Review - "Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation - Volume 1, Alabama to Mississippi" & "Volume 2, Missouri to Virginia" by Philip Osborne

[Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation-Volume 1, Alabama to Mississippi & Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation-Volume 2, Missouri to Virginia by Philip J. Osborne (Author, 2025). Softcover, footnotes, bibliography, appendix section. Pages main/total: (V1) x,396/406 & (V2) x,386/396. ISBN: (V1)-9798269241180 & (V2)-9798270767471 $35 ea.]

Even though the Confederate Army was dwarfed in raw size by the Union forces that opposed it, assembling a reliable catalog of its great multitude of components remains a daunting task. The process has had a long history, from Marcus Wright and Claud Estes's rudimentary lists to far more detailed book-length compilations from Joseph Crute and Stewart Sifakis. A number of authoritative single-state volumes that contain much more unit-specific information than what is possible to fit inside general reference guides have been produced as well. Particularly fine examples of those include Jim McGhee's out of print and highly desirable Missouri guide and Art Bergeron's Louisiana volume. We also have access to well-researched army-wide orders of battle from Steven Newton and Dan Fullerton, the former focusing on the critical year of 1864 and the latter the entire conflict. Building upon all of this previous work while conducting his own intensive research is Philip Osborne, the author of a new two-volume record titled Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation.

A focused scouring of national and state government archives is a prominent feature of Osborne's primary research. That is supplemented by additional use of manuscript materials as well as published primary and secondary sources. Newspapers from every state, together numbering in the hundreds across both volumes, were also widely utilized by the author.

Within the set's state sections (which are ordered alphabetically), basic Confederate Army units (i.e. infantry and cavalry regiments and battalions, consolidated units, and both light and heavy artillery units) are listed by ascending unit number. Where applicable, miscellaneous and specialized units such as engineers are also grouped together. Each Confederate Army entry includes primary and alternate unit designations, field grade officer lists for the regiments and battalions (and for artillery batteries their captains and lieutenants), and departmental assignments (with date ranges). Many readers will particularly appreciate the close attention paid to battery compositions and, since so many of those changed over time, date ranges. Unit notes are variable in length and content (the information conveyed by some is pretty wide-ranging) and are not intended to be comprehensive service summaries. The most consistent feature is a rough time (month/season and year) of initial organization. Campaign and battle records are not listed. As useful as the previous Crute and Sifakis reference books are, gaps in their work have long been recognized, and Osborne cross-references his own lists with the corresponding reference number from Sifakis's Compendium series (so units lacking that number were among those absent from Sifakis's books). Indicated by "(A)" in Osborne's listings are those field grade officers also found in Bruce Allardice's Confederate Colonels.

Titling these volumes "Southern Army Units" rather than "Confederate Army Units" was by design, the intention being to apply equal emphasis to state and Confederate units. The comprehensiveness of this broader approach is unprecedented. Previous guides have offered only limited state unit coverage, but Osborne's set truly takes it to another level. State and local entities of all designations, including the plethora of state militia, state army, state guard, state line, home guard, local defense, minute men, and 'old men and young boys' reserves infantry, cavalry, and artillery units, appear in Osborne's guide. Paper units never fielded and temporary formations of very short duration, Mississippi's 60-Day "Army of 10,000" being associated with the latter group, are also dutifully referenced. Post-secession state armies (before they were incorporated into the Provisional Army of the Confederate States) are added, too. All of this pushes the number of units listed in Osborne's two books into the thousands. Unlike the Confederate Army sections, the portions of both volumes that are devoted to state units are widely footnoted and occasionally arrange units within higher organization tables. The author's prodigious newspaper research proved particularly useful in finding key information about these more obscure state units.

This two-volume set is not intended to be the be all, end all reference tool of its type (Osborne himself modestly describes their content as a "starting point" for users), and anything of this scale will have errors and omissions of its own, but there are more than enough new and enhanced features in it to produce unquestioned value when measured against what else is available. Authoring even the most ambitious reference books can seem like a thankless task, and (as was the case here) even finding an outfit willing to publish it can prove to be a disheartening quest. With the added challenge of doing all this while being based in the U.K., author Philip Osborne deserves a lot of credit for the dedication of his research and for his long-term perseverance, even if it ultimately meant channeling all of that considerable labor into, in all likelihood, the audience-limiting route of self-publishing. Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation merits a place in any Civil War reference library, and hopefully this review can help get the word out.