Charles Francis Adams holds a warm place in the hearts of the survivors
of the Army of Northern Virginia, and, indeed, of all the Confederate
Armies, not only because of his splendid tribute to General Robert E.
Lee and to the army he commanded, but also because of his generous
recognition of the high motives of the Southern people in the course
they pursued in 1861.
It is therefore in the friendliest spirit that I undertake to question
the accuracy of his conclusion as to the numerical strength of the
Southern forces engaged during the four years of the War between the
States. In his recent volume, "Studies Military and Diplomatic," p. 286,
he states "that the actual enrollment of the Confederate Army during the
entire four years of the conflict exceeded 1,100,000, rather than fell
short of that number."
General Adams is of the opinion that it is a mistake to suppose that the
Confederate States were crushed by overwhelming resources and numbers.
He calls attention to the statement usually given by Southern writers,
that the South had on her muster rolls, from first to last, about
600,000 men, and refers to this as a "legend" (p. 287), "opposed to all
reasonable assumption and unsupported by documentary evidence"; "based
on assertion only" (p. 286).
His argument is chiefly _a priori_, and proceeds substantially thus: The
census of 1860 shows there were upward of 5,000,000 white people in the
States which subsequently seceded. This represents an arms-bearing
population of 1,000,000 men between eighteen and forty-five years of
age. To this he adds thirty per cent, for those males between sixteen
and eighteen years, and between forty-five and sixty years of age--added
by law, so he states, to the military population--making 300,000
more.[1] Now, further add twelve per cent.--or 150,000--for youths
reaching, between May, 1861, and May, 1865, the age of sixteen years,
and we have a total aggregate Confederate arms-bearing population of
1,450,000.[2] From this total General Adams deducts twenty per cent, for
exempts of all classes. "There were then remaining a minimum of
1,160,000 effectives, to which we must add men from the Border States
117,000; giving a total Confederate strength of 1,277,000." He says
also: "The whole male arms-bearing population was thus put in arms."
Now I wish on the very threshold to acknowledge freely that this
conclusion is not, in the opinion of General Adams, discreditable to the
South, but the reverse. He holds that the Southern estimate of a total
strength of only 600,000 with the Confederate colors, is discreditable
to the spirit and the patriotism of our people. In his opinion a just
appreciation of the virtue and self-sacrifice exhibited by the men of
the South should lead us to accept the much higher estimate which he
gives, not reluctantly, but freely and cheerfully. He thinks that we who
contest it place the Southern people on a lower level of devotion than
the Boers of South Africa.