The Confederate States Marine Corps (CSMC), also referred to as the Confederate States Marines, was a branch of the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War. It was established by an act of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States on March 16, 1861. The Corps' manpower was initially authorized at 45 officers and 944 enlisted men, and was increased on September 24, 1862, to 1,026 enlisted men. The organization of the Corps began at Montgomery, Alabama, and was completed at Richmond, Virginia, when the capital of the Confederate States was moved to that location. The headquarters and main training facilities remained in Richmond throughout the war, located at Camp Beall on Drewry's Bluff and at the Gosport Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia. The last Marine unit surrendered to the Union army on April 9, 1865, with the Confederacy itself capitulating to the U.S. federal government a month later. Modeled after USMC Before the war, the United States Marine Corps had been an "exceptionally fine and well-disciplined" organization, and "from it came the nucleus of the corresponding establishment of the Confederate service", the CSMC. The CSMC was modeled after the United States Marine Corps, but there were some differences: the Confederates organized themselves into permanent companies, replaced the fife with the light infantry bugle, and wore uniforms similar to those of British Royal Marines. Like the USMC, when ashore they provided guard detachments for Confederate naval stations at: Richmond, Virginia Camp Beall, located near Fort Darling at Drewry's Bluff, Virginia Wilmington, North Carolina – Fort Fisher Charlotte, North Carolina Charleston, South Carolina Hilton Head Island, South Carolina Savannah, Georgia Pensacola, Florida – (manned naval shore batteries) Mobile, Alabama Seagoing detachments served aboard the various warships and even on commerce destroyers. Organization The C.S. Marine Corps was formed in the early days of the Civil War from three sources: Sixteen officers (and 100 enlisted men) resigning or deserting from the U.S. Marine Corps The amalgamation of state organizations such as the Virginia State Marines Active recruitment Source of men The Colonel-Commandant of the CSMC, Lloyd J. Beall, said the CSMC "was composed of enlisted men, many of whom were old soldiers and commissioned officers, a number of whom had seen service before in the U.S. Marine Corps and elsewhere." The record of US Marine officers who "resigned and tendered their swords to the Confederate Government" were: These officers assembled with the CSMC