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

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Title: The numerical strength of the Confederate army

an examination of the argument of the Hon. Charles Francis

Adams and others

Author: Randolph H. McKim

Release Date: November 15, 2010 [EBook #34334]

Language: English

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THE NUMERICAL STRENGTH

OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY

THE NUMERICAL

STRENGTH OF THE

CONFEDERATE ARMY

AN EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENT

OF THE HON. CHARLES FRANCIS

ADAMS AND OTHERS

BY

RANDOLPH H. McKIM, D.D., LL.D., D.C.L.

Late 1st Lieut, and A. D. C. 3d Brigade Army of Northern

Virginia. Author of A Soldier's Recollections.

Exigui numero sed bello vivida virtus—Virgil

It will be difficult to get the world to understand

the odds against which we fought.

—General Robert E. Lee

NEW YORK

THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY

1912

Copyright, 1912, by

The Neale Publishing Company

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