Civil War and Reconstruction in AlabamaFleming, Walter L. (Walter Lynwood)
History
Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama
Fleming, Walter L. (Walter Lynwood)
Alabama -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865; Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877) -- Alabama
Of negro regiments in the Union army, there were the First Alabama
Volunteers, afterward known as the Fifth United States Colored Infantry,
the Second Alabama Volunteers (negroes), and the First Alabama Colored
Artillery, afterward known as the Sixth United States Heavy Artillery,
which served at Fort Pillow. Late in 1864 General Lorenzo Thomas reported
that he had recently organized three regiments of colored infantry in
Alabama, and Wilson organized several other negro regiments in the state
in 1865. Many negroes from north Alabama went into various negro
organizations, and were credited to the northern states, the official
records showing only 4969 negro enlistments credited directly to Alabama.
A conservative estimate would be from 2000 to 2500 whites and 10,000
negroes enlisted in Alabama, not counting those who were enrolled in the
spring of 1865.[161] The white Union soldiers from Alabama were mostly
poor men from the mountain counties of north Alabama. The Union troops
from Alabama received no bounty.[162]
The Militia System
The militia system of Alabama in 1861 existed only in the statute books,
and in the persons of a few brigadiers and a major-general, whose entire
duty had consisted in wearing uniforms at the inauguration of a governor
and ever thereafter bearing military titles. A series of Arabic numbers,
something more than a hundred, was assigned to the militia regiments that
were unorganized, but which, under favorable circumstances, might be
enrolled and called out. The county was the unit. To each county was
assigned one regiment or more according to the white population. Several
counties formed a militia district under a brigadier-general, and over all
was a major-general. Bodies of trained volunteers were not connected with
the militia system at all, but these went at once, on the outbreak of war,
into the state army, which was soon merged into the Confederate army.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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