Consolidating veteran units before Gettysburg (at least at regimental and brigade levels)

Joined
Aug 7, 2019
Location
Orléans, France
Hi everyone, while working on my wargame, I thought about the rearrangements that occurred before Chancellorsville and Gettysburg on the Confederate side and I would like to ask if, in your opinion, Confederate Army Corps with three divisions (let say two to three consolidated brigades each) would be sound, quite stupid or nevertheless extremely difficult to create ?
I suggest therefore some examples of consolidated units (by states) for the ANV, January-March 1863 :

Georgia Brigades, Longstreet's Corps (18 units) = dissolution of Wofford's Brigade to consolidate the three others.
1) Brig-Gen. Paul J. Semmes
- - - 10th/50th/51st/53rd Georgia

- - - 16th/24th Georgia (from Wofford's Brigade)
2) Brig-Gen. George T. Anderson
- - - 7th/8th/9th/11th/59th Georgia

- - - Cobb's Georgia Legion (from Wofford's Brigade)
3) Brig-Gen. William T. Wofford / Henry L. Benning
- - - 2nd/15th/17th/20th Georgia

- - - 18th Georgia (from Wofford's Brigade)
- - -
Phillips' Georgia Legion (from Wofford's Brigade)

Alabama - Tennessee Brigades, both Corps (20 units) = dissolution of Archer's Brigade to consolidate the three others.
1) Brig-Gen. Robert E. Rodes
- - - 3rd/5th/6th/12th/26th Alabama
- - - 13th Alabama (from Colquitt's Brigade)
- - - 5th Alabama Battalion (from Archer's Brigade)
2) Brig-Gen. Cadmus M. Wilcox
- - - 8th/9th/10th/11th/14th Alabama
- - - 15th Alabama (from Trimble's Brigade)
3) Brig-Gen. Evander M. Law / James J. Archer
- - - 4th/44th Alabama
- - - 47th/48th Alabama (from Taliaferro's Brigade)
- - - 1st/7th/14th Tennessee (from Archer's Brigade)
 
What is your objective or goal in doing this?
Just being curious about the confederate logic of more brigades in one division, probably stronger than their union counterparts.
But when units are depleted, this could result in what I proposed earlier, right ?
I'm not sure about the exact soundness of this project but it fascinates me how regiments and battalions were gathered or splitted time after time and I wanted to show another way of creating C.S. birgades based on an Union three-brigades model.
 
A common rule of thumb is that each unit should comprise 3-4 smaller units. Units with only two subunits are wasteful, mainly just a multiplication of headquarters and staffs and should only be resorted to when unavoidable; for example if an army has six divisions, it's either two corps with three each or three corps with two.

A commander should issue orders to his immediate subordinates, but he and his staff will want to maintain some cognizance of the operations of the next lower echelon, so it's best not to have the maximum number at every level. A corps with 3-4 divisions totaling about 12 brigades seems about right.

The ANV at Chancellorsville had six divisions with 28 brigades, including no fewer than 6 in the Light Division. Getting them down to four apiece would mean finding one new division commander.

As has been mentioned before, the two corps @ four division organization proved unwieldy, especially when two divisions had to be detached, with a corps commander.
 
Just being curious about the confederate logic of more brigades in one division, probably stronger than their union counterparts.
But when units are depleted, this could result in what I proposed earlier, right ?
I'm not sure about the exact soundness of this project but it fascinates me how regiments and battalions were gathered or splitted time after time and I wanted to show another way of creating C.S. birgades based on an Union three-brigades model.
I kinda get it but looking at your example its very confusing. Are you consolidating Semmes' 4 regiments into one? That's over a thousand men in one regiment if thats the case.
The big issue with Consolidation with the AoNV is that they're still getting replacements up to and after this point. A regiment can still be effective to around 200 men. The issue is, there's very few units who would be considered too understrength for the campaign. Only big ones that strike the mind are the battalions like 5th Alabama, 22nd Virginia and 2nd Georgia. Like, maybe they could be disbanded and used to fill up the ranks of their fellow units.
 
I kinda get it but looking at your example its very confusing. Are you consolidating Semmes' 4 regiments into one? That's over a thousand men in one regiment if thats the case.
Not really, the four regiments of Semmes' brigade keep their own organization, I just put them together into my model to highlight the furthered attachments : I did that to prevent any difficulties while gathering units, in order to show in one line the original units initially composing the command.
For example,
4th/44th Alabama are the two original Alabama units composing Law's Brigade during winter 1862-1863
47th/48th Alabama are the two Alabama units detached from Taliaferro's Brigade during the reorganization
1st/7th/14th Tennessee are the three Tennessee units composing Law's Brigade, which is dissolved during the reorganization.

All in all, my proposed Law's Brigade is composed of seven regiments (it's the maximum units I can retain in one brigade, the minimum being four).

And yes, maybe consolidating other Alabama units by disbanding the 5th Alabama Battalion can be better (for example, the 26th, which is underpowered at that time).

This project was just for fun, as I started organizing the historical units into an Excel's table, showing their assignment from September 1861 to April 1865.
 
And I just realized that I didn't count Wright's Georgia Brigade in Longstreet's Corps ! But then I thought that gathering the three Florida regiments (which formed an understrength brigade) with the three-an-a-half regiments of Wright's Brigade can be feasable.
 
And I just realized that I didn't count Wright's Georgia Brigade in Longstreet's Corps ! But then I thought that gathering the three Florida regiments (which formed an understrength brigade) with the three-an-a-half regiments of Wright's Brigade can be feasable.
My way of seeing it: Disband 2nd Georgia Battalion and disperse them between 3rd, 22nd and 48th Georgia; then combine the Florida brigade into Wright's Brigade
 
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