There is an important report by General Preston in February, 1865 (W.
R., iv, iii, pp. 1099-1011). In this he gives the number of exempts
allowed by the Conscript Bureau in seven States, and parts of two
States, east of the Mississippi as 66,586.
He then gives the agricultural details, details for public necessity,
and for government service, contractors and artisans, a total of
21,414--the whole aggregating 87,990 men.
In another report, already referred to, November, 1864, he gives the
number of State officers exempted on the certificates of governors in
nine States as 18,843. This, with the preceding, makes a grand total of
106,833.
These are exemptions under the Confederate States' law in seven States,
and in parts of two States. They do not include the States west of the
Mississippi. But in addition to these there were many thousand
exemptions under purely State laws. We have no complete record of these
last; but in the State of Georgia alone we have a record of 11,031 such
exemptions.
7.--We must also consider the large numbers of men employed on the
railroads, in the government departments, in State offices, and in the
various branches of manufacture necessary for the support of the army
and of the people; and in directing the agricultural labor of the
slaves. Factories were started for making swords, bayonets, muskets,
percussion caps, powder, cartridges, cartridge boxes, belts, and other
equipment; for clothing, for caps and shoes, for harness and saddles,
for artillery-caissons and carriages; for guns, cannon and powder.
I have already referred to the statement of General Kemper that in
December, 1864, "the returns of the bureau, obviously imperfect and
partial, show 28,035 men in the State of Virginia between eighteen and
forty-five, exempt and _detailed_ for all causes." The South having an
agricultural population, it was necessary, as just said, when war came,
to organize manufactories of every kind of equipment for the army.
After all, the most important question to determine is the number of men
actually serving with the colors in the armies of the Confederate
States. And even if we admit an enrollment in the Confederate army of
700,000, and reduce our estimates of exemptions and details for special
work from 125,000 to 100,000, there remain apparently for _service in
the field_ only about 600,000 men; and that, I suppose, is what General
Cooper and other Southern authorities had in mind.
We know approximately the respective numbers in the great battles of the
war, and I submit that these numbers are far more consistent with the
maximum of 600,000 serving with the colors than with the maximum of
1,200,000.[9] If, indeed, the Confederacy had been able to muster in
arms a million two hundred thousand men, it is greatly to the discredit
of their able generals that never in any one battle were they able to
confront the enemy with more than 80,000 men.
* * * * *
But our gallant and generous friend taxes us, as we have seen, with
casting discredit upon the patriotism of the South by our claim that we
had no more than six or seven hundred thousand men in the field. Is he
justified in this opinion? Let us see how the matter stands.