Confederate Army

Army of the Confederate States
Active	February 28, 1861 – May 26, 1865 (4 years, 2 months and 4 weeks)
Country	Confederate States
Type	Army
Size	500,000–1,500,000
Part of	C.S. War Department
Colors	Cadet gray
March	"Dixie"
Engagements	American Indian Wars Cortina Troubles American Civil War Sumter First Manassas Wilson's Creek Henry and Donelson Shenandoah South Mills Richmond Harpers Ferry Munfordville Shepherdstown Chambersburg Raid Mississippi River Peninsula Shiloh Jackson's Valley Campaign Second Manassas Sharpsburg Hartsville Fredericksburg Murfreesborough Chancellorsville Gettysburg Vicksburg Corydon Chickamauga Chattanooga Wilderness Atlanta Spotsylvania New Hope Church Pickett's Mill Cold Harbor Sabine Pass Plymouth Fort Pillow Petersburg St. Albans Kennesaw Mountain Jonesborough Franklin Nashville Appomattox
Commanders
Commander-in-Chief	Jefferson Davis
General-in-Chief	Robert E. Lee
Insignia
Flag

American Indian Wars
Cortina Troubles
American Civil War

The Confederate States Army (CSA) was the military ground force of the Confederate States (C.S.), also known as the "Confederacy", while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. 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 Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and colonel of a volunteer regiment during the Mexican War. In March 1861, the Provisional Confederate Congress 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; 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. 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 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. In the absence of exact records, estimates of the percentage of Confederate soldiers who were draftees are about double the 6 percent of Union soldiers who were conscripts.

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