General Marcus Wright, an expert authority, estimates the strength of the Confederate army at the close of the war thus:
| Present | 157,613 |
| Absent | 117,387 |
| Total | 275,000 |
| Present | 797,807 |
| Absent | 202,700 |
| Total | 1,000,507 |
If General Adams is right, one cannot but ask, where were the other 542,000 men, over and above the 358,000 shown by the official report alluded to have been on the rolls? The 90,000 men in Northern prisons will not help the situation, for they were not exactly available as part of the "fighting strength of the Confederacy." Compare also the fact that there were mustered out of the Union army at the end of the war 1,034,000 men; and there were, in all the Confederacy, surrendered Confederate soldiers to the number of 174,000 only, and this included all who were paroled, whether in hospital, or at their homes, as well as those in arms.
In conclusion I am reminded of the words of General Lee in a letter to General Jubal A. Early, shortly after the war, "It will be difficult to get the world to understand the odds against which we fought."
Still I cannot help thinking that the statements of the adjutant-general of the Confederate armies in his official reports, and the testimony of General Lee himself in regard to the numbers in his army, will ultimately be considered by the world more reliable than the a priori estimates of even so careful and honest an investigator as Colonel Livermore.
When immediately after the surrender at Appomattox General Meade asked General Lee how many men he had in his army, the latter replied that he had on his entire front, from Richmond to Petersburg, not more than 29,000 muskets. "Then," said General Meade, "we had five to your one." On the whole I think we may still claim for the armies of the Southern Confederacy the encomium penned by Virgil nearly two thousand years ago: