better armed, but the rule held good with regard to the others. A few companies composed of young men from the cities, and of rich planters, were armed with fancy guns, Maynard rifles, etc., altogether unsuitable for the armament of infantry. In September of 1861, there were probably not one thousand Springfield and Enfield rifles in the army which General Johnson was trying to concentrate in Kentucky, and it was several months later before these unequaled weapons (the right arms for soldiers who mean to fight) could be supplied in numbers at all adequate to the need of them. In the advance to Bowlinggreen, more than three hundred able-bodied men of the Second Kentucky, and an equal, if not greater number of the Third Kentucky were left in the rear because arms could not be gotten for them. In November one or two regiments of the Kentucky brigade were given the Belgian in place of the flint-lock musket, and in December flint-lock guns, altered to percussion locks, were given the other regiments of the brigade. Proper accouterments were as scarce as guns. Cartridge-boxes, knapsacks, canteens, when they could be gotten at all, were very inferior. By great industry and effort, a considerable quantity of ammunition had been prepared and worked up into cartridges, but there was such a scarcity of lead and powder in the South, and such inferior facilities for the manufacture of the latter, that apprehension was felt lest, when the supply on hand was exhausted, it could not be replaced.
There was scarcely a percussion cap to be had (in the early part of the war) in the department, with the exception of some that were manufactured by an enterprising citizen of Nashville, and zealous Confederate, Mr. S.D. Morgan, an uncle of the General. But while so few of the Confederate soldiers were efficiently armed, almost every man of them, presuming that the Yankees were to be whipped in rough and tumble style, had his bowie-knife and revolver. The Arkansas and Texas troops, especially, carried enormous knives, that might have made a Malay's blood run cold, but in the end those huge weapons did duty far oftener as cleavers than as bayonets. The organization of the troops first put in the field was, of course, to some extent, imperfect. A good deal has been said about the evils of the system of electing officers, and much just censure has been passed upon it. It has been claimed that it gives rise to a laxity of discipline, and a disposition on the part of officers, who owe their positions to the suffrages of the men they command, to wink at irregularities and pardon gross neglect of duty.
This is undoubtedly true, in a great measure, and what is stranger, but equally as true, is the fact that troops which have been longest in the service, which know best what qualities are necessary to constitute a good officer, which appreciate perfectly the necessity of having good officers, not only to their efficiency and success in the field, but to their well-being at all times – just such troops seem least able to resist the temptation of electing some good-natured fellow, whom they will never respect, and will, perhaps, grow ashamed of, rather than men who will enforce their obedience, but promote alike their efficiency and their comfort. At all times they will look to and rely upon the good officer, but when they come to elect, the love of doing as they please, unchecked by the irksome restraints of discipline, is apt to make them vote for the man who will indulge them. But I believe that all those who observed these matters carefully will agree, that there was far less of this sort of feeling among the men who volunteered at the outbreak of the war than there was later.
The officers elected by the regiments first raised were, generally, about the best men that could have been selected. The men, at that time, in good faith, chose those they believed best qualified for the duties of command, and elected individuals who had manifested, or were thought to possess, courage, energy, and good sense. Of course some mistakes were made, and experience disclosed the fact, now well-established, that many men who figured respectably in times of peace, are unfitted for military responsibility, and weaken in the ordeal of military life.
No opportunity had been afforded then, for testing and discovering those qualified for positions of trust and importance – it was all a matter of experiment. Many injudicious selections were made, but it quite as often happened that the appointing system (as it was exercised at the beginning of the war) gave incompetent officers to the army. The graduates of West Point themselves, and even those officers who had served for years in the "Old Army," knew little or nothing of actual war. Their studies at the academy, and the reading appropriate to their profession, had instructed them in the theory of war.
They had the knowledge which the routine of camp and garrison duty teaches. Most of them had seen service in expeditions against the Indians on the Western plains. Some of them had served with distinction and benefit to themselves in Mexico, but this was an experience which they shared with many civilians. They had soldierly habits. They were well acquainted with, and knew the importance of the military etiquette and ceremonial so conducive to proper subordination and discipline, and without which neither can be maintained in an army. But beyond the necessity (permanently impressed upon them, and rendered a constant influence with them by long training and habit) of strictly obeying all the rules of discipline themselves, and of exacting the same obedience from others, they knew nothing which a quick mind, if endowed with a natural military aptitude and appreciation of military essentials, can not readily acquire. While the regulations prescribed clear and excellent rules of organization, the strictest conformity was not always had to them, and it was sometimes difficult to strictly apply them. Companies sometimes overran the maximum in a way that rendered them as embarrassing to the regiments in which they were placed, as they were painfully unwieldy to the unlearned Captains and Lieutenants who immediately commanded them.
When it was known that a very popular man was recruiting, the number of enlistments in his company was limited only by the number of able bodied men in his district who were inclined to enlist. As each volunteer had the right to select his Captain and company, and generally objected very decidedly to being transferred to any other, it was a delicate and difficult task to reduce these over-grown companies to proper proportions. Regiments frequently, on account of the popularity of their Colonels, or from other causes, swelled out of due bounds also. I knew one regiment, which in the early part of September, 1861, had in it seventeen companies and numbered, when all answered to roll call, more than two thousand men. There was at this time a very favorite, and very anomalous organization, known as the "Legion," which fortunately in a few months entirely disappeared. It was something between a regiment and a brigade, with all of a hybrid's vague awkwardness of conformation. It was the general supposition, too, for little was ever definitely known about it, that it was to be somewhat of an independent corps, something like the "Partisan Ranger" regiment of later date. When the army was in the first process of organization, these "Legions" could be heard of everywhere.
The idea doubtless originated with some officer who felt that he deserved a higher grade than that of Colonel, and could not obtain a Brigadier's commission.
As organization went on, and system prevailed, the "Legions," perhaps according to the merit of their commanders, or their numerical strength, sank into companies, were regularly organized as regiments, or were elevated into brigades. The brigades were from three to seven or eight thousand strong, and all arms of the service were represented in them; they included regiments of infantry and cavalry and batteries of artillery. It was in a measure necessary that this organization should be adopted, from the fact that for some months, each brigade commander was entrusted with supervision and defense of a large tract of territory, and it was impossible to dispense with either of the three arms. Divisions were not organized until late in the fall of 1861 – the strength of the brigades was then, to some extent, equalized by the reduction of the larger ones; Army Corps were of still later creation.
A significant custom prevailed of denoting the companies of the first regiments which were raised, not by letter, but by some company denomination which they had borne in the militia organization, or had assumed as soon as mustered as an indispensable nom-de-guerre. They seemed to vie with each other in inventing titles of thrilling interest: "The Yellow Jackets," "The Dead Shots," "The Earthquakes," "The Chickasaha Desperadoes," "The Hell-roarers," are a few which made the newspapers of that day, in recording their movements, read like the pages of popular romance. So fondly did the professors of these appellations cling to them, that it was found almost as difficult to compel their exchange for the proper designations, as to effect far more harassing and laborious reforms. The spirit
