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."