"Life of the Civil War Soldier in Camp" Topic

"Only a tiny fraction of any soldier's time was spent in front line combat. Instead, the vast majority of his existence revolved around the monotonous routines of camp life, which presented its own set of struggles and hardships.

Once in the ranks, military life turned out to be far different than what the majority of Civil War soldiers had expected. Patriotic zeal blinded most of these volunteers to the realities and hardships they were signing up to experience. The passage of several generations had muted the country's memory of the deprivations of the American Revolution. Few had participated in the war with Mexico, which left a popular legacy of glorious victory. Certainly, argued the conventional wisdom, this sectional crisis would be resolved in a few short, painless months…"

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Armand

Doing research on Alabama in the initial years of the war. Volunteer groups of men would report to a muster point called camp and be joined with one or more other groups to form a company. Most or all of these group brought their own unit flag to the muster. They continued to carry these until they arrived at the division or corps deployment area. The "company/ group flag would be put in the regimental baggage train. They were pulled out at nightly bivouac to mark the area that they would stay.

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Armand