Much has been made of southern preparations for war but how much was real and how much just bluster. How much progress had been made standing up this 100,000 man army by the firing on ft. Sumter.
My research interest in the Austrian arms which were imported for the Federal and Confederate Armies led me to the question of why it was necessary for both sides to import the massive quantities of European military arms that were brought in during the war. The national government's arms holdings, and those seized from the national arsenals in the South by the state militias for the Confederacy, are readily quantifiable. That led to my interest in the condition of the state militias effective 31 December 1860. A discussion of state preparedness - North and South - and the numbers and condition of state owned arms for the militia would take an almost book length treatise to respond adequately to your questions/comments.
Since there was as yet no Confederate government, the preparation which was occuring in the South was at the state level, and I will cite several very abbreviated examples. In 1858 the Mississippi legislature appropriated $125,000 to arm volunteer infantry companies and $150,000 to arm volunteer cavalry companies. In March 1859 the arms in the state arsenal were overhauled. In December 1859 the legislature voted an additional $150,000 for the purchase of arms. In the same two-year period the Militia Act of 1808 allocated $400,000 from the national government to arm the
entire militia of the United States.
The Virginia General Assembly had originally budgeted $5,800 for military purposes in 1859, giving an idea of Virginia's normal pre-war military appropriations. Later in the year it voted $320,000 to refurbish the Richmond Arsenal, reestablishing Virginia's capability to manufacture its own military arms. On 31 January 1860 the General Assembly passed an act appropriating $180,000 to purchase “such arms, equipments and munitions as may be required for the immediate use of the state." On 29 January 1861 the General Assembly passed an act requiring the Colonel of Ordnance, under the direction of the Governor, to “procure the necessary arms, equipments and munitions of war, for the defense of the state,” and appropriated $800,000 for the purpose. The act also authorized the governor to employ an engineer to construct coast, harbor, and river defenses, and further directed the construction of three arsenals in the state. On 14 March the Assembly passed an act authorizing the issuance of $1,000,000 in treasury notes to fund the defense of the state. On 30 April the Succession Convention authorized the governor to issue $2,000,000 in treasury notes for defense of the state. The Ordnance of Succession was not ratified by the people of Virginia until a referendum on 23 May. A discussion of Virginia's actions to set up the Richmond Arsenal and procure munitions in this two year time frame is of a length which is not appropriate for this forum. Mississippi's and Virginia's actions involved real money for real arms.
Tennessee took lower cost measures. In September 1860 Governor Harris wrote to the Ordnance Office asking if the state could purchase a machine for transforming flintlock arms to percussion. The machinery at the Pittsburgh Arsenal was available and was transferred along with 3,000 percussion hammers and nipples to Tennessee with the state billed for the equipment under its Militia Act allocation. Tennessee then transformed 3,000 flintlock muskets using the cone-in-barrel technique at the state arsenal at Nashville. After succession, the machinery was used to transform additional muskets for Tennessee and the Confederacy, including 1,500 Virginia Manufactory muskets.
Similar actions were occuring in the states all across the South. Meanwhile in the North suggestions that the arms and organization of the militia might be improved were met with ridicule in the state legislatures. So much for any Army of Northern Aggression in 1861. As stated previously, the problem for the South was that the fire eaters grossly under estimated the unwilling of the North to permit the destruction of the Union, and the military and other resources it would take to establish an independent Confederacy.
Lost Cause: Your comments immediately above have no bearing on the preparations of Virginia and Tennessee for war. They just reflect the unwillingness of Governors Letcher and Harris to respond to Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers following the firing on Fort Sumter.
Regards,
Don Dixon