  A. An extract from a letter of Gen. Marcus J. Wright to Thomas Nelson Page, author of “Robert E. Lee the Southerner,” dated September26, 1907, says: From all reliable data that could be secured, it has been estimated by the best authorities that the strength of the Confederate armies was about 600,000 men, and of this number not more than two-thirds were available for active duty in the field. The necessity of guarding a long line of exposed seacoast and of maintaining permanent garrisons at different posts on inland waters and at numerous other points deprived the Confederate army in the field of an accession of strength. The large preponderance of Federal forces was manifest in all the important battles and campaigns of the war. The largest force ever assembled by the Confederates was at the Seven Days’ fight around Richmond. General Lee’s report showed 80,835 men present for duty when the movement against General McClellan commenced, and the Federal forces numbered 115,240. At Antietam the Federals had 87,164, and the Confederates had 35,255. At Fredericksburg the Federals had 110,000, and the Confederates had 78,110. At Chancellorsville the Federals had 131,661, of which number only 90,000 were engaged, and the Confederates had 57,212. At Gettysburg the Federals had 95,000, and the Confederates had 44,000. At the Wilderness the Federals had 141,160, and the Confederates had 63,981. In the six battles named the Confederates were victorious in four of them, while the Federals were victors in one, and one was a drawn battle. From the latter part of 1862 until the close of the war in 1865 there was a constant decrease of the numerical strength of the Confederate army. On the other hand, the records show that during that time the Federal army was strengthened to the extent of 363,390 men. In April, 1865, the aggregate of present and absent showed the strength of the Confederate army to be about 275,000. Of this number, 65,387 were in Federal military prisons and 52,000 were absent by reason of disability and other causes. Deducting the total of these two numbers (117,387) from 275,000, we have 157,613 as showing the full effective strength of the Confederate army at the close of the war. Gen. Marcus J. Wright has been for many years in charge of the Confederate Archives Department at Washington, D.C., including the muster rolls of the Confederate army, and is the best authority upon the subject he writes about. The able editor of the New Orleans Picayune, in a recent editorial upon the strength of the Confederate army, says: In the War between the States the official rolls of the Northern army show a total enlistment of 2,850,000 men. Allowing 700,000 men for the South—which would be the extreme limit for a white population of 6,000,000, of which 3,000,000 were women and more than 2,000,000 males under age, not to mention the 200,000 Southern men who went into the Union army and the men past military age and disabled—it would have been impossible for the South to have had more than 700,000 on its rolls, and these fought four to one. That these smaller numbers could inflict such heavy loss upon the superior numbers of their antagonists made it necessary, not only that they should have been ably led, but that they should have fought desperately and exhibited extraordinary powers of endurance, all of which they did up to the highest mark. By the records of modern warfare their performances have never been equaled, much less surpassed. B. “No step could have given more aid and comfort to the North or have been more disastrous to the South than the removal of General Johnston. Abroad it satisfied the anxious nations of Europe that the South was at her last gasp and established their hitherto vacillating policy in favor of the Union cause, and the Southern cause thereafter steadily declined to its end. The destruction of Hood’s army at Nashville removed the only force capable of blocking the way of Sherman across the South and left him free to march to the sea and, having got in touch with the fleet there, continue through the Carolinas, marking his way with a track of devastation which has been likened to that made when Saxe carried fire and sword through the Palatinate.” (See pages63,64 of “Robert E. Lee the Southerner,” by Thomas Nelson Page.) The North was enabled to recruit her armies by drafting all the men she needed, and her command of the sea gave her Europe as a recruiting ground. On October17, 1863, the President of the United States ordered a draft for 300,000 men. On February1, 1864, he called for 500,000; and on March14, 1864, he issued an additional call for 200,000 more “to provide an additional reserve for all contingencies.” The South was almost spent. Her spirit was unquenched and was, indeed, unquenchable; but her resources, both of treasury and of men, were exhausted. Her levies for reserves of all men between fifteen and sixty drew from President Davis the lament that she was grinding the seed corn of the Confederacy. C. Gen. W.T. Sherman, in his report of May4, 1864, says: The Confederate army at my front at Dalton, Ga., comprised, according to the best authority, about 45,000 men, commanded by Joseph E. Johnston, who was equal in all the elements of generalship to Lee and who was under instruction from the war power at Richmond to assume the offensive northward as far as Nashville. But he soon discovered that he would have to conduct a defensive campaign. Coincident with the movement of the Army of the Potomac, as announced by telegraph, I advanced from our base at Chattanooga with the Army of the Ohio, 13,550 men; the Army of the Cumberland, 60,773 men; the Army of the Tennessee, 24,405 men (grand total, 98,707 men); and 254guns. |
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