the Confederate States Army

The Confederate States Army was the military land force of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War, fighting against the United States forces.

The Confederate States, officially the Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was a confederation of secessionist American states existing from 1861 to 1865.

Instrument Demonstration for Beginning Band by The United States Army Field Band

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 newly chosen Confederate president, Jefferson Davis.

The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States, also known as the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America, was a congress of deputies and delegates called together from the Southern States which became the governing body of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States from February 4, 1861, to February 17, 1862.

Jefferson Finis Davis was an American politician who was a Democratic U.S. Representative and Senator from Mississippi, the 23rd U.S. Secretary of War, and the President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.

Theodore's Anthem - Kerry Turner by The United States Army Field Band

Davis was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, and colonel of a volunteer regiment during the Mexican–American War.

The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the American intervention in Mexico, was an armed conflict between the United States of America and the Second Federal Republic of Mexico from 1846 to 1848.

He had also been a United States Senator from Mississippi and U.S. Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce.

The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the United States House of Representatives, the lower chamber, composes the legislature of the United States of America.

Mississippi is a state located in the southern region of the United States, with part of its southern border formed by the Gulf of Mexico.

On March 1, 1861, on behalf of the Confederate government, Davis assumed control of the military situation at Charleston, South Carolina, where South Carolina state militia besieged Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, held by a small U.S. Army garrison.

Charleston is the oldest and second-largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston–Summerville Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The United States Army is the largest branch of the United States Armed Forces and performs land-based military operations.

Fort Sumter is a sea fort in Charleston, South Carolina, notable for two battles of the American Civil War.

By March 1861, the Provisional Confederate Congress expanded the provisional forces and established a more permanent Confederate States Army.

An accurate count of the total number of individuals who served in the Confederate Army is not possible due to incomplete and destroyed Confederate records; 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.

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 States Navy.

The Navy of the Confederate States was the naval branch of the Confederate States Armed Forces, established by an act of the Confederate States Congress on February 21, 1861.

Although most of the soldiers who fought in the American Civil War were volunteers, both sides by 1862 resorted to conscription, primarily as a means to force men to register and to volunteer.

Conscription, sometimes called the draft, is the compulsory enlistment of people in a national service, most often a military service.

In the absence of exact records, estimates of the percentage of Confederate soldiers who were draftees are about double the 6 percent of United States soldiers who were conscripts.

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 United States prison camps.

One estimate of the Confederate wounded, which is considered incomplete, is 194,026.

These numbers do not include men who died from other causes such as accidents, which would add several thousand to the death toll.

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 to the U.S. on April 9, 1865, and April 18, 1865.

Joseph Eggleston Johnston was a career U.S. Army officer, serving with distinction in the Mexican-American War and Seminole Wars, and was also one of the most senior general officers in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

The Army of Northern Virginia was the primary military force of the Confederate States of America in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War, as well as the primary command structure of the Department of Northern Virginia.

Robert Edward Lee was an American general known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865.

Other Confederate forces surrendered between April 16, 1865, and June 28, 1865.

By the end of the war, more than 100,000 Confederate soldiers had deserted, and some estimates put the number as high as one third of Confederate soldiers.

The Confederacy's government effectively dissolved when it fled Richmond in April and exerted no control over the remaining armies.