3. Bonham's South Carolina regiment enlisted for six months. Re-enlisted 1861. (Statement of Colonel Hilary Herbert.)
4. General Dickinson, late Secretary of War, remembers regiments which were enlisted for three months, and then re-enlisted.
5. The Eighth Alabama, Colonel Hilary Herbert. He says:
"The men stepped out one by one and re-enlisted, all but one man, and he exercised the liberty which all had, of declining to re-enlist. This was in January, 1864."
I quote also an order of General Lee's on the subject, February 3, 1864: "The Commanding General announces with gratification the re-enlistment of the regiments of this army for the war, and the reiteration of the war regiments of their determination to continue in the army until independence is achieved." The fact of re-enlistment then is absolutely established. In fact practically all of the twelve-months' volunteers re-enlisted in 1862.
THESE RECENT SOUTHERN ESTIMATES GREATLY EXAGGERATED
But it can be shown, I think beyond contradiction, that the numbers given by the representatives of the various States which Mr. Adams quotes from "The South," and from other Southern publications, are enormously exaggerated.
We may test the accuracy of this estimate of theirs briefly as follows: The total military population of the 11 seceded States in 1861 was 984,475, not taking into account that about one-fourth of our territory and population became unavailable for recruiting purposes within one year of the breaking out of the war. If we add one-tenth for the extension of the military age by Confederate law down to 17 and up to 50, we have 98,447; and, if we add 12 per cent. for youths reaching military age in four years, we have 118,137, aggregating 1,201,518. But from this we must deduct, as military writers agree, 20 per cent. for men exempt for physical and mental disability, viz., 240,303, which leaves available for military duty in the four years of the war, through the whole extent of the Southern territory, 961,215. Now, if we accept the figures of the State historians, we have 935,000 enrolled in the Confederate Army; and the reports of the United States War Department state that, exclusive of West Virginia, there were 55,000 soldiers in the Union Army from these same Southern States, which makes an aggregate of 990,000 men furnished to both armies, which, it will be observed, is nearly 30,000 more than the entire military population! Without going any further, this shows that there has been serious error in the above estimates of Confederate enrollment.
But there are several other matters to be considered. In the first place, by the spring of 1862 at least one-fourth of the territory of the seceded States was under the control of the United States Army; and, therefore, that much of the territory was not available as a source of supply for the Confederate Army. This cuts off nearly one-fourth of the military strength. Calculated on this basis, the writers alluded to make the aggregate of Southern soldiers more than 200,000 in excess of the entire military population!
Again, the conscript law, drastic as it was, was very imperfectly executed, as those in charge of it at the time amply testified. The opposition of the Governors of Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina to the conscript law will be remembered. We must also remember that thousands of men were employed on the railroads, in the Government departments and in various branches of manufacture necessary for the support of the army and the people, and also for agricultural labor. It must also be remembered that there were thousands of men in all the Confederate States exempted by State authority.