Unit Organizations
CS Marine Corps units were stationed at Confederate naval bases, as well as helping garrison shore fortifications such as Fort Fisher in North Carolina. Marines also served on Confederate warships, such as the CSS Alabama. In the famous battle between the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia, Company C, Confederate States Marine Corps, served aboard the CSS Virginia, helping to man several of her guns.
In the summer of 1862, the CS Marine Corps was broken into squad-sized units and dispersed throughout the south. Dispersed Marine units were intended to provide training to overcome a shortage of trained naval gunners, with greater overall effect than their service as a single naval artillery battalion. With detachments spread at every major Confederate naval installation, Headquarters for the Confederate States Marines was established at Fort Darling and Camp Beall, located at Drewry's Bluff on the James River in Virginia. Three companies, A, B, and C, were stationed semi-permanently at headquarters. There the Marines helped repulse the attack made on the Bluff by U.S. naval forces including the USS Monitor and the USS Galena in the summer of 1862.
Despite desertions and even near-mutinies, most Marines served well and deserved Navy Secretary Stephen R. Mallory's praise for their "promptness and efficiency." The Corps' weakness was due largely to internal squabbles over rank, shore duty, and administrative assignments. Also, with no funds for bounties, the corps could not easily enlist recruits. Until 1864 the monthly pay of enlisted men was $3 less than that of equivalent Army grades. Only late in the war were the Marines allowed to draw from Army conscripts to augment their ranks.
Read more about this topic: Confederate States Marine Corps, Organization
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