They were self equipped because the south was poverty stricken and couldn't afford decent uniforms and equipment. They were often unpaid, but they were supposed to be paid as their families back home often had no other source of income.
All the southern states had extensive slave patrol systems in place. These functioned essentially as militia of one sort or another, and southerners who didn't own slaves were required to serve in them. Especially after John Brown, all these units were in constant serve, but for the most part they were all through the 1850's and often long before. Essentially the anti-bellum south ran non-stop under martial law. The only real exceptions were in some of the hill areas where there were very few if any Americans of African heritage.
These units were all called under state orders well in advance of Sumter, and they were pretty consistantly used to control and influence the secession votes. The system had allotments for each county based on the number of men of military age in each county, and if you ever bothered to read the military records of the Army of Virginia, you will find it filled with requests by local magistrates to have the percentage of men taken by the Confederate National draft altered so that the state drafted militia's could be used at harvests etc. Naturally, the discussion always goes back to the percentages of Americans of African heritage in the given areas, and whether the local called militia's had enough strength to maintain the safety of the area in case of slave revolts etc.
It's interesting reading for someone who can tolerate the truth.
Not surprisingly, the links between handling large numbers of slaves, the local militias, the slave patrolling and Robert E Lee who in his day managed more slaves for the Confederacy than any other man, and the slave marketing connections of Nathan Forrest put these two into the ideal position to create the reconstruction Klan and to control it's activities.
sorry, that won't fly.
free dixie,sw