simple numbers then the Russians, with twice as many men, would have a definitive advantage. The reality isn’t quite that simple.

The Russians not only had to guard the largest border in the world but, they had to garrison many places that they “owned” outright. For all that has been said of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, being a polyglot society, it is safe to say that Franz-Joseph had nothing on Nicholas. Most of the lands ruled by the Tsar were relatively recent conquests, usually by direct military invasion, and none of the conquered (and more importantly their children) had never taken to the idea of being Russian. Revolts were common and that is not even counting the ever present dissension amongst the native Russian speaking population of the Empire.

While most German soldiers spent all of their time either in training or preparing for it, a good deal of the Russian army spent their time harvesting crops, building railroads, manning roadblocks, policing villages, and any number of tasks that had little to do with fighting a war. There is also the added problem that a good number of the soldiers were not Russian nor could they even speak the language! This can create problems for officers trying to give orders to the troops in the heat of battle.

The French army was in a much better position than their Russian allies. It has been often said that they had the largest army in the world at the time, however, research has shown this claim to be false. It is more likely that they had around eight-hundred thousand men under arms at the start of the conflict. Most of that was stationed in metropolitan France but, this also includes Algeria. The Algerians did not consider themselves French even if France told them they were. This naturally led to some disputes, followed by shooting, and as a consequence a sizable portion of their regular army was in Africa at any given time.

The United States Army was far larger in size than it had been prior to the American 61. Estimates put US strength at anywhere between five and six hundred thousand men when the war broke out. That would be a considerable force except that they had the second and third largest borders in the world to guard. The US Army not only had to worry about the Confederacy but, the British Army was in Canada as well. The US Army was so thin at times that reserves were often employed to make up the shortages. You also have to remember that these figures include naval and marine personnel too. In the decades before the war, the US Navy had gone through one of the most rapid expansions that any military ever has, yet, the US Congress was often reluctant (especially under Bryan’s leadership in the house) to increase the total number of men for all forces. As a result the Navy was constantly getting a huge chunk of manpower that was initially allotted for the Army. This left the US Army relying more and more on it’s trained pool of reserves.

If the US Army was having problems it was nothing in comparison to what their cousins south of the border were having. Thanks to the Home Party in general, and Wade Hampton specifically, the Confederate States Army was largely composed of what could only be described as active duty militia. It was a system that developed due to it’s political expediency when even state level DCP politicians went enthusiastically along with it. Politicians survive on favors and having a large military infrastructure available gives governors, and even state law makers, lots of colonelcies to hand out in exchange for some future back scratching.

While this system sounds hopelessly corrupt, and in many places it was, it actually worked surprisingly well in some places. Had the situation been similar to before the American 61, when the nearest enemy was an ocean away, it is likely the entire military infrastructure of the Confederacy would have collapsed in short order. Now, the enemy was literally just a stone’s throw away and when a soldier knows his home and family are on the line he tends to take his business seriously.

In states that had an international border, such as Tennessee, Arkansas, Sequoyah, and Texas, the military state of preparedness was quite high. There were still people living in those states that remembered being occupied, had seen the battles of the last war, and were justifiably scared of it happening again. In Virginia, a state that still had area’s under “occupation,” both the quantity and quality of the troops available easily surpassed that of the much smaller regular army that was directly controlled by the Confederate Government. 

It was in the states of the Confederacy that had hardly been touched by the first war that you found widespread corruption. This was never more true than in Georgia, where, Confederate Senator (and Governor of the State from time to time) John B Gordon had turned the states active duty regiments into political dumping grounds for his supporters. It was common knowledge amongst the average Confederate soldiers, on border duty, that you did not want a Georgia Regiment watching your back. While this was unfair to many units, from that state, it was more often true than not. 

One particular unit, a company sized formation permanently garrisoned in Macon, B Company of the 1/22 Georgia Infantry, was commonly referred too as “the country club.” Macon was the largest city nearest the capital of Milledgeville and hence, made it an ideal place for Gordon to shape this particular unit to fit his financial and political needs. It was common at the time, and legal, to buy deferments for military service. Not everyone could afford it and that included many influential types that might have had notoriety but, were not necessarily rich. The price to be stationed at Fort Benjamin Hawkins, in Macon, was cheaper than the deferment since it was paid directly to Gordon and he was quite astute at figuring out who could afford what price.

The record of this unit shows that it had a formation every morning but, personal accounts of those who served at the post contradict this. The company records can even be used to prove this, because, when you compare them to similar records you find that they had a perfect attendance, at every roll call, as well as a notable absence of sick calls. In other units of the confederate army you almost never, if ever at all, see a morning formation where someone did not go to sick call. Absence Without Leaves were not a terrible problem in the Confederate Army of the time but, they did happen. Fort Benjamin Hawkins does not record a single such incident.

It is also noteworthy that when the war broke out and this units parent brigade was mustered into existence, at Fort Longstreet, near Atlanta, this unit was broken up before that date and it’s personnel were reassigned to other jobs. This was an isolated example but, not a unique one. It illustrates a general problem that existed across the board in the Confederate Army. Of course, there were examples to the other extreme and none more notable than a brigade stationed in the pan handle of west Texas.

This brigade would come to be called the “Confederate Foreign Legion,” however, that name was still a year or so off at the start of the war. At the time it was informally referred to as the Missouri Legion. Officially it was known as the 2/3rd Confederate States Battalion. The official name is curious in that the unit was not actually under the authority of the Confederate general staff as were most other regiments with that title. All of the exceptions to that rule existed in Texas where the 2/3 was located. Nominally this battalion fell under that states authority but in practicality it differed even from other Texas military units.

As the informal name implies, the vast majority of this units manpower came from the refugee’s that had settled in the area after they were run out of Missouri, by the US Army, in the late 1860‘s. By 1898 the large majority of the people, who had actually done the running, were past military age but, they were a very clannish group and passed their hatred along to their children. These groups generally founded their own towns (which is why even today you can find many a town in Texas that shares a name with one in Missouri) and as a consequence ran their own schools. 

A visitor to one of these schools, English actress Lillie Langtry, once noted the Missouri state flag hanging behind the teachers podium. The story of how she thought this was the Texas state flag, for years after, has become something of a humorous folk tale now. How much truth there is to the story is debatable but, the fact that these refugee’s prominently displayed their original state flag is not. They still do it today. This is also just the tip of the ice berg. To quote a math text book that was widely used in their schools, “if your father kills thirteen Yankee’s and your uncle kills nine then how many Yankee’s have they killed together?” That book was in use at the start of the war.

Military service in the Missouri Legion was not compulsory. In fact, the refugee’s, and their off spring, were not registered with the Texas Department of Public Safety (the department responsible for the states military) because they were exempt from any conscription. Even in 1898 these people were still considered only residents of the state of Texas and not citizens. This was mostly by their choice since Texas did not actually forbid them from becoming citizens. Even so, white Missourian residents enjoyed the full protections and rights under the law as was not the case with blacks, who were also considered only residents (resident for blacks meant any that were not an actual slave).

Despite the fact that they were not required to serve, it was considered a rights of passage for all males, of this community, to enlist in the Legion at the age of 18. It was unthinkable not to do so and, in fact, the parents had a hard enough time trying to keep the young boys from running off and joining up before they turned legal age. As a result, this was a very motivated battalion that took their job extremely seriously.

The Missourians also had a very romanticized reputation as hard brawling, hard living, raider styled cavalry that could out ride and shoot anyone they came up against. The usual image of this battalion, that people form, is one of a burly looking lot of unkempt ruffians. This myth can easily be dispelled by looking at the unit designation. They were an infantry battalion with a few artillery assets attached. There are also several group photo’s of the component companies and in every last one you can see that their uniforms conformed to the standards of the time. They wore the white leather helmets that resembled the German or British variety known as picklehaub. They’re uniforms were the brownish khaki style summer uniforms that were favored by the British in South Africa. They’re suspenders, ammo pouches, and belts were made of white leather. They were fairly indistinguishable from any other Confederate unit of the day and, for that matter, British as well. That was in dress only. 

In 1898 the battalion had only ever had one commanding officer. This man’s name was Lieutenant Colonel Jesse Woodson James. If it could be said that the men were enthused about the idea of fighting a war with the US, then, it went double for their commander. Colonel James had been fighting the war since before Fort Sumter in 1861 (according to some accounts) and continued on fighting it after the cease fire in 1864. The most reliable accounts of when he had finally left the United States, for good, is probably sometime in the mid 70’s. No matter which accounts you believe, it is fairly certain he was still waging a partisan war, in the mid-western United States, as late as ten years after the two nations had quit fighting.

James probably never would have quit on his own. There are those who believe he was responsible for a great deal of the “Regulator” activity in Kansas. There are those who claim no evidence for this but, it is curious, that when James finally accepted a commission, as an officer from the state of Texas, that the reports of Regulator activity in Kansas dropped by almost half. The history of his battalion would also seem to lend even more credibility to the belief, that he was a Regulator, even if it is all just circumstantial evidence at best. 

James’ colonelcy and the 2/3 came into existence on the exact same day. He was given an unusual amount of freedom in how he ran his unit. Commissioner of Public Safety, Thomas J Goree (1882-1889), once commented of James and his men, “I don’t know where the hell James is and I hope to god he stays there.” 

It is theorized that giving James his commission, and unit, was the only way the Confederate Government had of actually stopping him from attacking targets in the US. At the time, James became an officer, Longstreet was in office and feverishly working at making a permanent peace with the United States. James must have been at best an embarrassment and at worse a serious impediment at Langley. He would still have been the kind of man you did not want to permanently get rid of however. Such men have their uses when the time is right.

That is all just theory. What is fact is that James had put his time and absolute authority to good use. He was not a formally educated man but, he had learned war on the job and probably knew it better than anyone else in the CSA. The fact that the 2/3 was infantry and not cavalry was his doing. He must have seen, in his years of fighting up north, where the tide was going in so far as tactics. Rapid fire weapons, something the US started mass producing and issuing to their troops in the late 80’s, was clearly bringing the day of the cavalry to a close. The advent of a practical machinegun, around the same time period, pretty much drove the final nail in the horse troopers coffin. James must have seen it coming (the irony here being that James and his comrades were most likely the reason why the US began to adopt quick fire rifles).

It was uncommon, before the war, for units larger than a company to drill together. From time to time you might have a regiment assemble in the same town at the same time. Even these formations were usually for parades and such. It was hardly combat training. James made a point to drill his entire battalion, together, at least once a year and twice if he could get away with it. Quite often his men volunteered to do this, brought their own rations, ammo, and even sometimes had to buy their own train tickets to get there. 

James used the endless expanses of the west Texas prairie as his parade ground. He tinkered with his formations, practiced moving his troops around, and began writing an entirely new book on how to make war with the weapons he had. When the unit marched off to war, in November of 98, there were probably very few others that could give it a serious fight on a one to one basis. As a result of James’ ceaseless efforts the 2/3 would suffer fewer casualties than any other unit, that saw comparable levels of fighting, during the war.

These two extreme examples of Confederate military formations only go towards illustrating the most fundamental problem that their General Staff would face. The lack of standards in training and troop quality would plague the Confederacy for some time to come. In theory, and on paper, each unit was the same as another. The reality of it, when it came time for the bullets to fly, was very different. The Confederate War Department would find this out the hard way, many times, and quite often to their nations detriment.