The arguments adduced in the preceding pages are believed by the writer
to be valid and sufficient to refute the conclusion reached by Colonel
Livermore, the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, and others, that there was in
the Confederacy a "minimum of 1,160,000 effectives, to which we must add
117,000 men from the Border States, giving a total Confederate strength
of 1,277,000." I have not attempted to give definite figures as to the
actual enrollment in the Southern armies. My argument is of necessity
largely based on the probabilities of the situation,--it does not
profess to be demonstrative, or final. But "probability is the guide of
life"; and I believe I have blazed a path by which future students of
the subject, having before them the muster rolls of the Confederate army
will be able to reach more definite conclusions in this important
subject--conclusions, however, not seriously at variance with those
stated in these pages.[15]