Alan J. Pitts
3rd Reserve Battalion
Thu Mar 15 16:25:36 2001


NARA doesn't recognize the 65th Ala. so I would certainly submit a request service records as a member of the 3rd Reserve Battalion. Keep in mind that these were senior reserves. I don't question the existence of a last-minute organization called the 65th Alabama. There's even some evidence of a 64th Alabama. However, the suggestion that senior companies were ever consolidated into a regiment for regular Confederate service mystifies me.

It makes sense that 17-year olds become 18 after a year, which accounts for the 1st and 2nd Reserves becoming the 62nd and 63rd Ala. However, men between the ages of 45 and 50 surely didn't become younger, and most would still be in the age bracket for senior reserves. When a senior reserve reached his fiftieth birthday, he could get a discharge and go home.

If someone is aware of a law passed by the Confederate Congress abolishing the reserves and placing all former reserves into regular line units, please call my attention to it.






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