Civil War Headquarters: Top American Civil War Web Resources

You will read a lot about different "groups" of soldiers in the Civil War. For example, Colonel Chamberlain was the commander of the 20th Maine Regiment at Gettysburg. General Hood's Division fought valiantly in the Cornfield at Antietam. So what are these different groups, and how do they all fit together into the Civil War army structure?

Basically, the army was broken into corps (pronounced CORES). Within the corps were divisions. Within the divisions were brigades. Within the brigades were regiments. Within the regiments were companies. Here is the very general breakdown the organizational structure, from large to small:

CORPS - three divisions, commanded by major general or lieutenant general
DIVISION - three infantry brigades, commanded by a major general
BRIGADE - three to six regiments, commanded by a brigadier general
REGIMENT - ten companies, commanded by a colonel
COMPANY - approximately 40 men, commanded by a captain

Artillery units were usually organized as artillery brigades or artillery battalions, and attached one per division. Cavalry regiments were organized in a similar fashion to infantry regiments and assigned to a cavalry corps.

Thanks to the National Park Service for this information, from their outstanding Gettysburg National Military Park website.

If you thought that Civil War uniforms were limited to the blue tunics on Union soldiers and gray on Confederates, you're sadly mistaken. There were dozens of different uniform colors and styles on both sides of the war. Some of the most distinctive uniforms were worn by Zouave units.

Who were Zouaves? The name Zouave originated with the French Army for infantry regiments serving in North Africa. The French Zouaves were known for their brilliant uniforms, which featured short jackets, bloused pants, leggings and ornate hats, in rich shades of blue and red.

The first Zouave Regiment in the United States was not a military unit at all, but a rifle drill team that performed exhibitions around the country in the flashy Zouave uniforms. When the Civil War began, volunteer units formed around the country and some of these were formed as Zouave regiments. The flashy uniforms were recruiting tools to form elite units . . . at least, in principle. Certainly the Zouaves had the attitude to match their outfits. Some Zouave units earned reputations for being poorly disciplined and unruly, but for the most part, the pride of being in one of these regiments compelled Zouave troops to fight with great courage and ferocity.

The Zouave regiment was not unique to one side or the other; according to an Wikipedia article, there were more than 70 Union regiments and 25 Confederate regiments with the Zouave name over the course of the war. Zouaves fought with great distinction in virtually every major battle of the Civil War from start to finish: First and second battles of Bull Run, Battle of the Wilderness, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, and more were fought with Zouave troops on both sides of the battle line. Zouave regiments formed with the first volunteer groups in 1861, and the last Union soldier killed before Lee's surrender at Appomattox in 1865 is believed to have been a Zouave.

Zouave uniforms in the Civil War varied from regiment to regiment, but most included short jackets, blousy pants, leggings, sashes and fez hats. You can see a good example of a Zouave uniform in Don Troiani's rendering of the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, also known as the Collis Zouaves to the right. (More information on Don Troiani's Civil War series of books)

Our camouflage-clad soldiers of today wouldn't dare go into battle in brightly colored uniforms like this, but stealth was not a tactic used by infantry troops in the Civil War. Their style of fighting was Napoleonic, where ranks of soldiers marched up in lines and traded fire with each other. Unfortunately, the Napoleon approach to combat was developed when soldiers used smooth-bore muskets with a very short firing range. By the Civil War, rifles had threaded bores and soldiers used minie balls for ammunition, which increased their effective range many times over. The net result? Massive casualty rates in each Civil War battle far exceeding anything experienced in any previous war in American history. Needless to say, military leaders figured this problem out by the end of the war and the Napoleon style of fighting, along with the Zouave's flashy outfits, were destined to be replaced by stealthier options.

Today the Zouave uniform has been brought back to life by Civil War re-enactors who wear these brilliant outfits to honor the courage, sacrifice and remarkable attitude of the Civil War's Zouaves.

Some 620,000 soldiers died during the American Civil War, making it the most costly war in American history. In fact, if you were to add all the fatalities from all the other wars - American Revolution, War of 1812, Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korean, Viet Nam, Desert Storm Iraqi Freedom and the war against terrorism - the Civil War's losses almost equaled all of those wars combined.

So what was the biggest killer in the Civil War? Was it the cannon? Maybe the bayonet? How about the rifle and the minie ball? Nope, all of those weapons combined accounted for around 204,000 deaths. So what caused the death of the remaining 416,000 men?

History has shown that the Civil War soldier's most dangerous foe was not the opposing army - it was disease. For every soldier killed in combat, two soldiers died of disease. Just like in HG Wells' War of the Worlds, bacteria was the ultimate victor in the Civil War.

Over 200,000 of the deaths from disease during the Civil War were caused by intestinal disorders, like typhoid fever, diarrhea, and dysentery. Many of the rest died from pneumonia and tuberculosis or from post-surgical infections.

Part of the problem was that the camps were filled with young men who had never lived in close quarters with so many other people, and had never developed any immunity to typical contagious diseases, like the measles, chickenpox, mumps, and whooping cough. Sanitary conditions in the camps were often deplorable. From Civil War Medical Care, Battle Wounds, and Disease on civilwarhome.com:

An inspector in late 1861 found most Federal camps 'littered with refuse, food, and other rubbish, sometimes in an offensive state of decomposition; slops deposited in pits within the camp limits or thrown out of broadcast; heaps of manure and offal close to the camp." As a result, bacteria and viruses spread through the camp like wildfire. Bowel disorders constituted the soldiers' most common complaint. The Union army reported that more than 995 out of every 1,000 men eventually contracted chronic diarrhea or dysentery during the war; the Confederates fared no better.

Infections following surgical procedures also caused the death of many wounded soldiers who might otherwise have survived. The connection between surgical sanitation and infection was not understood until the 1870s. Had the Civil War occurred one decade later, as many as half of the soldiers who died of combat wounds might have survived.