The surviving soldiers came straggling home, worn out, broken in health, crippled, in rags, half starved, little better off, they thought, than the comrades they had left under the sod of the battle-fields on the border. In the election of 1860 about 90,000 votes were cast, nearly the entire voting population, and about this number of Alabama men enlisted in the Confederate and Union armies. Various estimates were made of Alabama's losses during the war, most of which are doubtless too large. Among these Governor Parsons, in his inaugural address, gives the number as 35,000 killed or died of wounds and disease, and as many more disabled.[656] Colonel W. H. Fowler, for two years the state agent for settling the claims of deceased soldiers and also superintendent of army records, states that he had the names of nearly 20,000 dead on his lists and believed this to be only about half of the entire number; that the Alabama troops lost more heavily than any other troops. He asserted that of the 30,000 Alabama troops in the Army of Northern Virginia over 9000 had died in service, and of those who were retired, discharged, or who resigned, about one-half were either dead or permanently disabled.[657] These estimates are evidently too large, and they probably form the basis of the statements of Governors Parsons and Patton. Governor Patton estimated that 40,000 had died in service, while 20,000 were disabled for life, and that there were 20,000 widows and 60,000 orphans.[658] A _Times_ correspondent places the loss in war at 34,000.[659] The strongest regiments were worn out by 1865. At Appomattox, when three times as many men surrendered as were in a condition to bear arms, the Alabama commands paroled hardly enough men in each regiment to form a good company. Though the average enlistment had been 1350 to the regiment, one of the best regiments--the Third Alabama Infantry--paroled: from Company B, 8 men; from Company D, 7 men; Company G, 4; Company E, 7; while the Fifth Alabama paroled: from Company A, 2; B, 7; C, 2; E, 2; F, 1; K, 3. The Twelfth Alabama: Company A, 4; C, 6; D, 6; E, 4; G, 3; I, 5; M, 4. Sixth Alabama (over 2000 enlistments): D, 2; F, 2; I, 5; M, 4. Sixty-first Alabama: B, 2; C, 4; E, 1; G, 5; I, 4; K, 3. Fifteenth Alabama: C, 8. Forty-eighth Alabama: C, 6; K, 7. Ninth Alabama: 70 men in all--an average of 7 to a company. Thirteenth Alabama: 85 men in all. Forty-first Alabama: 74 men in all. Forty-first, Forty-third, Fifty-ninth, Sixtieth, and Twenty-third: 220 men in all. Some companies were entirely annihilated, having neither officer nor private at the surrender. A company from Demopolis is said to have lost all except 7 men, that is, 125 by death in the service.[660] The census of 1866 contains the names of 8957 soldiers killed in battle, 13,534 who died of disease or wounds, and 2629 disabled for life.[661] These are the only facts obtainable on which to base calculations, yet the