Alan J. Pitts
Re: Robert Lewis Cummins
Wed May 2 10:43:34 2001


This must be the right person. It seems that a number of men misrepresented their ages in order to avoid being assigned to front-line units, so he could have been 43 and enrolled in a senior reserve company. There's so much information about reserves in previous posts that it seems best to extract just the portions that might interest you:

Here's a note on the law which created state reserves:

A law passed by the Confederate Congress on February 17, 1864, placed all white male residents of the Confederate States between the ages of seventeen and fifty in military service for the war. The law allowed soldiers serving in units from one state to transfer to units from their home state, and provided a bounty of $100 for enlisted men in service on April 1, 1864, to be paid in six months to all those who had not been absent without leave in the interim. It also made men who had previously been discharged from the army or exempt because they had furnished a substitute for the army liable for service.

The most significant portion of this law created two classes of state reserves. Those between the ages of 17 and 18 were to be enrolled as junior reserves, while men aged 45 to 50 would become senior reserves. Reserves were limited to service within the borders of their home state. Seniors and exempts were expected to replace able-bodied men on duty as clerks, guards, agents, employees or laborers with hospitals, ordnance depots, navy yards, recruiting offices and the provost guard, as well as those serving with the commissary and quartermaster departments. Officers who retained able-bodied men for any of these duties would be subject to court martial. Junior reserves and any surplus of senior reserves would be employed for local defense.

Now, here's a note to someone else who asked about the 3rd Alabama Reserves:

This correspondence has been taken from Series IV vol. 3 pp. 880-82 of the Official Records. It provides a graphic description of the sorry state of senior reserves in Alabama and should resolve on-going questions about the composition (and morale) of the 3rd Reserve Regiment.

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

I have been furnished by Brig. Gen. D. W. Adams with a list of 351 absentees or deserters from eight companies of the Third Regiment of Alabama Reserves, whose furloughs expired on the 1st of November. These men are all over forty-five years of age and are residents of the counties of Marengo, Greene, Sumter, Pickens, Perry, Dallas, Shelby, Bibb, Tuscaloosa, Talladega, and Randolph. The lowest number of absentees given from any one company is thirty-seven; the highest sixty-nine.

No list has been furnished from one company of the regiment, as there are no officers present to furnish the list. Information from other companies of reserves shows a like number of absentees and deserters. These lists of absentees from the reserves exhibit proof of the fact that the orders of the major-general commanding and the Secretary of War are totally disregarded in some of the most wealthy and enlightened counties in the State.

The failure on the part of the reserves to reassemble in obedience to orders gives hope to the disloyal and great encouragement to deserters from the Regular Army to remain at home and resist authority. I have written this much with the hope that the major-general in charge of conscription in this State may be able to provide an adequate remedy or make such representations to the Secretary of War as will secure the same.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

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

[First indorsement.]
HEADQUARTERS RESERVE FORCES OF ALABAMA,
Montgomery, December 1, 1864.
Respectfully forwarded, earnestly invoking the attention of the Department to the deplorable condition of the conscript service in this State, as correctly r company received orders to proceed to Selma, Alabama, July 18, 1864, and mustered there on August 1, 1864.

Your ancestor was probably paroled about the same time as Capt. Hassell rather than in 1864 as you stated.

I hope this helps.....