Alan J. Pitts
Military Law
Wed Feb 14 10:05:14 2001


I feel a trip to Montgomery coming on. We need to be able to cite specific exemptions granted or revoked by each new statute. You mentioned earlier having access to wartime cases involving interpretation of the law; i.e., what was a state official? Could an exemption be claimed if the individual was a Justice of the Peace? A militia officer? Could pass along references to any articles on this subject? Should we read Moore's 'Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy' again? Seems to me that Moore cited actual cases in Alabama.

Assisting a gentleman who asked about his ancestor on the message board last week, we learned that he was exempt as an employee of a C.S.A. agent. J. T. Rosson worked in a potash mine near Cartersville GA owned by a man who had a contract with the Confederate government. He later joined the Georgia State Guards and continued to be exempt from regular service.

In my study of Barbour County, it appeared that relatively few men ages 45-50 actually enrolled in the senior reserves. Looking at the OR correspondence about Alabama senior reserves, General Withers was gravely disappointed with the willingness of seniors to perform any real service.

On another point, I have never found anyone other than an officer above the age of seventeen in either of the Alabama Junior Reserve regiments. When the reserves organized in the spring and summer of 1864, some companies included a mixture of juniors and seniors. These were segregated when the authorities learned about their composition.

With regard to your suggestion about having some seniors among the youngsters to provide leadership and experience, check with Dave Neel about Cockrell's Missouri Brigade at Fort Blakely. Dave once told me a great story about the Missouri veterans instructing the juniors on what to do when the Yankees attacked.

Other than that, I've seen little evidence of seniors having previous experience in front-line units. If the average senior was 47 years old when enlisted, he would have been 45 when Congress raised the age limits in October of 1862. Of course he could volunteer, but the law did not require his service. As for 'younger' seniors (ages 45-46 in 1864), conscript officers seem to have been reluctant to enlist these men. In fact, if you study the age at enlistment of any Confederate unit, it's difficult to find many above the age of thirty-five. I've recently completed matching names from the muster rolls of Warren's Battalion (5th Ala. Cav.) to the census and probably don't have much more than a dozen examples of men above age 35.

I saw your reference to Dr. Jones, but still would be reluctant to believe that seniors were transferred to junior units. Junior companies were usually full and did not need to be strengthened. I don't know when the new designations 62nd & 63rd Alabama were assigned, but they must have come down within a few weeks of Taylor's surrender. By that time the seventeen-year olds were expected to have reached their eighteenth birthdays and thereby eligible for front-line service.






Go Back To Archive Page

Go To Alabama CW Message Board