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 EARLY EXPERIENCES

Basically the Army of the Potomac served as the model for all Union forces. In the West army corps were introduced after their organization in the Army of the Potomac. As the war ebbed and flowed commanders organized, consolidated, and discontinued army corps as needed. When regiments were reduced because of attrition, theater commanders added more regiments to the brigades to maintain their strength and that of divisions within the army corps. When the volunteer system broke down, both the Union and Confederate governments turned to draftees, substitutes (men hired to serve in draftees' places), and bounties to maintain their armies. To relieve manpower problems, the Union Army began using blacks in 1862, while the Confederate Congress authorized the enrollment of black troops in March 1865. Small numbers of Negroes had served in past wars, both in integrated and segregated units, but during the Civil War both sides organized segregated regiments. The Union eventually created the XXV Army Corps with Negro enlisted personnel from the X and XVIII Army Corps.

With the Confederate Army springing from the same ancestral roots as the Union Army, it was not surprising that both armies used similar patterns of organization. At Bull Run in July 1861, the Confederates employed two provisional army corps made up of brigades without an intervening divisional-level structure. Eventually their army corps consisted of infantry brigades and divi-