Home Guards

[samgrant]

Was reading the book/movie review section on 'Cold Mountain' and there were several references to "Home Guards".

Apparently there is some confusion about just what these organizations were all about.

"Home Guards: Locally recruited volunteer forces. Home guards were organized in the South as state units." -from Grierson's Raid by Tom Lalicki.

I guess that's a decent basic definition, but as these were organized locally, in different states and different counties/towns, each may have had vastly different characteristics from others.

I've seen them also referred to as "State Troops", "State Militias", but all as local and not integrated into the Confederate army.

I've seen descriptions such as: "too young or too old, so as to be exempt from conscription", "skulkers and deserters", "used to overawe the blacks and keep in check the reckless elements of the population", "cowardly bushwhackers".

It would appear that they varied from local, well meaning guardians of the local populace on the one hand, to outright marauding outlaws on the other.

I have not been able to find a book which focuses on these types of organizations.

So that's what this thread is all about. Knock yourselves out!

[samgrant]

Does no one have any knowledge about these "home guards"? Wow!

If not, it would seem to be a relatively unexplored niche about the CW that someone could surely exploit.

[ole]

Sam: 'Spect your supposition is correct -- the guard would certainly be made up of locals and would take on the character of their leader and members. This might be benevolent on this side of the mountain, and particularly vile on the other. If you were unfit for army service, then your home guard service would depend on how well you got along with your neighbors before the war. You might also expect that there were some good people among the "guards" -- not much is written about them. Ole

[johan_steele]

I've read notes on Shermans men having some brushes w/ various home guard units in Georgia & SC and at the time I was very confused by it

At least once a group of "Home GUrads" fell in w/ Wheelers Cav and quickly fell by the wayside minus their horses. Wheelers officer who wrote of the occasion complained bitterly that the Home Guard was made up of cowardly bullies better able to critique the failings of his men than face a Yank soldier. Contempt may not quite be a strong enough word for the way the men on the Sharp End thought of them.

Though at the same time there are stories out there of crippled and wounded men invalided out of the CS Army forming Home Guard & conscription units... I can understand how a man missing a jaw, an arm or leg might not exactly be sympathetic to an unwounded deserter or draft evader...

[gary]

So, what, if any, is the distinction between a home guard and a militia?

[samgrant]

Originally Posted by gary

So, what, if any, is the distinction between a home guard and a militia?

That's part of the question. Some state militias were integrated into the Confederate Army, like Cleburne's "Yell Rifles" from Arkansas, others apparently stayed in state tho would often cooperate with Confederate regulars (such as those that Grierson ran into in Mississippi).

[gary]

I recently read that the militia was composed of men who were exempt from serving in the Confederate army. This would be civil servants (clerks, judges, sheriff, tax collector, etc.), overseers, old men and young boys.

[whitworth]

Home Guard were basically non-active duty units, out of the war. In some instances they attempted to capture deserters, although they were usually overwhelmed by the duty late in the war.

Robert E. Lee complained to his son in early 1863 of the thousand applications from those outside of Virginia, to get transferred to "native regiments out of this army, whoever heard of their applying to enter regiments in it when in the face of the enemy"?
Lee cited those who apply when "it suits their purpose" and "never when the regiments of these states are in active service."

Some governors, such as Joe Brown of Georgia, was very protective of his perogatives as a "states rights" governor in defending his own state with his own troops.
An extensive study of "home guard" and deserters is not a "high water" mark in the study of the Confederate States.