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The Confederate States Army was the military ground force of the Confederate States of America, also known as the "Confederacy", while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War.〔On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States of America.〕 On February 28, 1861, the Provisional Confederate Congress established a provisional volunteer army and gave control over military operations and authority for mustering state forces and volunteers to the President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, a graduate of the United States Military Academy and colonel of a volunteer regiment during the Mexican-American War.〔On March 1, 1861, Davis assumed control of the military situation at Charleston, South Carolina on behalf of the Confederate States government, where state militia threatened to seize Fort Sumter from the small United States Army garrison.〕 On March 6 and 9, 1861, the Provisional Confederate Congress passed additional military legislation and established a more permanent Confederate States Army. An accurate count of the number of individuals who served in the Confederate Army is impossible due to incomplete and destroyed Confederate records.〔All but extremely improbable estimates of the number of Confederate soldiers range between 600,000 and 1,500,000 men.〕 The better estimates of the number of individual Confederate soldiers are between 750,000 and 1,000,000 men. This does not include an unknown number of slaves who were pressed into performing various tasks for the army, such as construction of fortifications and defenses or driving wagons.〔Records of the number of individuals who served in the Union Army are more extensive, but still are not entirely reliable. Estimates of the number of individual Union soldiers range between 1,550,000 and 2,400,000, with a number between 2,000,000 and 2,200,000 most likely. Union Army records show slightly more than 2,677,000 enlistments but this number apparently includes many re-enlistments. These numbers do not include men who served in Union naval forces. These figures represent the total number of individual soldiers who served at any time during the war, not the size of the army at any given date.〕 Since these figures include estimates of the total number of individual soldiers who served at any time during the war, they do not represent the size of the army at any given date. These numbers do not include men who served in Confederate naval forces. Although most Civil War soldiers were volunteers, both sides ultimately resorted to conscription. In the absence of exact records, estimates of the percentage of Confederate soldiers who were draftees are about double the 6 per cent of Union soldiers who were conscripts. Some historians have suggested that the threat of conscription may have had a greater effect on raising volunteers than it did in providing large numbers of reliable soldiers. Confederate casualty figures also are incomplete and unreliable. The best estimates of the number of deaths of Confederate soldiers are about 94,000 killed or mortally wounded in battle, 164,000 deaths from disease and between 26,000 and 31,000 deaths in Union prison camps. One estimate of Confederate wounded, which is considered incomplete, is 194,026. These numbers do not include men who died from other causes such as accident, which would add several thousand to the death toll.〔In comparison, the best estimates of the number of deaths of Union soldiers are 110,100 killed or mortally wounded in battle, 224,580 deaths from disease and 30,192 deaths in Confederate prison camps, although some historians also dispute these figures. The best conjecture for Union Army wounded is 275,175.〕 The main Confederate armies, the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee and the remnants of the Army of Tennessee and various other units under General Joseph E. Johnston, surrendered on April 9, 1865 (officially April 12), and April 18, 1865 (officially April 26). Other Confederate forces surrendered between April 16, 1865 and June 28, 1865.〔Confederate forces at Mobile, Alabama, and Columbus, Georgia, also had already surrendered on April 14, 1865, and April 16, 1865, respectively. Union and Confederate units fought a battle at Columbus, Georgia, before surrender on April 16, 1865, and a small final battle at Palmito Ranch, Texas, on May 12, 1865. In areas more distant from the main theaters of operations, Confederate forces in Alabama and Mississippi under Lieutenant General Richard Taylor, in Arkansas under Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson, in Louisiana and Texas under General E. Kirby Smith and in Indian Territory under Brigadier General Stand Watie surrendered on May 4, 1865, May 12, 1865, May 26, 1865 (officially June 2, 1865), and June 28, 1865, respectively.〕 The Confederacy's government was effectively dissolved with the last meeting of the Confederate cabinet on May 5, 1865, and with the capture of President Jefferson Davis by Union forces on May 10, 1865. ==Prelude== By the time Abraham Lincoln took office as President of the United States on March 4, 1861, the seven seceding states had formed the Confederate States of America. These states seized federal property, including nearly all federal forts, within their borders. Lincoln was determined to hold the forts remaining under federal control when he took office, especially Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. By the time Lincoln was sworn in as president, the incompatible positions of the parties were fixed and irreconcilable and the Provisional Confederate Congress had authorized the organization of a large Provisional Army of the Confederate States (PACS). Under orders from President of the Confederate States Jefferson Davis, troops controlled by the Confederate government under the command of General P. G. T. Beauregard bombarded Fort Sumter on April 12–13, 1861, forcing its capitulation on April 14. The North was outraged and demanded war. It rallied behind Lincoln's call on April 15, for all the states to send troops to recapture the forts from the secessionists, to put down the rebellion and to preserve the Union intact. Four more slave states then joined the Confederacy. Both the United States and the Confederate States began in earnest to raise large, mostly volunteer, armies with the objectives of putting down the rebellion and preserving the union, on the one hand, or of establishing independence from the United States, on the other hand. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Confederate States Army」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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