The estimate above alluded to, of 20,000 Marylanders in the Confederate service, rests apparently upon no better basis than an oral statement of General Cooper to General Trimble, in which he said he believed that the muster rolls would show that about 20,000 men in the Confederate army had given the State of Maryland as the place of their nativity. How many were citizens of Maryland when they enlisted does not appear. Obviously many natives of Maryland were doubtless in 1861 citizens of other States, and could not therefore be reckoned among the soldiers furnished by Maryland to the Confederate armies.
As to the estimates furnished by writers in "The South" concerning the number of men furnished the Confederacy from the Border States, viz., Kentucky, 30,000; Missouri, 60,000; West Virginia, 7,000; the same unintentional exaggeration doubtless exists here as I have shown in regard to the numbers alleged to have been furnished by the seceded States. Unfortunately it is not possible to be definite in stating the numbers furnished by the Border States. When we observe the discrepancy between Colonel Fox's 19,000, President Tyler's 117,000, and Colonel Livermore's 143,000, it becomes clear that the whole subject is involved in uncertainty. I incline to the opinion that 50,000 is nearer the actual numbers in the Southern army from these Border States than 100,000; but for the sake of argument I leave the number 75,000, as stated above.[14]
Before concluding this branch of the subject I would call attention to the following remark made by Mr. Charles Francis Adams in his "Military Studies," p. 282. He says "that the States named [meaning Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, West Virginia] sympathizing, as at the time the Southern authorities claimed, most deeply with the Confederacy should have furnished over 316,000 recruits to the Federal army, and only 117,000 to that of the Confederacy is, to say the least, deserving of remark,—it calls for explanation." Again he says: "It would be not unnatural to assume that these States furnished an equal number of recruits to the Confederacy." (Id. p. 238.)
This statement is sufficiently amazing. On the contrary, would it not be most unnatural to assume that these four States, occupied and controlled from end to end by the Federal armies, should have furnished as many men to the Confederate army as to the Federal army, notwithstanding the enormous difficulties of passing through the lines? Although there was much sentiment favorable to the Confederacy in these four States, I fear there cannot be any doubt that the preponderance of sentiment was in favor of the Union; and he must be blind who does not recognize the fact that the difficulties in the way of a young man desiring to enlist in the Southern army, while his State was occupied by the Federal forces, were enormously great.
CONCLUSION
There are two remarks of General Adams to which, before closing, I should like to call attention. He states that the foreigners in the Union army were more than counterbalanced by our drastic conscription ("Military Studies," p. 246). Now it appears from official reports that there were 494,000 foreigners in the Union army, so that he must have supposed that the conscription law produced about 500,000 soldiers. It actually produced, east of the Mississippi, 81,992 men from February, 1862, when the first law was passed, to February, 1865. We cannot suppose that the additions from the States west of the Mississippi—Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas—could have been even one-fourth as numerous. The military population was about one-third as large, but by 1863 that territory was overrun by the Federal armies. But if we put these at 20,000, we have only 101,992, instead of the half million which Mr. Adams supposes. And if we should add the 76,000 men which the conscription officers, magnifying their diligence, guessed had been driven into the army by enlistment to avoid conscription we would then have only 177,993.
Again, General Adams says:
"As respects mere numbers, it is capable of demonstration that at the close of the struggle the preponderance was on the side of the Confederacy, and distinctly so. The Union at that time had, it is said, a million men on its muster rolls.... It might possibly have been able to put 500,000 men into the fighting line. On the other side ... the fighting strength of the Confederacy cannot have been less than two-thirds its normal strength. The South should have been able to muster, on paper, 900,000 men." (Idem, pp. 241-2.)
Compare this statement of what the South should have been able to muster with the consolidated abstract of the latest returns of the Confederate army showing what she was able to muster. This is the record:
Officers and men in all the Confederate armies, February, 1865, aggregate for duty, 160,000; aggregate present and absent, 358,000 (W. R., iv. iii. p. 1182).