Morning roll call by Charles Reed
(Hardtack & Coffee)

Members of a regiment at ease.
(Miller's Photographic History)

In the North, regiments were raised or authorized by each state government that organized, clothed, fed and armed the regiments until they could be turned over to the Federal government for service. Many regiments were enrolled for three or six months until after the summer of 1861, when they were mustered into service for an average of three years. By 1863, New York and Pennsylvania had each provided over 170 regiments of infantry to the Union cause with Ohio, Indiana, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, and Illinois close behind. The Army of the Potomac was filled with regiments representing every Union state except Kentucky, Kansas and Missouri.

One exception to the three-years regiments was the militia or emergency regiments. When the Confederate Army invaded Pennsylvania, Governor Andrew Curtin declared a state of emergency and ordered the state militia to be called into service. These new soldiers were hastily formed into emergency regiments and sent to defend the state capitol at Harrisburg or other vital towns and railroads. Since they were in service only to defend the state, they were not considered to be a part of the Army of the Potomac.

Southern states raised and supplied the Confederate armies with volunteer regiments as well. State governments also authorized regiments of artillery, cavalry, and infantry, appointed officers, clothed and equipped each organization, and then decided which units would go out of the state to join the southern armies being organized at Richmond, in Mississippi, and in Tennessee. By 1863, the majority of Confederate regiments had been in service since 1861 and were still composed of mostly volunteer soldiers, though the first "conscripts" or men required by state law to serve in the military defense of a state, had begun to appear. Every state in the south furnished Confederate infantry, cavalry regiments, and artillery organizations to the Army of Northern Virginia.

Infantry Soldier
(Gettysburg NMP)

To help identify the regiment, division and corps that troops belonged to, Union generals ordered the soldiers to wear a regimental number on their caps with a corps badge. The corps badge was a small flannel cloth badge cut into different shapes and were either red, white, or blue. The Army of Northern Virginia was also divided into brigades, divisions, and corps, but Confederate soldiers had no corps badges.

Union Artillery.

A Union Cavalryman
(Gettysburg NMP)

All three of these branches combined to make an army, which also had quartermaster, engineer, signal units, and men called "teamsters" who drove supply wagons. An army on the march was alway followed by miles and miles of wagons organized into trains, loaded with food, ammunition, and medical supplies.