There are two remarks of General Adams to which, before closing, I
should like to call attention. He states that the foreigners in the
Union army were more than counterbalanced by our drastic conscription
("Military Studies," p. 246). Now it appears from official reports that
there were 494,000 foreigners in the Union army, so that he must have
supposed that the conscription law produced about 500,000 soldiers. It
actually produced, east of the Mississippi, 81,992 men from February,
1862, when the first law was passed, to February, 1865. We cannot
suppose that the additions from the States west of the
Mississippi--Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas--could have been even
one-fourth as numerous. The military population was about one-third as
large, but by 1863 that territory was overrun by the Federal armies. But
if we put these at 20,000, we have only 101,992, instead of the half
million which Mr. Adams supposes. And if we should add the 76,000 men
which the conscription officers, magnifying their diligence, _guessed_
had been driven into the army by enlistment to avoid conscription we
would then have only 177,993.
Again, General Adams says:
"As respects mere numbers, it is capable of demonstration that at the
close of the struggle the preponderance was on the side of the
Confederacy, and distinctly so. The Union at that time had, it is said,
a million men on its muster rolls.... It might possibly have been able
to put 500,000 men into the fighting line. On the other side ... the
fighting strength of the Confederacy cannot have been less than
two-thirds its normal strength. The South should have been able to
muster, on paper, 900,000 men." (_Idem_, pp. 241-2.)
Compare this statement of what the South _should have been able_ to
muster with the consolidated abstract of the latest returns of the
Confederate army showing what she _was able_ to muster. This is the
record:
Officers and men in _all_ the Confederate armies, February, 1865,
aggregate for duty, 160,000; aggregate present and absent, 358,000 (W.
R., iv. iii. p. 1182).
General Marcus Wright, an expert authority, estimates the strength of
the Confederate army _at the close of the war_ thus:
Present 157,613
Absent 117,387
-------
Total 275,000
And of the Union army thus:
Present 797,807
Absent 202,700
---------
Total 1,000,507
If General Adams is right, one cannot but ask, where were the other
542,000 men, over and above the 358,000 shown by the official report
alluded to have been on the rolls? The 90,000 men in Northern prisons
will not help the situation, for they were not exactly available as part
of the "fighting strength of the Confederacy." Compare also the fact
that there were mustered out of the Union army at the end of the war
1,034,000 men; and there were, in all the Confederacy, surrendered
Confederate soldiers to the number of 174,000 only, and this included
all who were paroled, whether in hospital, or at their homes, as well as
those in arms.
* * * * *
In conclusion I am reminded of the words of General Lee in a letter to
General Jubal A. Early, shortly after the war, "IT WILL BE DIFFICULT TO
GET THE WORLD TO UNDERSTAND THE ODDS AGAINST WHICH WE FOUGHT."
Still I cannot help thinking that the statements of the adjutant-general
of the Confederate armies in his official reports, and the testimony of
General Lee himself in regard to the numbers in his army, will
ultimately be considered by the world more reliable than the _a priori_
estimates of even so careful and honest an investigator as Colonel
Livermore.
When immediately after the surrender at Appomattox General Meade asked
General Lee how many men he had in his army, the latter replied that he
had on his entire front, from Richmond to Petersburg, not more than
29,000 muskets. "Then," said General Meade, "we had five to your one."
On the whole I think we may still claim for the armies of the Southern
Confederacy the encomium penned by Virgil nearly two thousand years ago:
"Exigui numero, sed bello vivida virtus."