 Now, Confederate Home Guards were notoriously ineffective in their counter-irregular efforts in Western North Carolina, but this was primarily due to the dual roles they were expected to play. Home Guards not only had to protect Confederate citizens from outside raids, they were expected to fight the self-constituted irregular groups who remained on the home front all the time. And the same irregular conflict rooted in the Confederate conscription policy followed them as well, which Piedmont and coastal units, they also faced that.