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The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the six special military units which were authorized and created by the War Department under the direction of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. In relating the military history of such special units the study determines what contributions and significance they made to the Union war effort.

This thesis studies the issue of unionism in Texas during the era of the Civil War.

The United States government began paying pensions to disabled Union veterans before the Civil War ended in April 1865. By 1890 its pension programs included any Union veteran who had fought in the Civil War, regardless of his financial means, as well as surviving family members, including mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. Union veterans did not hesitate to "wave the bloody shirt" in their attempts to liberalize pension laws. Pension programs for Confederate veterans were much slower to develop. Lacking any higher organization, each southern state assumed the responsibility of caring for disabled and/or indigent Confederate veterans and widows. Texas began paying Confederate pensions in 1899, Georgia in 1888 and Virginia in 1889. Unlike Texas, Georgia and Virginia provided artificial limbs for their veterans long before they started paying pensions. At the time of his enlistment in the 1860s, the typical future pensioner was twenty-five years of age, and fewer than half were married heads of households. Very few could be considered wealthy and most were employed in agriculture. The pensioners of Georgia, Texas, and Virginia were remarkably similar, although there were some differences in nativity and marital status. They were all elderly and needy by the time they asked for assistance from their governments. The Confederate pension programs emerged about the same time the Lost Cause began to gain popularity. This movement probably had more influence in Georgia and Virginia than in Texas. Texas tended more to look to the future rather than the past, and although Confederate veterans dominated its legislature for years, its pension program could not be called generous. The Civil War pension programs died out with the veterans and widows they were designed to care for and did not evolve directly into any other programs. Because they helped to remove the stigma of receiving government aid (state or federal), The pension programs served as precedents for future social programs.

In the spring of 1861, eager young men gathered in small towns in five southeastern North Carolina counties and enlisted in ten local companies. After spending the summer in a Wilmington training camp, these companies were combined to form the 18th North Carolina Infantry Regiment. The regiment served for a short time in South Carolina before joining the war in Virginia as a member of Gen. Lawrence Branch's brigade. The 18th North Carolina first saw combat in May, 1862, at the Battle of Hanover Court House. A month later, the unit fought in the Seven Days' Battles as part of the Army of Northern Virginia. The 18th North Carolina took an active role in the victorious campaigns of the autumn. In May, 1863, it had the misfortune to be the "friendly" unit that wounded Gen. Stonewall Jackson in the woods near Chancellorsville. At Gettysburg, the 18th North Carolina assaulted the Union center with the rest of the ill-fated soldiers in Pickett’s Charge. The regiment struggled with the army against Grant in the long campaign that culminated in the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House in April. 1865. This is the history of the 18th North Carolina from its creation to its surrender. / Master of Arts