POSTWORD
The arguments adduced in the preceding pages are believed by the writer to be valid and sufficient to refute the conclusion reached by Colonel Livermore, the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, and others, that there was in the Confederacy a "minimum of 1,160,000 effectives, to which we must add 117,000 men from the Border States, giving a total Confederate strength of 1,277,000." I have not attempted to give definite figures as to the actual enrollment in the Southern armies. My argument is of necessity largely based on the probabilities of the situation,—it does not profess to be demonstrative, or final. But "probability is the guide of life"; and I believe I have blazed a path by which future students of the subject, having before them the muster rolls of the Confederate army will be able to reach more definite conclusions in this important subject—conclusions, however, not seriously at variance with those stated in these pages.[15]
FOOTNOTES
[1] Gen. Adams says: "Computations based on the census returns tend to show that at the very lowest estimate the increase of time of military service would represent an increase of at least 30 per cent. in effectives." Id. p. 284.
[2] Our critic has made an error here: 12 per cent, of 1,000,000, i.e., 120,000, so that his aggregate should be 1,420,000.
[3] See Merivale's History of the Romans, III, 416, and IV, 298 and 343, and V. 386.
[4] In the first edition of Col. Henderson's work, cited above, he actually stated that the element of foreigners in the Southern armies was almost as large as in the Northern armies!
[5] Gen. Marcus J. Wright puts this number at only 65,387. But cf. Mansfield's Life of Grant, p. 338.