Secretary of War Walker explains the evolution of the length of service requirements of the CSA to the Governor of Georgia.
Confederate States Of America, War Department,
Montgomery, May 22, 1861.
His Excellency Joseph E. Brown,
Governor of Georgia:
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge Your Excellency’s favor of
the 15th of May, and can well appreciate the embarrassment under which Your Excellency labors in respect to the apparent conflict of the rules of this Department as to periods of service in the Army, but a brief explanation of the matter, I feel quite sure, will relieve this difficulty in your mind. Congress in the beginning, as you are aware, passed bills with regard to the organization of a “regular army” and the raising of “provisional forces.” Afterward a further bill was passed to “provide for the public defense,” under which requisitions were authorized for troops to serve twelve months. More recently amendatory acts have been passed, giving to this Department the discretionary power to receive forces for the war.
the 15th of May, and can well appreciate the embarrassment under which Your Excellency labors in respect to the apparent conflict of the rules of this Department as to periods of service in the Army, but a brief explanation of the matter, I feel quite sure, will relieve this difficulty in your mind. Congress in the beginning, as you are aware, passed bills with regard to the organization of a “regular army” and the raising of “provisional forces.” Afterward a further bill was passed to “provide for the public defense,” under which requisitions were authorized for troops to serve twelve months. More recently amendatory acts have been passed, giving to this Department the discretionary power to receive forces for the war.
So long as hostilities with the North were only apparent, this Department proceeded to act simply in the line of the organization of the Regular Army, and in providing temporary forces for the recovery of our forts, arsenals, and dock-yards; but, with the reduction of Sumter, it soon became necessary to make requisitions, under the act to provide for the public defense, for troops to serve for the more extended period of twelve months. While this Department was thus engaged in receiving companies, battalions, and regiments, it was scrupulous not to accept independent corps, and it always replied to such offers, as it did to Colonel Gartrell, that no troops could be received from within the limits of the Confederate States save through the several State Executives. The Congress now assembled, and in view of the proclamation of Mr. Lincoln at Washington calling for enrollments for three years and enlistments for the war, indicating preparations on the part of the enemy for a prolonged contest, our representatives, in their wisdom, passed amendatory laws authorizing this Department to receive volunteers for the war. They moreover, in order to facilitate the formation of forces capable of meeting the enemy, invested this Department with the further power of accepting direct tenders without the intervention of State executive authority.
It should not be forgotten that these things have all transpired in the course of three months, the one rule and the one line of action following rapidly upon the heel of the other and being well calculated to create the impression of a want of persistency in the Government upon the subject of military services. The determination of this Department finally reached, in view of the whole question in its multiplied relations, is that troops armed and equipped by the Government must serve for the war, but volunteer corps may be received to serve for twelve months who present themselves ready armed and equipped. It is properly the policy of the Government to arm those troops that are willing to serve for the war in preference to those who offer only for twelve months. The supply of arms is not superabundant, and from present indications it is believed that the number offering for the war will be more than sufficient to exhaust our supply of arms. This result may follow without giving us all the men in the field we desire to place there, and the deficiency may be supplied by receiving troops, already armed and equipped, to serve for twelve months.
It is evident the Government at Washington is preparing for a prolonged and bloody war. The proclamation of Mr. Lincoln calling for enrollments for three years and enlistments for the war clearly shows a resolution to convert all their forces from the character of raw militia and volunteers into trained and disciplined regulars. Through this movement Your Excellency will perceive they at one and the same time inure their troops to campaign life and the battle-field and promote economy of administration. Their calculation is that often heretofore made, and was notably practiced by the Roundheads against the Cavaliers through the genius and skill of Cromwell. It is supposed now, as then by that great captain, that the impetuosity and superior dexterity of our men in the use of arms will cause the earlier victories to lean to our side, but that trained, disciplined, and solid battalions will prove in the end triumphant. Nor will it be denied that the heaviest relative expense of an army is demanded during the year of its general enrollment and equipment. For us to disband each of our regiments at the end of twelve months’ service would be to entail upon the Government the largest yearly expenditures and to keep our armies constituted for the most part of raw recruits, while the adversary was constantly diminishing his relative expenditures and advancing more and more in every element that constitutes effectiveness. Under these circumstances we should of course, as near as may be done and as we have been doing from the first, conform our periods of service in the field to those of the enemy, thus at all times securing for our soldiers the advantage of their original superiority.
With this exposition before you I trust Your Excellency will think proper to countermand General Orders, No. 8, issuing from the office of your adjutant -general. That Your Excellency caused these orders to issue under misapprehension as to the action of this Department I have never doubted. If they had been issued because of attempts made by this Government to enlist troops in Georgia under the act of Congress “to provide for the public defense,” and the requisitions of the President in accordance therewith, without consultation with Your Excellency or regard to your wishes, they would be considered here, however impolitic, as sternly just. But presented in the face of the law of Congress, which anticipates and permits the arming of troops by the States from whence they are called by this Government, and in negation of the recent acts of Confederate wisdom empowering this Department to receive volunteer corps without intermediate consultative delays, I cannot do otherwise than express my profound regret at their existence. In the passage of the laws of Congress controlling this Department the representatives of Georgia concurred , and I assure Your Excellency I know of no consideration extended elsewhere by the Confederate Government and withheld from Georgia: Every effort of State as well as Confederate authority is demanded for the maintenance of our independence of a power whose chief element of political rule is the sword of despotism, and yet under these orders companies in Georgia armed for the desperate struggle are disarmed by Your Excellency. I sincerely hope Your Excellency will consider them no longer necessary either to the security or dignity of Georgia.
I have the honor to be, with high consideration and respect, your obedient servant,
L. P. WALKER.