Union Army

Why Was the Civil War Fought? What Did Union & Confederate Soldiers Fight For? (1994)

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The Confederate States Army was the military ground force of the Confederate States of America, also known as the "Confederacy", while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War.[2] On February 28, 1861, the Provisional Confederate Congress established a provisional volunteer army and gave control over military operations and authority for mustering state forces and volunteers to the President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, a graduate of the United States Military Academy and colonel of a volunteer regiment during the Mexican-American War.[3] On March 6 and 9, 1861, the Provisional Confederate Congress passed additional military legislation and established a more permanent Confederate States Army. An accurate count of the number of individuals who served in the Confederate Army is impossible due to incomplete and destroyed Confederate records.[4] The better estimates of the number of individual Confederate soldiers are between 750,000 and 1,000,000 men. This does not include an unknown number of slaves who were pressed into performing various tasks for the army, such as construction of fortifications and defenses or driving wagons.[5] Since these figures include estimates of the total number of individual soldiers who served at any time during the war, they do not represent the size of the army at any given date. These numbers do not include men who served in Confederate naval forces. Although most Civil War soldiers were volunteers, both sides ultimately resorted to conscription. In the absence of exact records, estimates of the percentage of Confederate soldiers who were draftees are about double the 6 per cent of Union soldiers who were conscripts. Some historians have suggested that the threat of conscription may have had a greater effect on raising volunteers than it did in providing large numbers of reliable soldiers. Confederate casualty figures also are incomplete and unreliable. The best estimates of the number of deaths of Confederate soldiers are about 94,000 killed or mortally wounded in battle, 164,000 deaths from disease and between 26,000 and 31,000 deaths in Union prison camps. One estimate of Confederate wounded, which is considered incomplete, is 194,026. These numbers do not include men who died from other causes such as accident, which would add several thousand to the death toll.[6] The main Confederate armies, the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee and the remnants of the Army of Tennessee and various other units under General Joseph E. Johnston, surrendered on April 9, 1865 (officially April 12), and April 18, 1865 (officially April 26). Other Confederate forces surrendered between April 16, 1865 and June 28, 1865.[7] The Confederacy's government was effectively dissolved with the last meeting of the Confederate cabinet on May 5, 1865, and with the capture of President Jefferson Davis by Union forces on May 10, 1865. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_Army The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865.[1] It consisted of the small United States Army, known as the regular army, which was augmented by massive numbers of units supplied by northern U.S. states, consisting of volunteers as well as conscripts. The Union Army fought and eventually defeated the Confederate States Army during the war. About 360,000 Union soldiers died from all causes and some 280,000 were wounded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Army