Part 2

In the work of Lieutenant Colonel Wm. F. Fox, "Regimental Losses in the Civil War," we find the strength of the Confederate armies furnished by the seceded States and by the border States as well, reckoned as follows: 529 regiments and 85 battalions of infantry; 127 regiments and 47 battalions of cavalry; 8 regiments and 1 battalion of partisan rangers; 5 regiments and 6 battalions of heavy artillery, and 261 batteries of light artillery--in all equivalent to 764 regiments of 10 companies. In making this statement Colonel Fox assures his readers that "no statistics are given that are not warranted by the official records."

As to the size of the regiments we got some light from the following reports: The Confederate adjutant-general reports in March, 1862, an average strength of 823 men in 369 regiments and 89 battalions (127 W. R. 963). Beauregard's Corps (32 regiments) is reported Aug. 31, 1861, as numbering 1037 men to the regiment (5 W. R. 824). Longstreet's Virginia troops, June 23, 1862, averaged 754 men to the regiment. (14 W. R. 614, 615.) But more important is the legislation of the Congress. The Confederate Act of March 6, 1861, prescribed for infantry companies the number of 104, and for cavalry 72, which gives, for an infantry regiment (10 companies) 1040 men, and for a cavalry regiment 720 men--provided the ranks were full, which was by no means the rule but rather the exception. Observe now that in November, 1861, the War Department prescribed that no infantry company should be accepted with less than 64 men and no cavalry company with less than 60 and no artillery company with less than 70. On this basis infantry regiments might number only 640 men and cavalry regiments only 600.

This marked change in the standard of the size of companies and regiments prescribed by the War Department in November, 1861, as compared with the Act of March, 1861, lowering the requisite number of men in an infantry regiment from 1040 to 640, and in a cavalry regiment from 720 to 600, is suggestive of the fact that it was not found easy to raise regiments of the size originally prescribed.

Now in calculating the strength of the Confederate army from the number of regiments, we shall probably approximate closely a correct result by taking the mean between the larger and smaller number just referred to. But the mean between 1040 and 640 is 840, and that between 720 and 600 is 660.

Applying this standard to Colonel Fox's statement of the troops in the entire Confederate army, we get the following result:

Men 529 regiments of infantry, 840 each 444,360 85 battalions infantry, 400 each 34,000 127 regiments cavalry, 600 each 76,200 47 battalions cavalry, 400 each 18,800 261 batteries light artillery, 70 each 16,270 5 regiments heavy artillery, 800 each 4,000 6 battalions heavy artillery, 400 each 2,400 8 regiments partisan rangers, 700 each 5,600 1 battalion partisan rangers 350 ------- 601,980

The size of infantry and cavalry battalions and of regiments and battalions of heavy artillery in this calculation, as well as of the regiments of partisan rangers, is in each case suggested by that accomplished and experienced officer, Colonel Walter H. Taylor, adjutant-general on the staff of General Robert E. Lee. His figures may be rather high--certainly they are not too low. Of course such a calculation is necessarily only approximate, but the basis on which it is made appears reasonably reliable. To one who, like myself, had personal observation of the armies in Virginia from the first battle of Manassas to Appomattox, the standard of strength in regiments and battalions in the field above adopted, seems in conformity with the facts.

THE ARGUMENT OF GENERAL ADAMS

Turn we now to examine the estimate made by General Adams and quoted at the beginning of this paper.

But first let me say that I quite agree with him when he says that if the South had as many as 600,000 men in arms she ought to have been unconquerable, and probably would have been so, but for the United States Navy.

That opinion was expressed by a distinguished Southern writer, Dr. Bledsoe, Assistant Secretary of War, in an article written about forty years ago. He said: "The decisive circumstance which robbed the South of the defensive advantage of its wide territory was the superiority of its enemy upon the water." All the water front of the Confederate States was "an exposed frontier," both ocean coasts and navigable rivers. The best authorities in the South have maintained the same view with practically unanimity; hence, in differing from Mr. Adams I am not influenced by a desire to account for our defeat by the overwhelming force of numbers opposed to us, but by the desire to establish the truth of history.

WEAK POINTS IN GENERAL ADAMS' ARGUMENT

Now in making the calculation previously alluded to, it appears to me that our gallant and generous friend has overlooked some important considerations bearing on the problem discussed.

1.--During the first year of the war the Confederate Government could not have availed itself of even half a million of men for its armies, inasmuch as it was utterly unable to arm and equip them. The supply of arms and of artillery was utterly inadequate for even half that number.[7] As the war progressed the muskets, the sabers, the cannon, used in the Confederate army, if examined, would have been found to have been in larger part captured on the field of battle. Pompey the Great is reported to have said, "I have only to stamp with my foot to raise legions from the soil of Italy." Had Jefferson Davis been able by a stamp of his foot to summon a million men to the Confederate colors in the spring of 1861, what advantage would it have been? He could not have armed them, even if he could have fed and clothed and transported them. As General Adams himself has said: "The strength of an army is measured and limited not by the census number of men available, but by the means at hand of arming, equipping, clothing, feeding, and transporting those men."

2.--General Adams appears to have overlooked the fact that by May, 1862, the Northern armies were in permanent occupation of middle and west Tennessee, nearly the whole of Louisiana, part of Florida, the coasts of North and South Carolina, southeastern Virginia, much of northern Virginia, and practically the whole of that part of Virginia known as Western Virginia. The population thus excluded from the support of the Confederacy may be estimated conservatively at 1,200,000, leaving 3,800,000 to bear the burden of the war. Hence the estimate of the arms-bearing population in 1862, when the real tug began, would be not 1,000,000, but 760,000. Of this number, one-fifth, as General Adams admits, would be regularly exempt, i.e., 152,000; and many thousands more were detailed for various branches of industry. Doubtless during the first year thousands entered the Confederate army from this territory--a fair proportion of the 340,000 on the muster rolls in March, 1862; but the conscript law could not operate--never did operate--in this fourth of the Southern territory.

3.--The seceded States (including West Va.) furnished the Northern armies, according to the returns of the War Department, 86,000 men. I do not remember any mention of this by Mr. Adams, though he alludes to the statement that 316,000 men were furnished by Southern States to the Union armies, including the Border States, which did not secede. (The records of the War Department show a total of white soldiers from all Southern States, including Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware and District of Columbia, of 295,481.)

4.--It must be remembered that while the unanimity with which the Southern people supported the war has perhaps never been surpassed in so large a revolution, yet there was a large element of disloyalty, especially in the mountainous regions of the South. For instance, in the Valley of Virginia there were large numbers of Quakers and Dunkards, all opposed to war. There were also in that region the numerous descendants of the Hessian prisoners, who were not in sympathy with us. The number of Union men in the South who did not take up arms has been estimated at 80,000.

5.--It must also be remembered, as Dr. Bledsoe said in his article in the _Southern Review_, that "there was also a large element of baser metal,--men who begrudged the sacrifice for liberty and shirked danger."

6.--General Adams says that the Confederate States passed the most drastic conscript law on record--which may be true; but he is mistaken in supposing that this law was successfully executed. Thus, General Cobb writes, December, 1864, from Macon, Georgia, to the Secretary of War: "I say to you that you will never get the men into the service who ought to be there, through the conscript camp. It would require the whole army to enforce the conscript law if the same state of things exist throughout the Confederacy which I know to be the case in Georgia and Alabama, and I may add Tennessee." (W. R., series iv, vol. iii, p. 964.)

Again, H. W. Walters, writing from Oxford, Mississippi, to the Department, December, 1864, says: "I regard the conscript department in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi as almost worthless." Yet again General T. H. Holmes reports to Adjutant-General Cooper as to North Carolina, April 29, 1864: "After a full and complete conference with Colonel Mallett, commandant of conscription, ... I am pained to report that there is much disaffection in many of the counties, which, emboldened by the absence of troops, are being organized in some places to resist enrolling officers." And General Kemper reports, December 4, 1864, that in his belief there were 40,000 men in Virginia out of the army between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. (W. R., series iv, vol. iii, p. 855.)

In support of his thesis that the whole military population was enrolled in the Confederate armies Colonel Livermore quotes a letter of General Lee, urging the necessity of "getting out our entire arms-bearing population in Virginia and North Carolina." But this letter, written October 4, 1864, six months before the surrender, is strong evidence that _up to that time_ the stringent conscript laws had failed to get out even in Virginia and North Carolina, "the entire arms-bearing population." (Livermore, "Numbers and Losses," p. 17.)

Colonel Livermore quotes another letter of General Lee, dated September 26, 1864, in confirmation of his opinion that the conscription laws were thoroughly enforced, in which General Lee speaks of the "imperious necessity of getting all our men subject to military duty in the field," and adds, "_I get no additions._" (Id. p. 17.) Is that statement consistent with the rigid and successful enforcement of the conscript law? Is it not rather the most conclusive evidence that it was not successfully enforced? Or is my Bœotian wit so dull that I cannot see the point? If so, I pray to be enlightened![8]

The statement is often made that the Confederate Conscription embraced all white males between 16 and 60 years of age. This is an error. The first Act, April 16, 1862, embraced men between 18 and 35 years; the second, of Sept. 27, 1862, men between 18 and 45 years; the third and last, of February 17, 1864, men between 17 and 50. Both General Adams and Colonel Livermore acknowledge this. Yet the latter rests his argument on the supposition that the Conscription gathered in all males between 16 and 60 years.

In further illustration of this subject, I may point out that one of the difficulties confronting the conscript officers was the opposition of the governors of some of the States, notably the Governor of Mississippi, the Governor of North Carolina, and the Governor of Georgia. Thus the doctrine of States' Rights, which was the bedrock of the Southern Confederacy, became a barrier to the effectiveness of the Confederate government! South Carolina passed an exemption law which nullified to a certain extent the conscript laws of the Confederacy, and Governor Vance of North Carolina proposed "to try title with the Confederate Government in resisting the claims of the conscript officers to such citizens of North Carolina as he made claim to for the proper administration of the State."

"The laws of North Carolina," General Preston complains (W. R., iv, iii, p. 867), "have created large numbers of officers, and the Governor of that State has not only claimed exemption for those officers, but for all persons employed in any form by the State of North Carolina, such as workers in factories, salt-makers, etc."

"This bureau has no power to enforce the Confederate law in opposition to the ... claims of the State."

Governor Brown of Georgia forbade the enrollment of "large bodies of the citizens of Georgia." The number is supposed to have reached eight thousand men liable to Confederate service. General Preston complains in like strain of the action of the Governor of Mississippi.

EXEMPTS AND DETAILS

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.

THE MILITARY POPULATION OF THE CONFEDERACY

In the month of May, 1862, as we have shown above, at least one-fourth of the Southern territory had been wrenched from the control of the Confederate Government. In the territory remaining there was in round numbers a population of about 3,800,000 souls. The military population then should have been 760,000.

To this must be added, by the extension of the military age down to seventeen, and up to fifty, ten per cent.--that is, in all, six additional years, 76,000.

[In this calculation I adopt Mr. Adams' ratio of three-tenths by a supposed extension down to sixteen and up to sixty,--which gives in the light of the census returns about one-tenth for the _actual_ extension provided by the law of February 17, 1864, viz. down to seventeen and up to fifty years.]

Then we must make a further addition (again adopting Mr. Adams' ratio), for youths reaching military age in four years, of twelve per cent. of the military population, or 91,200 men. This, with the age-extension addition--76,000--makes a total of 167,200, which, added to the original estimated population of 760,000, makes a grand total of 927,200.

To this number Mr. Adams would add the men furnished by the Border States to the Confederate army, viz. (as is alleged), 117,000, a grand available total of 1,044,200.

But this estimate of 117,000 men furnished the Confederate army by the Border States (Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri) cannot be relied upon as even approximately accurate. For example, it includes 20,000 men alleged to have been furnished by the State of Maryland. But a careful examination of all the Maryland organizations, including several companies in Virginia regiments, gives a total of only 4,580 from the State of Maryland; and this number must be largely reduced by names duplicated through re-enlistments. Applying the ratio adopted by the War Department of the United States, we must deduct at least 920 men, which leaves a total of only about 3,500. Even this I believe to be too large. This item alone reduces the estimate of 117,000 to about 100,000. I will discuss this subject at length a little further on in this paper, and will only say here that there is good reason to believe 100,000 an excessive estimate of the number actually furnished to the Confederate colors by the Border States. Let us place the figure at 75,000 as a compromise. Then we should have:

Grand total of men available in the Southern States 927,200 Furnished by the Border States 75,000 --------- Total 1,002,200

NECESSARY DEDUCTIONS

Let us turn now to the deductions that have to be made from this number.

1.--On the ground of disloyalty we have no facts on which to base an estimate, hence the number must be left indeterminate, but it was certainly considerable. The chief of the Bureau of Education estimates the Appalachian mountaineers in the Southern States at present at 3,000,000. They must therefore have been very numerous in 1861, and it is conceded that most of them were loyal to the Union. Some Southern writers estimate 80,000 as the number of Union men who refused and evaded service in the Confederate army. If there were only one million of these mountaineers, they would represent 160,000 men of military age and fitness.

2.--We must also deduct a large number for men _exempted_ for various causes, besides the accepted exemption of twenty per cent. for physical and mental disability. Of this we have no complete statistics, but there are preserved in the War Department Records several documents which enable us to arrive at an approximate estimate.

Under the head of "Public Necessity" we find _exemptions_ for railroad companies, telegraph companies, navigation companies, cotton and wool factories, paper mills, iron manufactories, foundries, printing establishments, fire department, police department, gas-works, salt manufactories, shoemakers, tanners, blacksmiths, millers, millwrights, ferrymen, wheelwrights, wagon-makers, express companies, equity, justice and necessity, indigent circumstances, and miscellaneous. (_Id._ p. 873.)

Thus General Preston, writing November 23, 1864 (W. R., ser. iv. vol. iii, p. 850), says: "The governors of the States do not confine their certificates of exemption to officers, as that term seems to be used in the law, but extend them to all persons in the service of the State, or in any mode employed by State authority; and that authority is interposed to prevent the conscript officers from enrolling and assigning such persons to the Confederate service."

He gives a table (p. 851) of _State officers_ exempted on certificates of the governors, and it appears that in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Florida there were 18,843 such exempts.

The _civil officers_ exempted in the State of Georgia were 5,478, and militia officers 2,751. (See W. R., iv., vol. iii, p. 869.) In the same State the exempts for agricultural and necessary purposes reached the number of 4,156, making the total exemptions in that one State, 12,385. (_Id._ iv. iii. p. 873.)

General Preston also reports the number of State officers exempted in North Carolina, November, 1864, at 14,675 (_Idem_, p. 851).

There is a report in the same publication, p. 96, which gives the number of persons exempted by occupation, in Virginia, at 13,063. Thus in these three States we have records of exemptions amounting to 40,123. I am unable to give the number of exemptions in the remaining eight seceded States; but if they were at all in proportion to what we find them in Virginia, Georgia, and North Carolina, then we must reckon the exemptions in the whole Confederacy as nearly 120,000, since the military population of those three States was only a little more than a third of the whole. These, be it observed, were not men detailed from the army, but exempted from enrollment.

3.--Estimate of men _detailed_ for special work in the various branches of manufacture necessary for the support of the Army and people. Here we have a difficult problem, but some light is thrown upon it by the following report of men detailed in the State of Georgia (_Idem._ iv. iii. p. 874):

For agricultural purposes 957 For public necessities 1,264 For government purposes 629 For contractors 141 For artisans, mechanics, etc. 508 ----- Total 3,499

And in Virginia we find this item:

Men detailed in departments 4,494 ----- Total in these two States 7,993

From these figures of details in these States we may conservatively estimate the number of men detailed for various branches of work in the eleven States of the Confederacy as about 40,000.[10]

4.--The seceded States exclusive of West Va., according to the report of the War Department, furnished the United States armies with 55,000 men. These must also be deducted from the aggregate above stated.