Memoir 2, Page 11, Alfred Cumming

"When I was first sent to Mobile there were about 7,000 troops there.--Gel. Cumming's Brig. a battery and some Cavl."

Alfred Cumming was a Confederate general from Augusta, Georgia. Prior to the war, he had been a career soldier, graduating from West Point in 1849. He resigned from the army following Georgia’s secession and entered the Confederate army as a major of the 1st Georgia Infantry. As Woods mentions here, he had moved up to the rank of brigadier general by the winter of 1862 and 1863. By this point in the war, New Orleans had been taken by Union forces, leaving Mobile as a main thoroughfare for blockade runners and Confederate resources. Despite its importance, Mobile would not become a point of focus for the Union until mid-1864. The port finally fell on August 5, 1864 but the city remained in Confederate hands until after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox in April 1865.