The Numerical Strength of the Confederate Army: An examination of the argument of the Hon. Charles Francis Adams and othersMcKim, Randolph H. (Randolph Harrison)
History
The Numerical Strength of the Confederate Army: An examination of the argument of the Hon. Charles Francis Adams and others
McKim, Randolph H. (Randolph Harrison)
Confederate States of America. Army
It is instructive, in considering this argument to recall what a great
historian tells us of the Helvetii, in their contest with Cæsar. He
says,
"The whole population of the assembled tribes amounted to 368,000 souls,
including women and children: the number that bore arms was 92,000."
(Merivale, History of the Romans, vol. I, pp. 242-3.)
Here is a real historical parallel between two peoples at a not
dissimilar stage of civilization. Their numbers were very nearly the
same: in one case 323,000, in the other 368,000; and their fighting
strength was about in the same proportion,--one in four of the
population; 89,000 in one case, 92,000 in the other.
It may be added that if Mr. Adams is right in estimating the Southern
armies at nearly 1,300,000 men, then we face the remarkable fact that a
white population of a little more than 5,000,000 people sent to the
front almost as many men as a population of over 22,000,000. For Colonel
Livermore tells us there were 2,234,000 individuals in the United States
army; but of these, 186,017 were negroes, 494,000 foreigners, and 86,000
from the Southern states; so that the North only sent into the field
1,467,083.
Judged then by the numerical standard, the patriotism and devotion of
the Southern people, according to this showing, was to that of the North
as four to one. And this takes no account of the many thousands who
served the South as mechanics, laborers, etc.
FUNDAMENTAL ERROR IN THE ARGUMENT OF NORTHERN WRITERS
It seems to be overlooked by General Adams, Colonel Livermore, and other
persons, in their estimates of the population available for military
purposes, that the Confederate States' Government had not only to
organize an army, but also to establish extensive manufacturing plants
for the equipment of the army; for clothing, for harness, for saddles,
for guns, powder, and ordnance; even for mining the ore which had to be
worked up into iron for the Tredegar works and other similar plants
within the limits of the Confederacy.
Again, a large contingent of men had to be retained as railway servants
and government clerks, and for purposes of agriculture, for it must be
remembered that not one in ten of the soldiers in the Confederate army
was an owner of slaves, and therefore a very large proportion of the
agriculture of the country had to be carried on by white men. It is also
overlooked that the complicated machinery of civilized government had to
be maintained in eleven States with the necessary officers and clerks
pertaining to their administration. (This is one of the particulars in
which the case of the Boer Republic differs so radically from that of
the Southern Confederacy that the comparison between the two is quite
illusory.) If, as General Adams insists, "the whole male arms-bearing
was thus put in arms," one cannot but wonder who did all these things
just enumerated?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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