Did state troops damage the Confederacy's effectiveness?

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Oct 24, 2019
I'm not sure how so called state troops we're organized, but we're units that were'nt allowed to be mobilized outside of the state detrimental to the Confederacy? I might be wrong, but I believe Georgia wasn't all that cooperative with the Confederate government when it came to providing as much as the CSA needed, no?.
 
Read Connelly’s ‘Autumn of Glory’ & ‘Army of the Heartland’ for a comprehensive history of Governor Brown the Georgia State forces. At a time when every available man was needed to fill the ranks of the Army of Tennessee, Brown’s single minded states rights policies sequestered thousands of men & horses in state units far away from the fighting. Avoiding the draft was very much the motivation behind many state units.

Mounted units in particular took a vital resource away from the army. All it took was to gather a few like minded individuals & give out officer ranks to create local cavalry command. Colonels, majors, captains abounded among these draft dodging cavaliers. Actual mounted privates not so much.
 
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Read Connelly’s ‘Autumn of Glory’ & ‘Army of the Heartland’ for a comprehensive history of Governor Brown the Georgia State forces. At a time when every available man was needed to fill the ranks of the Army of Tennessee, Brown’s single minded states rights policies sequestered thousands of men & horses in state units far away from the fighting. Avoiding the draft was very much the motivation behind many state units.

Mounted units in particular took a vital resource away from the army. All it took was to gather a few like minded individuals & give out officer ranks to create local cavalry command. Colonels, majors, captains abounded among these draft dodging cavaliers. Actual mounted privates not so much.
Thanks man, do you have any numbers on this?
 
One of the things that's worth considering is that unlike the Union the Confederacy had to handle coast defence. Coast defence can be a real manpower sink, because the coastline is long and a maritime enemy can attack anywhere along it - and because the defender doesn't know how big the attacking force is until it arrives, usually.
 
To colour the above, the Union's coastline is shorter than the Confederacy's and it's more focused on big rivers (Delaware, Hudson) than small ones.
Despite that my appreciation for the number of troops it'd take to fulfil garrison requirements along the Union coast in the event of a war where they needed to do that is on the order of 60,000. (That's a division each for Philadelphia, New York, Rhode Island, Boston, Portsmouth and Portland, and it's pretty scant at that).
 
One of the things that's worth considering is that unlike the Union the Confederacy had to handle coast defence. Coast defence can be a real manpower sink, because the coastline is long and a maritime enemy can attack anywhere along it - and because the defender doesn't know how big the attacking force is until it arrives, usually.
Do you know how many we're dedicated to the coasts?
 
Do you know how many we're dedicated to the coasts?
I've got the numbers for early 1862 somewhere, though they're just in terms of regiments - I was working out how many could be reallocated in the event of a Trent War.


After the first phase of reallocation there were:

Texas:
3 TX, 8 TX, 12 TX

New Orleans:
3 MS, 21 LA, 22 LA, 23 LA

Pensacola:
1 FL, 8 MS, 27 MS

Savannah/Georgia coast:
1 GA, 29 GA, 30 GA, 32 GA, 34 GA, 52 GA

Charleston:
Gist (46 GA, 8 GA Bn, 24 SC)

Port Royal:
11 SC, 15 SC, 18 SC

Wilmington/Fort Fisher:
11 NC, 20 NC, 30 NC
Plus (not infantry): 36 NN/2nd NC Arty

New Bern:
27 NC, 42 NC, 43 NC
Plus (not infantry) 19 NC/2nd NC Cav, 40 NC/3rd NC Arty, 41 NC/3rd NC Cav

Roanoke Inlet:
8 NC, 17 NC, 31 NC
Plus (not infantry) 9 NC/1st Cav, 10 NC/1st Art

Norfolk:
Blanchard (1 LA, 3 GA, 4 GA, 22 GA)

Yorktown:
Pryor (8 AL, 14 AL, 14 LA)
plus 32 VA at Williamsburg, 34 VA at Gloucester Point


Now, the troops reallocated away were:


Army of the Peninsula: brigades of Rains, McLaws and Cobb (total 14)

At Norfolk: brigades of Colston, Mahone and Armistead (total 12, including 3 AL)

North Carolina can produce a full division:

brigades of Wise, JR Anderson and Branch (total 14, including 45 GA, 7 NC)

And can combine Ransom's brigade with two more from SC/Georgia:
brigades of Ransom, Gregg and Lawton (total 14, including 24 NC, 1 SC Provisional Army, 13 GA)

Leave Gist's brigade at Charleston and it can produce
brigades of Evans, Drayton and Mercer (3+4+4, total 11).

So that sums to 65 allocated away and 40 still in place. Call it 100 regiments, allowing for some of those to be battalions.

So about... 20%-25% of the total Confederate army, though much of that then historically did go to the main armies.




One analysis I saw suggested that the total strength (sans militia) along the Confederate coastline in early 1862 was:
2500 in Texas
7000 in Louisiana (facing 2000 Federals)
12000 in Alabama and Florida
22000 in Georgia and South Carolina (facing 16000 Federals)
12000 in NC
And 31000 around Norfolk and Yorktown (facing 12000 Federals)
 
I've got the numbers for early 1862 somewhere, though they're just in terms of regiments - I was working out how many could be reallocated in the event of a Trent War.


After the first phase of reallocation there were:

Texas:
3 TX, 8 TX, 12 TX

New Orleans:
3 MS, 21 LA, 22 LA, 23 LA

Pensacola:
1 FL, 8 MS, 27 MS

Savannah/Georgia coast:
1 GA, 29 GA, 30 GA, 32 GA, 34 GA, 52 GA

Charleston:
Gist (46 GA, 8 GA Bn, 24 SC)

Port Royal:
11 SC, 15 SC, 18 SC

Wilmington/Fort Fisher:
11 NC, 20 NC, 30 NC
Plus (not infantry): 36 NN/2nd NC Arty

New Bern:
27 NC, 42 NC, 43 NC
Plus (not infantry) 19 NC/2nd NC Cav, 40 NC/3rd NC Arty, 41 NC/3rd NC Cav

Roanoke Inlet:
8 NC, 17 NC, 31 NC
Plus (not infantry) 9 NC/1st Cav, 10 NC/1st Art

Norfolk:
Blanchard (1 LA, 3 GA, 4 GA, 22 GA)

Yorktown:
Pryor (8 AL, 14 AL, 14 LA)
plus 32 VA at Williamsburg, 34 VA at Gloucester Point


Now, the troops reallocated away were:


Army of the Peninsula: brigades of Rains, McLaws and Cobb (total 14)

At Norfolk: brigades of Colston, Mahone and Armistead (total 12, including 3 AL)

North Carolina can produce a full division:

brigades of Wise, JR Anderson and Branch (total 14, including 45 GA, 7 NC)

And can combine Ransom's brigade with two more from SC/Georgia:
brigades of Ransom, Gregg and Lawton (total 14, including 24 NC, 1 SC Provisional Army, 13 GA)

Leave Gist's brigade at Charleston and it can produce
brigades of Evans, Drayton and Mercer (3+4+4, total 11).

So that sums to 65 allocated away and 40 still in place. Call it 100 regiments, allowing for some of those to be battalions.

So about... 20%-25% of the total Confederate army, though much of that then historically did go to the main armies.




One analysis I saw suggested that the total strength (sans militia) along the Confederate coastline in early 1862 was:
2500 in Texas
7000 in Louisiana (facing 2000 Federals)
12000 in Alabama and Florida
22000 in Georgia and South Carolina (facing 16000 Federals)
12000 in NC
And 31000 around Norfolk and Yorktown (facing 12000 Federals)
Wow man, thank you so much!
 
I've got the numbers for early 1862 somewhere, though they're just in terms of regiments - I was working out how many could be reallocated in the event of a Trent War.


After the first phase of reallocation there were:

Texas:
3 TX, 8 TX, 12 TX

New Orleans:
3 MS, 21 LA, 22 LA, 23 LA

Pensacola:
1 FL, 8 MS, 27 MS

Savannah/Georgia coast:
1 GA, 29 GA, 30 GA, 32 GA, 34 GA, 52 GA

Charleston:
Gist (46 GA, 8 GA Bn, 24 SC)

Port Royal:
11 SC, 15 SC, 18 SC

Wilmington/Fort Fisher:
11 NC, 20 NC, 30 NC
Plus (not infantry): 36 NN/2nd NC Arty

New Bern:
27 NC, 42 NC, 43 NC
Plus (not infantry) 19 NC/2nd NC Cav, 40 NC/3rd NC Arty, 41 NC/3rd NC Cav

Roanoke Inlet:
8 NC, 17 NC, 31 NC
Plus (not infantry) 9 NC/1st Cav, 10 NC/1st Art

Norfolk:
Blanchard (1 LA, 3 GA, 4 GA, 22 GA)

Yorktown:
Pryor (8 AL, 14 AL, 14 LA)
plus 32 VA at Williamsburg, 34 VA at Gloucester Point


Now, the troops reallocated away were:


Army of the Peninsula: brigades of Rains, McLaws and Cobb (total 14)

At Norfolk: brigades of Colston, Mahone and Armistead (total 12, including 3 AL)

North Carolina can produce a full division:

brigades of Wise, JR Anderson and Branch (total 14, including 45 GA, 7 NC)

And can combine Ransom's brigade with two more from SC/Georgia:
brigades of Ransom, Gregg and Lawton (total 14, including 24 NC, 1 SC Provisional Army, 13 GA)

Leave Gist's brigade at Charleston and it can produce
brigades of Evans, Drayton and Mercer (3+4+4, total 11).

So that sums to 65 allocated away and 40 still in place. Call it 100 regiments, allowing for some of those to be battalions.

So about... 20%-25% of the total Confederate army, though much of that then historically did go to the main armies.




One analysis I saw suggested that the total strength (sans militia) along the Confederate coastline in early 1862 was:
2500 in Texas
7000 in Louisiana (facing 2000 Federals)
12000 in Alabama and Florida
22000 in Georgia and South Carolina (facing 16000 Federals)
12000 in NC
And 31000 around Norfolk and Yorktown (facing 12000 Federals)
Those were not State Troops or Militia through right? I think that's what the OP is about.
 
Those were not State Troops or Militia through right? I think that's what the OP is about.
The point I was making was that, in addition to state troops, there were also some all-up volunteer regiments deployed to the coastline as coastal defence. Quite a lot of them, in the early war.

With those volunteer regiments deployed to the land fighting the coastal defence job does still need to be done by somebody, which would be the state troops and militia. So that sets a limit on how much more manpower could have been sourced.
 
I'm not sure how so called state troops we're organized, but we're units that were'nt allowed to be mobilized outside of the state detrimental to the Confederacy? I might be wrong, but I believe Georgia wasn't all that cooperative with the Confederate government when it came to providing as much as the CSA needed, no?.
That's really a good question. In my cemetery visit travels here in Texas I find a lot of Texas State Troops and Texas Militia but I generally only find Texas Muster Cards for them. I have no idea of their numbers, what kind of training they got or where they were deployed. I have seen a few early war TST and TM enlistees who subsequently enlisted in the 9th Texas Infantry (a 6 month regiment) and Waul 's Texas Legion. Most of the TST and TM were 6 month regiments formed in 1863-1864 and were mostly older men and very young boys. Again, I have no idea of their training and deployment. Nothing about that in the NPS database. I assume at least some record of that exists in Texas somewhere.
 
The point I was making was that, in addition to state troops, there were also some all-up volunteer regiments deployed to the coastline as coastal defence. Quite a lot of them, in the early war.
My point was that those regiments were regular CSA troops and didn't take orders from the state governors. I think that's what the OP was getting at. I think the question was did the raising of state troops and state militia, subject to Governors' orders, hurt the Confederacy?
 
I'm not sure how so called state troops we're organized, but we're units that were'nt allowed to be mobilized outside of the state detrimental to the Confederacy? I might be wrong, but I believe Georgia wasn't all that cooperative with the Confederate government when it came to providing as much as the CSA needed, no?.
Texas had 13 Regiments of State Troops and Militia and 19 Battalions and Companies of State Troops, Militia and Home Guards. Granted, a lot of them were 90 day and 6 month units. Still...

https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units.htm#fq[]=Side:"Confederacy"&fq[]=State:"Texas"
 
My point was that those regiments were regular CSA troops and didn't take orders from the state governors. I think that's what the OP was getting at. I think the question was did the raising of state troops and state militia, subject to Governors' orders, hurt the Confederacy?

I think Saphroneth's point is that you have to be cautious in assuming that State Troops were automatically not performing a useful function. While it is probable that many State units were simply manpower sinks keeping men away form the draft others would have been guarding critical transport and industrial nodes and other strategic locations.
 
I think Saphroneth's point is that you have to be cautious in assuming that State Troops were automatically not performing a useful function. While it is probable that many State units were simply manpower sinks keeping men away form the draft others would have been guarding critical transport and industrial nodes and other strategic locations.
Yep. Any given blockade running port is going to be useless if it's not defended.
 
Texas had the 9th Texas Infantry, 20th Texas Infantry and 1st Texas Heavy Artillery guarding Galveston to Sabine Pass. Veterans of those regiments are buried in cemeteries all over southeast, east and central Texas. I'm curious now if any State Troops or Militia were also deployed there and why. If they were, that goes directly to the question posed in the OP.

https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=CTX0009RI01

https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=CTX0020RI

https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=CTX0001RAH
 
It seems like there's something of a dichotomy here. Either the need to provide slave patrol duties did consume manpower that would otherwise have been available to the fighting front (in which case the "old men and boys" Sherman's men fought could have been effective manpower if trained well) or it was using manpower that would not have been available to the fighting front.

I believe however that it's the case that no nation can really put all its eligible population under ams at any one time - the Union as much as the Confederacy. The Union needs free men to still work on the farms, and in the mines, and so on, while the Confederacy uses a small number of free men (comparatively speaking) to keep tabs on the large amount of unfree (i.e. slave) labour doing those jobs for them.

That means the question there is actually whether the mobilization system of either side was more or less efficient. And the Confederacy certainly seems to have mobilized a higher or equivalent % of its total population than the Union at most points in the war (as evidenced by the fact the Confederacy was not customarily outnumbered 2:1 and had to handle coastal defence).

So any inefficiences in the Southern system were apparently matched by inefficiencies in how the North did it.
 
I think Saphroneth's point is that you have to be cautious in assuming that State Troops were automatically not performing a useful function.
I think the point of the OP was did the raising of State Troops, Militia and Home Guards siphon off troops that could've/should've served in regular CSA units? I don't know so much about other states but I think that's a valid question with respect to Texas.
 
I'm not sure how so called state troops we're organized, but we're units that were'nt allowed to be mobilized outside of the state detrimental to the Confederacy? I might be wrong, but I believe Georgia wasn't all that cooperative with the Confederate government when it came to providing as much as the CSA needed, no?.
Has your question been answered? There seems to be some confusion as to what kind of input your were specifically looking for.
 
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