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 pages 63, 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 October 17, 1863, the President of the United States ordered a draft for 300,000 men. On February 1, 1864, he called for 500,000; and on March 14, 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 May 4, 1864, says: