Alan J. Pitts
Supporting Forces
Tue Feb 20 23:00:14 2001


For those of you who have asked how recruiting was done in the last year or two of the war, here's a description from the same passage as cited in the post just below this one:

OFFICE COMMANDANT OF CONSCRIPTS,
Montgomery, Ala., November 30, 1864.
JOHN C. BURCH,
Asst. Adjt. Gen., Hdqrs. Reserve Forces, Montgomery, Ala.:

Under existing orders and regulations only one commissioned officer is allowed to a county, and he must be a disabled officer. Each disabled county officer is allowed three light-duty men as assistants and three men over forty-five years of age to act as members of the Advisory Board. One company, composed of old men or men unfit for field service, is allowed to each Congressional district as a supporting force. These companies, divided into detachments, give an average of about twelve or fifteen men to each county. These detachments have never been furnished with arms or equipments by the Government, though requisitions have been repeatedly made. They are only partially armed with almost worthless guns, such as could be picked up through the country. The supply of ammunition is very small, and, of course, entirely unsuited to the guns in a majority of cases. So the force in each county may be summed up as follows: Commissioned officers (disabled), 1; assistants (disabled soldiers), 3; Advisory Board (old men), 3; supporting force (old men and disabled men, unarmed), 15; total, 22. It is plain that more armed men are required to perform the labor now required of the Bureau of Conscription in this State, and unless material strength is added it will be impossible to execute orders with that promptness which the necessities of the general service so imperatively demand."

H. C. LOCKHART,
Lieutenant-Colonel and Commandant, Alabama.








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