The numerical strength of the Confederate army an examination of the argument of the Hon. Charles Francis Adams and others

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PREFACE

The distinguished soldier and critic whose name appears on the title page argues, as do various other Northern critics, that the usual Southern estimate of the strength of the Confederate army is too small by half. This conclusion is supported, they contend, both by the census of 1860, according to which there were at the very beginning of the war between the States nearly a million men in the Southern States of military age, and by the number of regiments of the several armies, as shown by the muster rolls of the Confederate army, captured on Lee's retreat from Richmond, and now stored among the archives in Washington. This second line of argument has been developed, among others, by two well-known military critics, Colonel Wm. F. Fox, in his monumental work entitled "Regimental Losses in the Civil War" (who concludes that the Southern Armies contained the equivalent of 764 regiments, of ten companies each), and by Thomas L. Livermore, Colonel of the 18th New Hampshire Volunteers, in his laborious and painstaking monograph, "Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America," published in 1901.

Both these authors have had the advantage of studying the Muster Rolls of the Confederate army just alluded to, but General Marcus J. Wright, of the Adjutant General's Office, War Department, Washington, writes me that he knows of no Southern man who has ever examined these Rolls, although General T. W. Castleman of Louisiana has recently received permission to copy the Louisiana Rolls. Colonel Walter H. Taylor, of General Lee's staff was also permitted to examine some of the official returns of Lee's Army.

Although the author of the following pages has not had the opportunity of studying those precious Muster Rolls, he hopes that he has been able to show that the thesis maintained by the distinguished critics just mentioned rests on no sufficient foundation and ought to be rejected by careful thinkers.

The main points of my counter argument are these: 1. The lack of arms limiting the enrolment of soldiers the first year of the war. 2. The loss of one-fourth of our territory by the end of the first year. 3. The loss of control of the trans-Mississippi in 1863-4. 4. The enormous number exempted from enrolment for every sort of State duty, and for railroads and new manufacturing establishments made necessary by the blockade of our ports. 5. The opposition of some of the State governments to the execution of the Conscript law. 6. The comparative failure of the Conscript law. 7. The disloyalty of a part of our population. 8. The necessity of creating not only an army of fighters, but also an industrial army, and an army of civil servants out of the male population liable for military duty.

The character of the evidence available precludes a precise estimate of the actual strength of the Confederate army. As Colonel Walter H. Taylor, Lee's Adjutant General, says in a letter addressed to the author, "I regret to have to say that I know of no reliable data in support of any precise number, and have always realized that it must ever be largely a matter of conjecture on our side."

R. H. McK.

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. 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. 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....