Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America (CSA) was the secessionist government formed by eleven southern states of the United States of America between 1861 and 1865, after each state had announced its secession from the U.S. government. The group of eleven states, and their government, was also sometimes called The Confederacy, Confederate States, and by people not supporting the withdrawal from the U.S., the rebel states.

The secession of the 11 states and the formation of the CSA marked the opening chapter of the American Civil War. The Confederacy was eventually defeated and the states went through a period of reconstruction before returning to full standing again as states in the U.S.

The first seven rebelling states declared their independence from the U.S. before Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as president. Four more did so after the civil war began in April 1861, after the Confederacy attacked a Union fortress (Fort Sumter in SC). The United States (also called the "Union") consider the secession of the states to be illegal and refused recognition of the Confederacy. The confederate states hoped that Britain and France would intervene to rescue their cotton supply, but this hope remained unfulfilled. No European powers officially recognized the Confederacy, although British commercial interests sold it warships and operated blockade runners to help supply it. The Union Blockade effectively shut down 95% of ordinary exports and imports; only blockade runners got through.

When Robert E. Lee and the other generals surrendered their armies in the spring of 1865, the Confederacy collapsed, and there was no guerrilla warfare afterward. Four million slaves were liberated. A difficult, decade-long process of Reconstruction temporarily gave civil rights and the right to vote to the freedmen (ex-slaves), expelled ex-Confederate leaders from office, and permanently re-admitted the states to representation in Congress.

Seceding states

Seven states seceded by February 1861:

• South Carolina (December 20, 1860),
• Mississippi (January 9, 1861),
• Florida (January 10, 1861),
• Alabama (U.S. state) (January 11, 1861),
• Georgia (January 19, 1861),
• Louisiana (January 26, 1861),
• Texas (February 1, 1861).

After Lincoln called for troops to invade the South, four more states seceded:

• Virginia (April 17, 1861); there was also a rump Union government of Virginia headed by Francis Harrison Pierpont
• Arkansas (May 6, 1861),
• North Carolina (U.S. state) (May 20, 1861)
• Tennessee (June 8, 1861).

Two more states had rival (or rump) governments. The Confederacy admitted them but they never controlled these states and the pro-Confederate state governments were soon in exile:

• [[Missouri]] did not secede but a rump groups proclaimed secession (October 31, 1861).
• Kentucky did not secede but a rump, unelected group proclaimed secession (November 20, 1861).

Both states allowed slavery and both had strong Unionist and Confederate counties, including some Unionist slave-owners. The legalities of the matter remain in dispute to the present day.

History

Causes for Secession

See Secession Crisis

Historians phrase the cause of secession as either the threat to restrict or end slavery by the Republicans, or that a restriction on states' rights regarding slave ownership in the territories prompted southern states to withdraw from the Union. The "states rights" argument refers to one of two factors: the right claimed by the states for their citizens to take slaves where they wanted (the main cause of the secession the seven cotton states in winter 1860-61), or second, the right of states to be free of federal invasion, which was the main cause of the secession of the four border states in spring 1861.

In what later came to be known as the Cornerstone Speech, Vice President Alexander Stephens, declared that the "cornerstone" of the new government "rested upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."[3] Four of the seceding states, the Deep South states of South Carolina[4], Mississippi[5], Georgia[6], and Texas[7], issued formal declarations of causes, each of which identified the threat to slaveholders’ rights as the cause of, or a major cause of, secession; Georgia also claimed a general Federal policy of favoring Northern over Southern economic interests.

By contrast, President Jefferson Davis made no explicit reference to slavery in his inaugural address, instead emphasizing States Rights as the reason for secession.[8].

Vice President Alexander Stephens declared, in the longest portion of the Cornerstone Speech, how this constitution eliminated the tariff and removed the Commerce Clause, taking away congressional power to regulate any aspect of commerce. Stephens believed that the new country would have a clear delineation between Federal and State responsibilities, and took the position similar to that of South Carolina during the nullification crisis that the new national government should not pay for internal improvements regarding ports or river improvements (the states should pay).

Rise and fall of the Confederacy

The American Civil War broke out in April of 1861 with the attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. Federal troops of the U.S. had retreated to Fort Sumter soon after South Carolina declared their secession. U.S. President Buchanan had attempted to resupply Sumter by sending a merchant ship but Confederate forces fired upon the ship, driving it away. The Confederate cabinet decided at a meeting in Montgomery to open fire on Fort Sumter in an attempt to force its surrender before the relief fleet arrived. On April 12, 1861, Confederate troops, following orders from Davis and his Secretary of War, fired upon the federal troops occupying Fort Sumter, forcing their surrender. Following the surrender of Fort Sumter, Lincoln called for all the states in the Union to send troops to invade the South to recapture Sumter. Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers for three months of duty. Border state leaders had repeatedly warned Lincoln against an invasion. Now Unionists were dispirited and pro-Confederates elated, as they pushed for secession on the grounds Lincoln's invasion violated the basic comity among states. Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joined the Confederacy for a total of 11. Once Virginia joined the Confederate States, the Confederate capital was moved from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia. All but two major battles took place in Confederate territory.

Kentucky was a border state and, for a time, tried to proclaim neutrality. It rallied to the Union once Confederates invaded in late 1861. A rump Confederate faction was accepted as a member of the Confederate States of America; it did not control any territory. Likewise, the Confederacy considered Missouri a member of the Confederate States of America; it did not control any territory. With Kentucky and Missouri, the number of Confederate states can be counted as 13.

The five tribal governments of the Indian Territory also mainly supported the Confederacy, providing troops and one general. It was not represented in the Confederate Congress.

A few Confederates in lightly populated Arizona tried to declare for the confederacy, but never achieved control of the territory. Likewise some Texans living in New Mexico tried to join the Confederacy. In March 1862 Confederate forces were defeated at Glorietta Pass and the Confederate officials went back to Texas.

The northernmost slave states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia) were contested territory, but the Union won control by 1862. In 1861, Lincoln declared martial law in Maryland and arrested hundreds of enemy sympathizers, then sent in troops to occupy the state and guarantee its loyalty. Delaware, nominally a slave state, never considered secession, nor did Washington, D.C. In 1861, a unionist legislature in Wheeling seceded from Virginia, claiming 48 counties, and joined the U.S. in 1863 as the state of West Virginia with a constitution that gradually abolished slavery.

Attempts to secede from the Confederate States of America by some counties in East Tennessee were held in check by Confederate declarations of martial law[9][10].

Lee's surrender of the main Confederate army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865 marks the end of the Confederate States. President Davis was captured at Irwinville, Georgia, on May 10, and the remaining Confederate armies surrendered by June 1865..

Government and politics

Constitution

The Confederate States Constitution was mostly a word-for-word duplicate of the United States Constitution. It contained several explicit protections of the institution of slavery, though international slave trading was prohibited. It also reflected a stronger philosophy of states' rights, curtailing the power of the central authority: the Confederate government was prohibited from instituting protective tariffs (to help industry) or from using revenues collected in one state for funding internal improvements (like roads or ports) in another state. In contrast with the largely secular language of the United States Constitution, the Confederate Constitution overtly asked God's blessing ("invoking the favor of Almighty God.")

Jefferson Davis was elected president

The constitution did not specifically include a provision allowing states to secede; the Preamble spoke of each state "acting in its sovereign and independent character" but also of the formation of a "permanent federal government". The Southern leaders met in Montgomery, Alabama, to write their constitution.

The President of the Confederate States of America was to be elected to a six-year term and could not be reelected. The only president was Jefferson Davis; the Confederate States of America was defeated by the federal government before he completed his term. One unique power granted to the Confederate president was the ability to subject a bill to a line item veto, a power held by some state governors. The Confederate Congress could overturn either the general or the line item vetoes with the same two-thirds majorities that are required in the U.S. Congress. In addition, appropriations not specifically requested by the executive branch required passage by a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress.

Printed currency in the forms of bills and stamps was authorized and put into circulation, although by the individual states in the Confederacy's name. The government considered issuing Confederate coinage. Plans, dies and 4 "proofs" were created, but a lack of bullion prevented any public coinage.

Civil liberties

The Confederacy actively used the military to arrest people suspected of loyalty to the United States. Historian Mark Neely found 2,700 names of men arrested and estimated the full list was much longer. They arrested at about the same rate as the Union arrested Confederate loyalists. Neely concludes:

"The Confederate citizen was not any freer than the Union citizen — and perhaps no less likely to be arrested by military authorities. In fact, the Confederate citizen may have been in some ways less free than his Northern counterpart. For example, freedom to travel within the Confederate states was severely limited by a domestic passport system." [Neely 11, 16]

Capital

The capital of the Confederate States of America was Montgomery, Alabama, from February 4, 1861, until May 29, 1861. Richmond, Virginia, was named the new capital on May 6, 1861. It was vulnerable to attack from the north and east, and at the end of a long supply line, so it proved a military liability.

International diplomacy

Once the war with the United States began, the best hope for the survival of the Confederacy was military intervention by Britain and France. The U.S. realized that too and made it clear that recognition of the Confederacy meant war with the United States — and the cutoff of food shipments into Britain. The Confederates who had believed in "King Cotton" — that is, Britain had to support the Confederacy to obtain cotton for its industries— were proven wrong. Britain, in fact, had ample stores of cotton in 1861 and depended much more on grain from the U.S.

During its existence, the Confederate government sent repeated delegations to Europe; historians do not give them high marks for diplomatic skills. James M. Mason was sent to London as Confederate minister to Queen Victoria, and John Slidell was sent to Paris as minister to Napoleon III. Both were able to obtain private meetings with high British and French officials, but they failed to secure official recognition for the Confederacy. Britain and the United States were at sword's point during the Trent Affair in late 1861. Mason and Slidell had been illegally seized from a British ship by an American warship. Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, helped calm the situation, and Lincoln released Mason and Slidell, so the episode was no help to the Confederacy.

Throughout the early years of the war, British foreign secretary Lord Russell and Napoleon III, and, to a lesser extent, British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, explored the risks and advantages of recognition of the Confederacy, or at least of offering a mediation. Recognition meant certain war with the United States, loss of American grain, loss of exports to the United States, loss of huge investments in American securities, loss of Canada and other North American colonies, much higher taxes, many lives lost and a severe threat to the entire British merchant marine, in exchange for the possibility of some cotton. Many party leaders and the general public wanted no war with such high costs and meager benefits. Recognition was considered following the Second Battle of Manassas when the British government was preparing to mediate in the conflict, but the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, combined with internal opposition, caused the government to back away.

In November 1863, Confederate diplomat A. Dudley Mann met Pope Pius IX and received a letter addressed "to the Illustrious and Honorable Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America.” Mann, in his dispatch to Richmond, interpreted the letter as "a positive recognition of our Government," and some have mistakenly viewed it as a de facto recognition of the C.S.A. Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin, however, interpreted it as "a mere inferential recognition, unconnected with political action or the regular establishment of diplomatic relations" and thus did not assign it the weight of formal recognition.

No country appointed any diplomat officially to the Confederacy, but several maintained their consuls in the South who had been appointed before the war. In 1861, Ernst Raven applied for approval as the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha consul, but he was a citizen of Texas and there is no evidence that Saxe officials knew what he was doing; Saxe was a firm supporter of the U.S. In 1863, the Confederacy expelled all foreign consuls (all of them British or French diplomats) for advising their subjects to refuse to serve in combat against the U.S.

Throughout the war most European powers adopted a policy of neutrality, meeting informally with Confederate diplomats but withholding diplomatic recognition. None ever sent an ambassador or official delegation to Richmond. However, they applied international law principles that recognized the Union and Confederate sides as belligerents. Canada allowed both Confederate and Union agents to work openly within its borders, and some state governments in northern Mexico negotiated local agreements to cover trade on the Texas border.

Died of States Rights?

Historian Frank Lawrence Owsley argued that the Confederacy "died of states rights." That is, strong-willed governors and state legislatures refused to give the national government the soldiers and money it needed because they feared that Richmond was encroaching on the rights of the states. Historians agree that northern governors were much more supportive of Lincoln's policies. Georgia's governor Joseph Brown warned that he saw the signs of a deep-laid conspiracy on the part of Jefferson Davis to destroy states' rights and individual liberty. Brown declaimed: "Almost every act of usurpation of power, or of bad faith, has been conceived, brought forth and nurtured in secret session." To grant the Confederate government the power to draft soldiers was the "essence of military despotism." In 1863 governor Pendleton Murrah of Texas insisted that Texas troops were needed for self-defense (against Indians or a threatened Union invasion), and refused to send them East. Zebulon Vance, the governor of North Carolina was notoriously hostile to Davis and his demands. Opposition to conscription in North Carolina was intense and its results were disastrous for recruiting. Governor Vance's faith in states' rights drove him into a stubborn opposition.

Vice President Stephens broke publicly with President Davis, saying any accommodation would only weaken the republic, and he therefore had no choice but to break publicly with the Confederate administration and the president. Stephens charged that to allow Davis to make "arbitrary arrests" and to draft state officials conferred on him more power than the English Parliament had ever bestowed on the king. History proved the dangers of such unchecked authority." He added that Davis intended to suppress the peace meetings in North Carolina and "put a muzzle upon certain presses" (especially the antiwar newspaper Raleigh Standard) in order to control elections in that state. Echoing Patrick Henry's "give me liberty or give me death" Stephens warned the Southerners they should never view liberty as "subordinate to independence" because the cry of "independence first and liberty second" was a "fatal delusion." As historian George Rable concludes, "For Stephens, the essence of patriotism, the heart of the Confederate cause, rested on an unyielding commitment to traditional rights. In his idealist vision of politics, military necessity, pragmatism, and compromise meant nothing."

The survival of the Confederacy depended on a strong base of civilians and soldiers devoted to victory. The soldiers performed well, though increasing numbers deserted in the last year. The civilians, although enthusiastic in 1861-62 seem to have lost faith in the nation's future by 1864, and instead looked to protect their homes and communities instead. As Rable explains, "As the Confederacy shrank, citizens' sense of the cause more than ever narrowed to their own states and communities. This contraction of civic vision was more than a crabbed libertarianism; it represented an increasingly widespread disillusionment with the Confederate experiment.

Relations with the United States

For the four years of its existence, the Confederate States of America asserted its independence and appointed dozens of diplomatic agents abroad. The United States government, by contrast, asserted that the Southern states were provinces in rebellion and refused any formal recognition of their status. Thus, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward issued formal instructions to Charles Francis Adams Sr., the new minister to Great Britain:

You will indulge in no expressions of harshness or disrespect, or even impatience concerning the seceding States, their agents, or their people. But you will, on the contrary, all the while remember that those States are now, as they always heretofore have been, and, notwithstanding their temporary self-delusion, they must always continue to be, equal and honored members of this Federal Union, and that their citizens throughout all political misunderstandings and alienations, still are and always must be our kindred and countrymen.

However, if the British seemed inclined to recognize the Confederacy, or even waver in that regard, they were to be sharply warned, with a strong hint of war:

[if Britain is] tolerating the application of the so-called seceding States, or wavering about it, you will not leave them to suppose for a moment that they can grant that application and remain friends with the United States. You may even assure them promptly, in that case, that if they determine to recognize, they may at the same time prepare to enter into alliance with the enemies of this republic."

The Confederate Congress responded to the hostilities by formally declaring war on the United States in May 1861 — calling it "The War between the Confederate States of America and the United States of America." The Union government never declared war but conducted its war efforts under a proclamation of blockade and rebellion. Mid-war negotiations between the two sides occurred without formal political recognition, though the laws of war governed military relationships.

Four years after the war, in 1869, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. White that secession was unconstitutional and legally null. The court's opinion was authored by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. Jefferson Davis and his vice president Alexander Stephens both wrote long books expounding their theories of secession's legality.

Confederate flags

The official flag of the CSA, and the one actually called the "Stars and Bars", has seven stars, for the seven states that initially formed the Confederacy. This flag was sometimes difficult to distinguish from the Union flag under battle conditions, so the Confederate battle flag, the "Southern Cross", became the one more commonly used in military operations. The Southern Cross has 13 stars, adding the four states that joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter, and the two divided states of Kentucky and Missouri.

As a result of its depiction in 20th century popular media, the "Southern Cross" is a flag commonly associated with the Confederacy today. The actual "Southern Cross" is a square-shaped flag, but the more commonly seen rectangular flag is actually the flag of the First Tennessee Army, also known as the Naval Jack because it was first used by the Confederate Navy.

Political leaders

Executive

OFFICE	NAME	TERM
President	Jefferson Davis	1861-1865
Vice President	Alexander Stephens	1861-1865
Secretary of State	Robert Toombs	1861
	Robert M.T. Hunter	1861-1862
	Judah P. Benjamin	1862-1865
Secretary of the Treasury	Christopher Memminger	1861-1864
	George Trenholm	1864-1865
	John H. Reagan	1865
Secretary of War	Leroy Pope Walker	1861
	Judah P. Benjamin	1861-1862
	George W. Randolph	1862
	James Seddon	1862-1865
	John C. Breckinridge	1865
Secretary of the Navy	Stephen Mallory	1861-1865
Postmaster General	John H. Reagan	1861-1865
Attorney General	Judah P. Benjamin	1861
	Thomas Bragg	1861-1862
	Thomas H. Watts	1862-1863
	George Davis	1864-1865

Legislative

The legislative branch of the Confederate States of America was the Confederate Congress. Like the United States Congress, the Confederate Congress consisted of two houses: the Confederate Senate, whose membership included two senators from each state (and chosen by the state legislature), and the Confederate House of Representatives, with members popularly elected by residents of the individual states.

Judicial

A judicial branch of the government was outlined in the constitution, but the "Supreme Court of the Confederate States" was never created or seated because of the ongoing war.[11] Some Confederate district courts were, however, established within some of the individual states of the Confederate States of America. At the end of the war, U.S. district courts resumed jurisdiction.[12]

The state and local courts generally continued to operate as they had been, simply recognizing the CSA, rather than the U.S., as the national government.[13]

Geography

The Confederate States of America claimed a total of 2,919 miles (4,698 km) of coastline. A large part of this territory lay on the sea coast with level and sandy ground. The interior portions were hilly and mountainous, and the far western territories were deserts. The lower reaches of the Mississippi River bisected the country, with the western half referred to as the Trans-Mississippi.

Climate

Much of the area claimed by the CSA had a humid subtropical climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. The climate varied to semi-arid steppe and arid desert west of longitude 96 degrees west. The subtropical climate made winters mild but allowed infectious diseases to flourish. Consequently disease killed more soldiers than did enemy action.

River system

In peacetime, the vast system of navigable rivers allowed for cheap and easy transportation of farm products. The railroad system was built as a supplement, tying plantation areas to the nearest river or seaport. The vast geography made for difficult Union logistics, and Union soldiers were used to garrison captured areas and protect rail lines. But the Union Navy seized most of the navigable rivers by 1862, making its own logistics easy and Confederate movements difficult. After the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863, it became impossible for units of any size to cross the Mississippi since Union gunboats constantly patrolled it. The South thus lost use of its western regions.

Rural areas

The area claimed by the Confederate States of America was overwhelmingly rural. Small towns of more than 1,000 were few — the typical county seat had a population of less than 500 people. Cities were rare. New Orleans was the only Southern city in the list of top 10 largest U.S. cities in the 1860 census, and it was captured by the Union in 1862. Only 13 Confederate cities ranked among the top 100 U.S. cities in 1860, most of them ports whose economic activities were shut down by the Union blockade. The population of Richmond swelled after it became the national capital, reaching an estimated 128,000 in 1864 (Dabney 1990:182). Other large Southern cities Baltimore, St. Louis, Louisville, and Washington, as well as Wheeling, West Virginia, and Alexandria, Virginia, were never under the control of the Confederate government.

#	City	1860 Population	US Rank	return to USA control
1.	New Orleans, Louisiana	168,675	6	1862
2.	Charleston, South Carolina	40,522	22	1865
3.	Richmond, Virginia	37,910	25	1865
4.	Mobile, Alabama	29,258	27	1865
5.	Memphis, Tennessee	22,623	38	1862
6.	Savannah, Georgia	22,292	41	1864
7.	Petersburg, Virginia	18,266	50	1865
8.	Nashville, Tennessee	16,988	54	1862
9.	Norfolk, Virginia	14,620	61	1862
10.	Augusta, Georgia	12,493	77	1865
11.	Columbus, Georgia	9,621	97	1865
12.	Atlanta, Georgia	9,554	99	1864
13.	Wilmington, North Carolina	9,553	100	1865

(See also Atlanta in the Civil War, Charleston, SC in the Civil War, Nashville in the Civil War, New Orleans in the Civil War, and Richmond in the Civil War).

Economy

The Confederacy had an agrarian economy with exports, to a world market, of cotton, and, to a lesser extent, tobacco and sugar. Local food production included grains, hogs, cattle, and gardens. The 11 states produced $155 million in manufactured goods in 1860, chiefly from local grist mills, and lumber, processed tobacco, cotton goods and naval stores such as turpentine. The CSA adopted a low tariff of 15 per cent, but imposed it on all imports from the rest of the United States. The tariff mattered little; the Confederacy's ports were blocked to commercial traffic by the Union's blockade, and very few people paid taxes on goods smuggled from the Union states. The government collected about $3.5 million in tariff revenue from the start of their war against the Union to late 1864. The lack of adequate financial resources led the Confederacy to finance the war through printing money, which led to high inflation.

Wartime destruction

Most of the war was fought in Virginia and Tennessee, but every state was affected. There was little military action in Texas and Florida. Of 645 counties in 9 Confederate states (excluding Texas and Florida), there was Union military action in 56%, containing 63% of the whites and 64% of the slaves in 1860; however when the action took place, some people had fled to safer areas, so the exact population exposed to war is unknown.

Towns and cities

The Confederacy in 1861 had 297 towns and cities with 835,000 people; of these 162 with 681,000 people were at one point occupied by Union forces. Eleven were destroyed or severely damaged by war action, including Atlanta (with an 1860 population of 9,554), Charleston, Columbia, and Richmond (with prewar populations of 40,522, at least 8,052, and 37,910, respectively); the eleven contained 115,916 people in the 1860 census, or 14% of the urban South. Historians have not estimated their population when they were invaded. The number of people who lived in the destroyed places represented just over 1% of the Confederacy's population. In addition, 45 court houses were burned (out of 830).

Rural areas

The South's agriculture was not highly mechanized. The value of farm implements and machinery in the 1860 Census was $81 million; by 1870, there was 40% less, of $48 million worth. Many old tools had broken through heavy use and could not be replaced; even repairs were difficult.

Railroad mileage was of course mostly in rural areas. The war followed the rails, and over two-thirds of the rails and rolling stock were in areas reached by Union armies, which systematically destroyed what it could. The South had 9400 miles of track and 6500 miles was in areas reached by the Union armies. About 4400 miles were in areas where Sherman and other Union generals adopted a policy of systematic destruction of the rail system. Even in untouched areas, the lack of maintenance and repair, the absence of new equipment, the heavy over-use, and the deliberate movement of equipment by the Confederates from remote areas to the war zone guaranteed the system would be virtually ruined at war's end.

Armed forces

The military armed forces of the Confederacy was comprised of three branches, Army, Navy and Marine Corps

The Confederate military leadership included many veterans from the U.S. Army Navy who had resigned their Federal commissions and had been appointed to senior positions in the Confederate armed forces. Many had served in the Mexican-American War (including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis), but others had little or no military experience (such as Leonidas Polk, who had attended West Point but did not graduate.) The Confederate officer corps was composed in part of young men from slave-owning families, but many came from non-owners. The Confederacy appointed junior and field grade officers by election from the enlisted ranks. Although no Army service academy was established for the Confederacy, many colleges of the South (such as the The Citadel and Virginia Military Institute) maintained cadet corps that were seen as a training ground for Confederate military leadership. A naval academy was established in 1863, but no midshipmen had graduated by the time the Confederacy collapsed.

The rank and file of the Confederate armed forces consisted of white males with an average age between 16 and 28. Many thousands of slaves served as laborers, cooks, pioneers and in other non-combat roles. The Confederacy adopted conscription in 1862. Depleted by casualties, the military suffered chronic manpower shortages. After agitation from the Army, and at the demand of General Lee, slaves were enrolled in new combat units in the spring of 1865, with the promise of emancipation; the first small units were in training when the war ended and did not serve in combat.

Military leaders

Military leaders of the Confederacy (with their state of birth and highest rank) included:

• Robert E. Lee (Virginia) - General
• Albert Sidney Johnston (Kentucky) - General
• Joseph E. Johnston (Virginia) - General
• Braxton Bragg (North Carolina) - General
• P.G.T. Beauregard (Louisiana) - General
• Richard Stoddert Ewell (Virginia) - Lieutenant General
• Samuel Cooper - General (Adjutant General and highest ranking general in the Army); not in combat
• James Longstreet (South Carolina) - Lieutenant General
• Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (Virginia)- Lieutenant General
• John Hunt Morgan (Kentucky) - Brigadier General
• A.P. Hill (Virginia) - Lieutenant General
• John Bell Hood (Texas) - Lieutenant General
• Wade Hampton III (South Carolina) - Lieutenant General
• Nathan Bedford Forrest (Tennessee) - Lieutenant General
• J.E.B. Stuart (Virginia) - Major General
• Edward Porter Alexander (Georgia) - Brigadier General
• Franklin Buchanan (Maryland) - Admiral
• Raphael Semmes (Maryland) - Rear Admiral
• Josiah Tattnall (Georgia) - Commodore
• Stand Watie (Indian Territory, Brigadier General
• Leonidas Polk (North Carolina) - Lieutenant General
• Sterling Price (Virginia) - Major General
• Jubal Anderson Early (Virginia) - Lieutenant General
• Richard Taylor (Kentucky) - Lieutenant General
• Stephen Dodson Ramseur (North Carolina) Major General
• Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac (France) Major General
• John Austin Wharton (Tennessee) Major General
• Thomas L. Rosser (Virginia) Major General

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