Ape Avengers: Recently revisited the classic novel Gone with the Wind, which I was a little confused about the depiction of the equipment of Confederate soldiers...
The book says that when the State Coalition of Georgia went out on a campaign. Many soldiers used flintlock guns left over from the Mexican-American War, the Second American-British War, and even the Revolutionary War. For example, Scarlett's first husband, Charles, his saber is an ancestral saber from the family, during the Revolutionary War. The families described in the book are families that have lived in the south for generations, with mansions and villas, rolling cotton fields, herds of cattle and horses, and a large group of black slaves. With the economic conditions of these families, it should not be impossible to afford the latest weapons of the time, right? Why use these ancestral antiques that I don't know if I can still make a splash?
Some of the poor white soldiers, who had worse economic conditions and had no land, black slaves, and livestock, used only the shotguns they normally used for hunting.
The uniforms of the Confederate Army do not seem to be all the gray uniforms we have in mind, but are divided into several types according to the different formations. In the book alone, regular troops, volunteers, vigilante groups and self-defense forces appear. It seems that many of the regular army are the sons of the southern family and volunteers, mainly composed of poor whites. Regulars and volunteers were the backbone of the Confederacy. Vigilante groups and self-defense forces were local security forces organized by the warring Confederate states, rarely on the front lines, and were only hastily mobilized when the Northern Army was about to enter Atlanta at the end.
The kind of gray uniforms we are familiar with seem to be available only to regulars and volunteers, and the costumes of the two are different. As for the vigilante groups and the Self-Defense Forces, there seems to be no uniform uniform.
It is also written that the Confederate states often quarreled with the central government in Richmond, refusing to carry out orders and transferring their militias to the front to reinforce the regular army. It was only when the Yankees came in that the state governments had to use their own vigilante groups.
In addition, there are southern speculative merchants like Butler, who travel back and forth between the north and the south. There were also unscrupulous merchants in the south, producing inferior leather boots and uniforms to sell to frontline soldiers.
In addition, desertion by the Confederate Army also appears to be serious, especially in the middle and late stages of the war. Many poor white men's families were left with only old and weak women and children, unable to carry out agricultural production, so they had to write letters to their men on the front line to complain. Many of these soldiers who received the letters sneaked home and planted the land for several months before returning to the front.
If these descriptions are true, then I personally feel that the Confederacy is also a failure, and the interior is too bad.
The book also says that there were a large number of new immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and Poland in the Northern Army at that time, and they often did not even speak English.
So, are these depictions of Margaret true? Is this really the case with the Confederacy? Please ancient war version of the big bulls science popularization...
Editing it, I found these two pictures on the Internet, very strange uniforms, which at first glance I thought were Turkish soldiers.
Is this the uniform of the Confederate Army or the Northern Army? What is the compilation?
And this one, the uniforms worn by the soldiers on the left.
Inari Shin: To make a long story short: The above descriptions are very reliable.
The Nord Army did have a large number of new immigrants from Europe, especially the Irish and Germans. The reason was that at the beginning of the war there was no universal compulsory military service, and for every soldier who volunteered in the army, the Federation had an advance of $200 — a large sum of money at the time. As a result, there are people who have made a fortune in batches of immigrants from old Europe to join the army, in order to seek private interests from it... Of course, the federal government, which finds things wrong, doesn't play that way.
Nanshan Thief: Those dressed as Algerians were the Algerian regiments of the Northern Army, just dressed like that.
The regiments were called the Zuafu Infantry Regiment, and there were about 70 regiments in the Northern Army and about 25 in the Confederate Army, all of which were imitations of the Algerian infantry of the French Army.
Gustavus: Plagiarized French Troops of Juav ... In fact, the United States playing this is not against the peace, the Papal State also briefly copied Zhu av that is fun
When it comes to deserters, many Confederate generals turn a blind eye, but stalls like Jackson's Stonewall are unlucky.
Ape Avengers: Flipping through the first half of Gone with the Wind, it seems to mention The Juav Forces... The lads in the south think that Zhu Av's uniform is feminine...
Q. What is the origin of The Zhuaf troops? Why did the Western countries at that time rush to imitate this force? Is The fighting power of Zhu Af's troops strong?
Gustavus: The French recruited indigenous troops in Algeria, so dressed in a Very Middle Eastern style, and soon became predominantly Native French, but the costumes were still like that, and the combat effectiveness was very fierce in Crimea
As for the issue of imitation, the period from Crimea to The Popularization of France is basically copying the French Army...
Portrait of the French Foreign Legion in 1852.
Rookie a small river crab: the deep river complained, during the Civil War, there were merchants who sold half a potato as a potato, there were horses bought by the Cavalry of the Northern Army, and the goods received were goats, and the goats were also taken away by the commanders to take to the barbecue party... The hapless cavalry had to pay for their own horses.
Lepriest: The picture you give is the Zuaf unit of the Northern Army, a lightly armored unit modeled after the Light Infantry of the French Algerian Colonies, from the formation to the tactics and even the uniforms.
After reading a book about the development of literature during the American Civil War, it is basically true that it is compared with the plot of the Civil War told in Margaret's "Gone with the Wind". It is just that the ordinary white people in the south, especially the peasants, do not live at all as carefree, quiet and peaceful as Margaret wrote, and the living conditions and illiteracy rates of the peasants in the south have always been very low, and they cannot be compared with the farmers.
Old-fashioned guns for ordinary southerners, just a tool for production and life, used for self-defense and hunting, if the civil war does not break out, these old-fashioned firearms are not urgent enough to be converted into rifled firing guns, and from 1856 to 1860, the rifled firing gun was only popular in the world for a long time, there was no Crimean war stimulation, other countries switched to firing guns is not so urgent, generally the army is the priority, civilians are the slowest
The South has not solved the problem of the supply of military weapons, in addition to the cannon can also meet the needs, like rifles, especially rifled guns have always relied on external input, so the captain of a smuggling boat like Brad has always been loved and hated by the Southern government.
Southern independence from the progress of too hasty, the outbreak of civil war is also caught off guard, both sides are not ready for war, look at "Gods and Generals" can be found that at the beginning of the war, many of the uniforms of the Confederate Army were not unified, except for some cadets and garrisons, there were very few Southern troops wearing gray uniforms, even general officers such as Stonewall Jackson and Stuart were wearing blue uniforms in the federal army when the war broke out, and the southern peasants who were hastily recruited could only wear their own clothes to the battlefield.
Ape Avenger: Thank you, thank you, or a lot of nice guys...
By the way, is the soldier in this picture a Zhuaf unit of the Confederate Army? The uniform was gray, and the turban was very different from that of Zhu Av of the Northern Army...
mars: There are accurate and incorrect descriptions of the BWI in "Gone with the Wind", and the following is a few aspects to talk about this issue:
1) The so-called types of troops: In the American Civil War, there were indeed regular troops in the armies of the North and the South, but these regular armies were so small that the proportion of "regular troops" in the armies of both sides was completely negligible. The main component of the armies of both sides was the unit consisting of a large number of volunteers at the beginning of the war, which was actually no different from the so-called regular army in terms of equipment, clothing, training, and unit structure, and there was no such thing as the so-called children of the family going to the regular army. In the early years of the war, the armies of both sides were made up of volunteers, but over time, both sides passed conscription. After 1863, whether you volunteered or not, it was theoretically possible for any adult man to be conscripted into the army. In addition to the troops above, there are grassroots militias such as the Home Guard on both the North and the South, which in most cases are poorly equipped and have little rigorous training, especially the Home Guard in the South, which after the middle of the war is mainly composed of people whose physical condition does not meet the criteria for enlistment.
2) Confederate equipment: In general, the United States South is very poor, of course, a few rich people have, the rich people have not only good guns, there are Southern rich people themselves to equip regimental troops (Hampton's Legion), ordinary poor white people of course only have old-fashioned weapons handed down from home. The problem for the South is that the pre-war U.S. munitions industry was in the North, and the Arsenal of the U.S. Army was also mostly in the North, so in the early days of the war, the Confederate government simply could not come up with enough weapons and equipment to pour in volunteers, and in the east due to the seizure of the Harpers Ferry Arsenal and the Norkhfolk Naval Base, a large number of rifles and artillery were captured, which made the situation quite improved, in the West, the Confederate situation was more difficult, and the number of Rifle rifles in the army was not much. As a result, a large number of weapons carried by the volunteers themselves had to be used, including smoothbore rifles, rifles with smoothbore rifles, and rifles with smooth rifle modifications. So the description in "Gone with the Wind" in this place is correct, but if you think that the equipment of the Confederate army has been like this throughout the war, it is wrong, the South soon created its own arms industry from scratch, mass production of rifles and artillery, self-production plus imports from Europe and captured from the battlefield, the Confederate basically solved the problem of army weapons and equipment, from generally from 1862 onwards, the Confederate army did not have the problem of inferior equipment.
3) The problem of profiteers: This problem does exist, and there is indeed a problem of profiteers in the Confederacy (this phenomenon also exists in the north), but we should not exaggerate too much, but there are also people in the south who destroy their families and go to the trouble, and many people are holding "Although I want to earn money, this money must be worthy of my conscience", and the best kind of people are the majority. The Confederacy had great logistical problems in the war, but "profiteers" were not the main cause of these problems.
4) The problem of foreigners in the Union Army: The idea of "drifting" here is exaggerated and untrue. We all know that the United States was founded by European Protestant immigrants, and Catholics have long been discriminated against. Among Catholic immigrants, the Irish (who of course speak English) are more likely to integrate into American society because of the worship of French culture at that time, while the Germans and Slavs from Central and Eastern Europe are not so easy, most of them do not speak English, and believe in non-mainstream religions, and in the economic culture, they are regarded as hillbills by immigrants from "economically developed" areas such as Britain, France, and the Netherlands, and their integration into American society is more difficult. In fact, German immigration to the United States began in the early 18th century, as for the causes and consequences of this immigration trend, to make a long story, it will not be expanded here, just remember that the United States in the 18th century was not yet a developed country in the world, and the immigration process of many Germans and the process of our Chinese being "sold piglets" in the 19th century are very imaginative. But these early German immigrants, by the outbreak of the American Civil War, had been thoroughly Americanized, and apart from their names and certain habits of life, they were no different from the Americans, and they regarded themselves as Americans rather than Germans. The Germans who do not speak English are Germans who immigrated to the United States during the wave of immigrants in the early 19th century. In the 19th century, the economy of the United States developed rapidly, while Europe was indeed plagued by turmoil, the Napoleonic Wars, the Great Irish Famine, the European Revolution of 1848, and so on, which led to a large number of Irish, German and Slavic emigration to the United States. Among these new immigrants, in addition to the Irish people who are more easily integrated into American society, the New German immigrants do not speak English, and they believe in different religions from mainstream society, which makes them often adopt a cohabitation lifestyle in order to earn a living, which makes them able to help each other and make a living easily, but it also makes them incompatible with local society. Politically, the vast majority of these German immigrants supported the federal government. After the outbreak of the Civil War, these new German immigrants, like other societies, formed a team to join the Federal Army. These German troops had a bad reputation in the civil war, and they were usually known for their cruelty in guerrilla warfare in the southern occupation zones and the southerners. On the battlefield of regular warfare, most of these German troops were considered to be not high or even low, so both the North and the South called them "The flying Dutchmen", but anyone who knew something about the American Civil War and read the sequence of operations between the main battles would know that these "German" troops accounted for only a small part of the Federal Army, and as for the civil war, the new immigrants were tricked into enlisting as soon as they got off the ship, but their proportion was even lower. The armies of both sides of the American Civil War were fought by their own nationals.
5) Desertion problem: The problem of desertion on both sides of the American Civil War is very serious, the number of deserters in the entire civil war on the Federation side is as high as 200,000, and I have not seen the complete statistics of the Confederacy, but at least tens of thousands of them. In addition to the brutality of the usual wars and the hardships of life on the front lines, family problems are a major factor. I read about a federal army officer who wrote to President Lincoln that his troops had been unpaid for nearly a year, that his family had no other income, that his wife and children would starve without paying them, and that he would be begging the president to solve the problem. Lincoln took this very seriously, and after personally inquiring about it, the military salary was paid. The unit made a report that since the arrears had been paid, the number of deserters in the unit had increased significantly, and the implication was that the arrears should not be paid, and people should not run when they had travel expenses. The situation of the Confederacy followed that after 1863, the southern human resources gradually dried up, the male labor force was lost, and ordinary families were often unable to support themselves, if it was in the areas invaded by the federal army, the women, the elderly and children of the family could not protect themselves. In this case, it is difficult for the soldiers in the front to fight with peace of mind, and many people choose to be deserters. For the South, the consequences of the desertion problem are far more serious than in the North, and there has been no good way to solve it, the Confederacy has taken a hundred ways to kill (not only General Jackson will shoot deserters, but like the cold mountains to catch deserters and kill them is pure nonsense, so many people as deserters, it is absolutely impossible to kill them), rewards for arrest, amnesty, approval of family visits, etc., but this problem has never been fundamentally solved. Later in the war, these deserters even ganged up in their hometowns, "whoever dares to arrest us, we will fight with whomever we want", and General Lee even had to send brigade-level troops to the rear to search for deserters.
Gov: According to my conversations with some people from Germany in the Midwest who came to the United States from Germany, the German-speaking people in the Civil War-era Union Army were both American-born second-generation Germans and Germans who had just disembarked (many of them came to the Midwest to farm after the war). Many second-generation Germans grew up living on German-populated farms (similarly Dutch and Swedish towns), and their English was basically a foreign language for British immigrants. It is said that until the end of World War II, the Sales of German-language newspapers in Chicago were not small.
Cat in Boots: Both sides are confused about their preparations for war. Although the South started early, it stockpiled some weapons in advance, and the first to be strong, from the occupied Federal Arsenal to get a lot of weapons, but the industrial base is weak, the North is really not prepared, and then the two sides at the beginning of the war frantically purchased weapons from Europe, almost all that Europe can sell, of course, the procurement of weapons is a very oily and water errand, the things bought back are also uneven, from which it is inevitable to spend a difference. Later, the strong industrial production capacity of the north began to move, and the south also cobbled together its own weapons, and light weapons were basically self-sufficient. However, the Yankees were a little poor after all, and they also made a dilemma of collecting pots of salt at night and finding winemaking utensils to smelt copper, and even the church had to hand over the bells to the arsenal to make cannons. In terms of clothing, the south is more miserable, although it is a cotton-producing area, but the textile printing and dyeing was previously handed over to the Yankees to dry, and now they can only think of their own ways, so the color of the clothes dyed with walnut shell walnut skin is also messy enough. The soldier's clothes were still a bit worse, even the shoes were not enough, and even many people went to the battlefield to die without a pair of shoes.
The author of this article: Northern Dynasty netizens