Alan J. Pitts
A little more help....
Mon Apr 9 11:22:56 2001


It seems that many people like you are interested in having an amplified version of a service record, something that would tell a story rather than relate a few facts. For your purposes, I'd invest in General Manigault's memoirs of his brigade, which takes the reader from the origins of the brigade at Corinth, May 1862, to the Tennessee Campaign in November 1864. If there's more detail on any of the three Alabama regiments that served in his brigade somewhere else, I'd like someone to call it to our attention.

Available at $14.95, here's a bookseller's listing:

"A Carolinian Goes to War: The Civil War Narrative of Arthur Middleton Manigault, Brigadier General, C.S.A.", Tower, R. Lockwood, ed. Manigault's memoir provides us a brilliant account of the major campaigns of the western front, from the debacle immediately following Shiloh to the last gasp at Franklin and Nashville. (1983), 344pp., softbound.

Also, I have four folders with notes and copies from Mobile Advertiser and Register issues of 1861-62. There's quite a bit about the Mobile Fire Brigade which included the Gulf City Guards. A number of volunteer militia companies formed in 1861 and later enlisted in Confederate service. I won't be able to review this for some time, but if GCG activities in this period interest you, I'd like to do it.

This was the second "Gulf City Guard", the first having gone to war with the 3rd Alabama several months earlier. Here are my notes about that company:

Company “G” of Mobile County “Gulf City Guards”

Capt. Alphonse Hurtel. Assigned to command of a convalescent camp at Atlanta, Georgia, on January 30, 1863; later reassigned to command of a military prison there. Camp removed to Macon, Georgia, September 1, 1864.

Members organized under Captain William A. Buck at Mobile, Alabama, November 26, 1860, and served as a state command from January 11, 1861, to February 24, 1861. They mustered for state service again on March 19, 1861 to serve with the 1st Alabama Volunteer Militia Regiment. Some officers and men formed Company “B”, 3rd Alabama Infantry Regiment, while the rest continued on duty in and around Mobile as the “Gulf City Guards, Company ‘B’”. These enlisted in Confederate service October 17, 1861, company officers receiving commissions on November 6, 1861. Survivors surrendered with Company “C” of the consolidated 24th Alabama Infantry Regiment.