At the beginning of hostilities, Alabama state troops seized forts at the entrance to Mobile Bay and the Union arsenal at Mount Vernon.  There was no fighting in the state early in the war, but in 1862 invading Federal forces held sizable areas. To resist the invasion, almost every white Alabamian old enough to carry a gun enlisted in the Confederate forces.  Some 2,500 white men and 10,000 blacks had already enlisted in the Union army. 

There are no statistics on Alabama’s contributions to the Confederate army, but estimates vary between 75,000 and 125,000 fighting men from a population of just above 500,000 whites.  Estimates of losses range from 25,000 to 70,000. The state furnished the Confederacy with 60-65 regiments of infantry, 12-15 regiments of cavalry, and over 20 batteries of artillery.

(Source: Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War) 

Photo: In case: May 11th 1861″ and “To David / Adams / Montevallo, Ala.”Ambrotype is 3.25 x 4.75 inches File name: Q778; Q779; Q780 -

See more at: http://alabamapioneers.com/alabama-confederate-soldiers-photographs-can-identify/#sthash.SWjjnAXL.dpuf 

From: thecivilwarparlorthecivilwarparlor.tumblr.com

Voices From The Civil War- First Hand Account Of Morgan’s Raiders-  They were gentlemanly and represented the best manhood of Kentucky and their native states. 

Mr. Johnson, interviewed near his home in Indiana during the 1930s, was a young man during the Civil War. Even so, his memories concerning John Morgan’s cavalry raid through his neighborhood were still fresh in his mind. 

“… The gray figures of Morgan’s men appeared out of the distance. They showed the strain of a hurried and harassed march; both men and beast were weary. Four of the men stopped before me perched on the fence and said, ‘Son take these canteen and fill them with water’. I didn’t refuse but hurried across the road to Mr. Alexander’s Robinson’s well where two or three other boys were drawing water for the Raider’s men with a windlass. The well was wide and only about nine feet deep. As soon as I filled my canteens I passed them among the men and kept returning for more water until the well was dry. After this short period of service we were mustered out; and Morgan, the raider, with his men went their way with their jangling and clanking of arms to disappear in the horizon toward old Paris.”

There were some three thousand soldiers in the Confederate cavalry. They were gentlemanly and represented the best manhood of Kentucky and their native states. Of course in war and in that large a crowd there would be some unpleasant things, but on the whole the men were polite. Whenever they saw a horse they wanted they exchanged their worn out horse for it usually with the suggestion of “Let’s Swap, I think you can plow all right with this horse”. Many of the horses left were really better than the ones taken but were worn out and many had sore backs.

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/civilwar/soldiers/johnson.html

From The CivilWarParlor on Tumblr

Colorized photo by Stacey Palmer thecivilwarparlor tumblr.com

Nathan Bedford Forrest "The Wizard Of The Saddle” His tactics on the battlefield are still studied by military academies today

“I wish none but those who desire to be actively engaged. Come on boys, if you want a heap of fun and to kill some yankees” 

•  29 horses shot from under him, killed or seriously wounded at least thirty enemy soldiers in hand-to-hand combat, and had been himself wounded four times.
• In the motion picture Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks’s character Forrest Gump states that he was named after a “General Forrest”
• Forrest’s victory at Brice’s Cross Roads became the subject of a class taught at the French War College by Marshal Ferdinand Foch before World War I. 
• His mobile campaigns were studied by the German general Erwin Rommel, who as commander of the Afrika Korps in World War II, emulated his tactics on a wider scale, with tanks and trucks.

Not only did he lack formal military training, but had very little formal education in his youth. Forrest was the eldest, and the head of seven brothers and three sisters. His father, a blacksmith, died while Forrest was still a young man, necessitating that he forego a formal education and help to raise the family. As a young business man, Forrest overcame his lack of schooling, entering the war as a private with an estimated wealth of a million and a half. During the war, he was an avid reader, scanning the newspapers daily to keep abreast of military information.

Years after the war, General Sherman said, "I think Forrest was the most remarkable man the civil war produced on either side. His opponents were professional soldiers, while he had no military training. He was never taught tactics yet he had a genius for strategy that was original and to me incomprehensible. I couldn’t calculate what he was up to, yet he always knew my intentions."

His lack of education became most noticeable in his poor spelling and punctuation of personally written dispatches and reports. The words such as “skeer,” “git” and “thar” were some examples. Described as urbane and polished in his mannerisms, most of the grammatical distortions in his speech were products of his staff officers and their leg-pulling tales of Forrest. However, in anger or excitement, his no nonsense approach to the English language would become evident. Once, having received a soldier’s repeated request for leave, Forrest responded in writing: “I have told you twict goddamit No!” 

He continued to be surrounded by controversy for the remainder of his life. He continued to be active in civic and political events until his health declined prior to his death. On May 14, 1875 he presence was conspicuous at a reunion of the Seventh Cavalry in Covington. Requested to make a speech, he did so from horseback. “…Comrades, through the years of bloodshed and weary marches you were tried and true soldiers. So through the years of peace you have been good citizens, and now that we are again united under the old flag, I love it as I did in the days of my youth, and I feel sure that you love it also….It has been thought by some that our social reunions were wrong, and that they would be heralded to the North as an evidence that we were again ready to break out into civil war. But I think that they are right and proper, and we will show our countrymen by our conduct and dignity that brave soldiers are always good citizens and law-abiding and loyal people.”

Colorized photo by Stacey Palmer thecivilwarparlor tumblr.com

http://www.civilwarinteractive.com/ArticleJekyllHyde.htm

http://www.historynet.com/nathan-bedford-forrest