Did the average Confederate soldier fight in more battles than his Northern counterpart?

BUT...this was hardly the case in the Trans-Mississippi, where transportation infrastructure was virtually nil. I've read the memoirs of a guy who was in one of my ancestors' units (27th Arkansas) and his account is filled with long marches from one point to another only to arrive after they were needed.
I have 2 ancestors who served in the 18th Texas Infantry. From late 1862 to mid 1863 they had a similar history. Long marches and late arrivals.
 
I know the veteran regiments continued to recruit throughout the war....I'm sure those recruits stood a better chance at surviving it all with the vets by their side.....but the new greenie regiments, were they trained by veteran officers and NCO's? That would at least give them some inkling of what to expect.

Most unit raised in the later part of the war in the north were officered with Veterans from older units. If you read "All for the Union" By Elisha Hunt Rhodes you will see him talk about the army requesting that Regimental commander communicate with their Governor to have any officers of new or old Companies be promoted from the ranks.
This would keep the issue of green officer from early in the war a thing of the past.
 
Thanks for this. It makes more sense to keep established regiments up to strength and use the experience of the old hands however young they were. It seems that political/nepotistic appointments were the scourge of all armies in the 19th Century from whatever country.

If I'm not mistaken, there was a greater tendency in the North to appoint "political" generals. This may partly be explained by the strong Democratic and Copperhead opposition against the Republican party's war policies, which led the Lincoln administration to seek allies by appointing generals like Benjamin Butler and John McClernand, whose main qualifications were their ties to those groups
 
Been cruising all the threads comparing Southern soldiers/armies to Northern soldiers/armies in terms of military training, fighting spirit, comparative casualty numbers, desertions, etc.

There really doesn't seem to be a lot of clear difference in actuality.

However, Northern Armies were more numerous (more armies and more soldiers in them), had more turnover (Southerners weren't allowed to go home when their enlistments were up), and portions of Northern armies seemingly were not committed to battles for various reasons.

When I follow the battle history of many Southern regiments I am struck by how many important battles a Southern soldier could claim to have participated in.

It occurs to me that the Southern soldier might have fought on average in more battles than an average Yank soldier did.

Has any research been done in this area?

Common sense would suggest this is the case for the reasons you cite.
Thomas Livermore's Numbers and Losses in the civil war in America, 1861-65 is my usual go-to book for questions like these. I don't think Livermore established whether Johnny Reb was in more battles, but he argued from the data that he was likely to be in more combat: "An army inferior in numbers, other conditions being equal, may lose as many men as a larger one opposing it, by keeping its individuals longer under fire." (Morningside edition, 1986, p. 64)
When one thinks of Lee's unit shifting at Sharpsburg, for example, it makes sense.
 
I've read accounts of NCO's or officers being sent back to Texas on 'recruiting' drives. While doing my research on my second great uncle, captured at Arkansas Post, there was a notation that those that weren't captured were either out on foraging detail, on furlough, or assigned in TX on temporary provost marshal duty or 'recruiting'....Everyone else was captured.
IIRC, in Confederate regiments officers would be sent back to recruit in their home county to raise men for their particular company. Though this would probably bring rather few replacements, especially as the war went on. Confederate regiments who's home towns were later Union re-gained territory or west of the Mississippi meant that they couldn't always muster new recruits from home by 1863-'64 either. This was especially true for the AoT; by 1864 there were many regiments and companies consolidated, and it wasn't too uncommon for a regiment to be down to company strength by the end of the Atlanta Campaign.
 
Confederate units at the beginning were commonly enlisted for one year... Many members of these units did indeed go home at the expiration of their respective terms... However the conscription acts were also coming about... Many chose to reenlist for the new customary "3 years or the war" terms.. Some desired to continue the fight... others volunteered to avoid being conscripted and then placed wherever... Many of those that did actually go home.. found themselves in short order subject to the conscription acts, and drafted back again usually within a year.. Those enlisted or conscripted thereafter were for 3yrs or the war... Confederate units already existing habitually were refilled with new volunteers and conscripts. Hence after early 1863 was unusual to find a "new" unit formed and numbered for the field... less it be the result of a consolidation of already existing Battalions.. to form a newly designated Regiment...

Federal units were also generally mustered for a given enlistment period... 90 days, 100 days, 1 year.. or 2 years at the very beginning... which quickly evolved to be 3 years.... In the summer of 1864 many of the enlistments of these regiments were expiring.. many were persuaded to reenlist... some did go home then.. those remaining that had come in later that still had enlistment obligation time remaining were commonly transferred into other existing regiments....Not uncommon to see records of Federal soldiers that had served in more than one unit during the war as a result... Of course there were those units that continued to recruit back home for itself and keep their numbers going for the duration of the war...

General consensus that the "average" confederate in the field typically saw more action than the average Federal soldier may have just by default of the respective systems, and military habits that were employed at the time...

Its rather difficult to gauge by the respective regiment itself... Not uncommon to see rosters of regiments that had had 1200-2000 men pass through its ranks... but in reality probably no more than 300-450 were present at any given time after 1862.... Since the numbers evolved.. lost and replaced as the war dragged on. Not unusual to read accounts of a given unit reflecting on itself in late 1864... making statements that only a small handful of soldiers still present had been there when it was formed and mustered in 1861...
 
Good info Frederick. One of my union ancestors had I believe a 30 or 90 day enlistment. Gotta go back and recheck.

The Federal unit that we also portray was originally a 90 day unit.. That expired.. they went home... reformed almost in mass into a "new" regiment for a 3 year hitch.. so even though their new number designation was much higher.... they weren't actually newbee's per-se.. Summer of 1864 the enlistment expired.. most of the regiment was mustered out and went home.. those desiring to remain were consolidated into three companies.. and allowed to retain their old number but referred to as a Battalion thereafter... but attached to one of their sister regiments that had been in the same Brigade with them that remained intact..
 
The original one-year enlistments were honored, but if you chose to go home, you became liable to conscription since the draft law was passed at just that time. Conscription was a stigma to men like Sam Watkins, so they reenlisted, the terms usually reading "three years or war" on their record cards.

Still, it surprises me to see a card or story that tells of a CS soldier making it through the whole war . Desertion, disease and combat took a heavy toll, so I'm not sure the OP is correct. You had a very high percentage of teenagers in the CS armies at the end of the war, many as young as 16. Sam Watkins may be atypical, in that he fought through at least until Nashville. After that, we're not sure if he actually returned to the AoT.
 
cool, what unit's that? LOL, I could only bear to be a yankee for no more than 90 days...! LOL joke

In Brief... and not intended to alter the subject of the thread...... Originally the "Philadelphia Light Guard" formed as a Militia unit in 1857..... 1861 mustered its services for 90 days designated as the 22nd Pennsylvania.... term expired in Aug 1861....

Strangely they got caught up in the efforts of Sen Baker to muster together a California Brigade..... too far distant to get many troops East... and afraid the war would be over before they had a chance to get involved.... or get their states name attached to something.... Many of the "California" troops were actually recruited and mustered in the region around Wash DC and Pennsylvania.... This unit became briefly known as the "5th California Infantry Regiment".... in the California Brigade along with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd California Infantry.... After the debacle at the Battle of Balls Bluff.. Sen. Baker was killed... thus the political push was also extinguished.... Pennsylvania essentially made the point of ... nope those are our state troops and they were basically reclaimed and added to Pennsylvania's quota of troops instead..... thereafter and the rest of the war known as the 106th Pennsylvania Infantry.... The other "California" regiments within same redesigned as the 69th, 71st, and 72nd Pennsylvania respectively in the now "Philadelphia Brigade"..... 2nd Division, 2nd Corp.. AOP...
 
Just from my ancestors, the Confederate ancestors fought in three major battles/sieges (Shiloh/Corinth /Vicksburg), and the Yank ancestors didn't really fight in any major battles. (And the Yanks fared better in the "survival" category, I might add)
 
It would depend I guess on which regiment the individual was in and when his enlistment began. I have been reading accounts of the 150th and 156th NY, along with Union regiments from Kansas and Iowa. They fought in a lot of battles.
I seriously doubt there is a fool proof way of proving the point.
 
It would depend I guess on which regiment the individual was in and when his enlistment began. I have been reading accounts of the 150th and 156th NY, along with Union regiments from Kansas and Iowa. They fought in a lot of battles.
I seriously doubt there is a fool proof way of proving the point.

This is from From Wikipedia

"The First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment mustered for a three-year term (1861-1864) in the Union Armyat the outset of the American Civil War when the prevailing enlistment period was three months. During offensive movements, it sustained high percentages of casualties at the Battles of First Bull Run (20%[1]) and Antietam (28%) and a catastrophic 82% at the Battle of Gettysburg. It is most noted for its service on the second day at Gettysburg."
 
I wonder if there isn't some way of doing a statistical analysis on a random sample and coming up with an answer to some degree? Not sure how the sample would be selected, but back when I took statistics 101 in college the told me that a sample of 30 - if truly random and representative of the larger population - would deliver an answer within 5% of the true value.
 
Yes. Definitely. The failure of the Confederacy to honor the original terms of enlistment meant that soldiers who enlisted in 1861 were much more likely to serve until 1865, assuming they were not killed or disabled. It was a tough and long road for most of these men.

I dont think the Confederates honored terms of parole, as much as the Union. Want that one of the reasons it was on again, off again? I know there were other reasons. Tit for tat retaliations. But, at the end of the day, I think Grant thought they were violating parole terms and need men desperately.
 
Still, it surprises me to see a card or story that tells of a CS soldier making it through the whole war . Desertion, disease and combat took a heavy toll, so I'm not sure the OP is correct. You had a very high percentage of teenagers in the CS armies at the end of the war, many as young as 16. Sam Watkins may be atypical, in that he fought through at least until Nashville. After that, we're not sure if he actually returned to the AoT.

So the question becomes one of how much turnover there was in the Confederate army - how many were knocked out by disease, bullets (KIA or permanently disabled), or desertion vs how many remained. What were the chances of a Confederate soldier who went in the recruitment surge in 1862 of making it to the end?

I like to search old cemeteries in my area and am surprised how many Confederates I find that died as old men - but figure that those (privates) who died in the war itself were a lot less likely to get buried back at home.
 
I dont think the Confederates honored terms of parole, as much as the Union. Want that one of the reasons it was on again, off again? I know there were other reasons. Tit for tat retaliations. But, at the end of the day, I think Grant thought they were violating parole terms and need men desperately.

Grant realized that any Confederate that was exchanged was likely to be on the firing line in the next battle - since they were in "for the duration" - but the Northern troops may actually be at the end of their terms of enlistment when exchanged and weren't much use to the war effort. Halting exchanges hurt the South way more than the North.
 
So the question becomes one of how much turnover there was in the Confederate army - how many were knocked out by disease, bullets (KIA or permanently disabled), or desertion vs how many remained. What were the chances of a Confederate soldier who went in the recruitment surge in 1862 of making it to the end?

I like to search old cemeteries in my area and am surprised how many Confederates I find that died as old men - but figure that those (privates) who died in the war itself were a lot less likely to get buried back at home.
I think the question is one of turnover in the CA army.
 
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