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Mainly by writing letters back and forth.

The basic Civil War unit was a company, which was supposed to have 100 men. Almost all of these companies were raised in a single town or county. So all the soldiers in a company were neighbors or relatives. When a company got low in strength, many times one of its officers went back home to sign up new men for the company. Men also volunteered and came to the army to be in the company from their home, with their friends, relatives and neighbors. Letters from home to a man in the company often included news of neighbors at home. Letters home from the army told of men lost in battles, known to the folks at home.

Some units got furloughed, and the men could then go home to visit for a few weeks.

In southern units, many men left the army when nothing was going on during the winter, to be at home for spring plowing and planting. Many of these returned once the crop was in the ground, and faced little punishment, certainly not enough to deter them from going and helping keep their families from starvation when the army was in winter quarters.

Confederate cavalrymen were required to furnish their own horses. If a man's horse got killed, he had to come up with another one, or face being transferred to the infantry. Since the men got paid, if at all, in worthless Confederate paper dollars, and not many of those, and since the army itself was taking all the horses it could find from farmers near where the army happened to be, there were few horses a man could find to buy, or that he could afford, near the army. So a lot of Confederate cavalry troopers got to go home on "horse leave" to find a new mount, and then return to the army.

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15y ago

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