Here is a real historical parallel between two peoples at a not dissimilar stage of civilization. Their numbers were very nearly the same: in one case 323,000, in the other 368,000; and their fighting strength was about in the same proportion,—one in four of the population; 89,000 in one case, 92,000 in the other.
It may be added that if Mr. Adams is right in estimating the Southern armies at nearly 1,300,000 men, then we face the remarkable fact that a white population of a little more than 5,000,000 people sent to the front almost as many men as a population of over 22,000,000. For Colonel Livermore tells us there were 2,234,000 individuals in the United States army; but of these, 186,017 were negroes, 494,000 foreigners, and 86,000 from the Southern states; so that the North only sent into the field 1,467,083.
Judged then by the numerical standard, the patriotism and devotion of the Southern people, according to this showing, was to that of the North as four to one. And this takes no account of the many thousands who served the South as mechanics, laborers, etc.
FUNDAMENTAL ERROR IN THE ARGUMENT OF NORTHERN WRITERS
It seems to be overlooked by General Adams, Colonel Livermore, and other persons, in their estimates of the population available for military purposes, that the Confederate States' Government had not only to organize an army, but also to establish extensive manufacturing plants for the equipment of the army; for clothing, for harness, for saddles, for guns, powder, and ordnance; even for mining the ore which had to be worked up into iron for the Tredegar works and other similar plants within the limits of the Confederacy.
Again, a large contingent of men had to be retained as railway servants and government clerks, and for purposes of agriculture, for it must be remembered that not one in ten of the soldiers in the Confederate army was an owner of slaves, and therefore a very large proportion of the agriculture of the country had to be carried on by white men. It is also overlooked that the complicated machinery of civilized government had to be maintained in eleven States with the necessary officers and clerks pertaining to their administration. (This is one of the particulars in which the case of the Boer Republic differs so radically from that of the Southern Confederacy that the comparison between the two is quite illusory.) If, as General Adams insists, "the whole male arms-bearing was thus put in arms," one cannot but wonder who did all these things just enumerated?
When these things are taken into consideration, and the figures I shall present are carefully examined, it will be seen that to have put 600,000 men into the armies of the South—men serving with the colors—instead of being discreditable to the patriotism of the Southern people was in reality a great achievement.
One of the most accomplished English military critics of our time, Colonel G. F. R. Henderson, author of the Life of Stonewall Jackson, writes on this aspect of the subject as follows:
"Not only had the South to provide from her seven millions of white population an army larger than that of Imperial France, but from a nation of agriculturists she had to provide another army of craftsmen and mechanics to enable the soldiers to keep the field. For guns and gun carriages, powder and ammunition, clothing and harness, gunboats and torpedoes, locomotives and railway plant, she was now dependent on the hands of her own people and the resources of her own soil. The organization of these resources scattered over a vast extent of territory, was not to be accomplished in the course of a few months, nor was the supply of skilled labor sufficient to fill the ranks of her industrial army." (Life of Stonewall Jackson, II, 253.)
Upon this striking passage one or two remarks may be appropriate. The distinguished critic tells us most truly that the South, by reason of her isolated situation, had to provide two armies,—an army of fighters and an army of workers. He might have said she had to provide three armies; for besides the industrial army and the army of soldiers, she had to provide an army of civil servants to man the offices necessary to carry on not only the Confederate States government, but also the government of eleven separate States, with their highly differentiated organizations.