As to the size of the regiments we got some light from the following reports: The Confederate adjutant-general reports in March, 1862, an average strength of 823 men in 369 regiments and 89 battalions (127 W. R. 963). Beauregard's Corps (32 regiments) is reported Aug. 31, 1861, as numbering 1037 men to the regiment (5 W. R. 824). Longstreet's Virginia troops, June 23, 1862, averaged 754 men to the regiment. (14 W. R. 614, 615.) But more important is the legislation of the Congress. The Confederate Act of March 6, 1861, prescribed for infantry companies the number of 104, and for cavalry 72, which gives, for an infantry regiment (10 companies) 1040 men, and for a cavalry regiment 720 men—provided the ranks were full, which was by no means the rule but rather the exception. Observe now that in November, 1861, the War Department prescribed that no infantry company should be accepted with less than 64 men and no cavalry company with less than 60 and no artillery company with less than 70. On this basis infantry regiments might number only 640 men and cavalry regiments only 600.
This marked change in the standard of the size of companies and regiments prescribed by the War Department in November, 1861, as compared with the Act of March, 1861, lowering the requisite number of men in an infantry regiment from 1040 to 640, and in a cavalry regiment from 720 to 600, is suggestive of the fact that it was not found easy to raise regiments of the size originally prescribed.
Now in calculating the strength of the Confederate army from the number of regiments, we shall probably approximate closely a correct result by taking the mean between the larger and smaller number just referred to. But the mean between 1040 and 640 is 840, and that between 720 and 600 is 660.
Applying this standard to Colonel Fox's statement of the troops in the entire Confederate army, we get the following result:
The size of infantry and cavalry battalions and of regiments and battalions of heavy artillery in this calculation, as well as of the regiments of partisan rangers, is in each case suggested by that accomplished and experienced officer, Colonel Walter H. Taylor, adjutant-general on the staff of General Robert E. Lee. His figures may be rather high—certainly they are not too low. Of course such a calculation is necessarily only approximate, but the basis on which it is made appears reasonably reliable. To one who, like myself, had personal observation of the armies in Virginia from the first battle of Manassas to Appomattox, the standard of strength in regiments and battalions in the field above adopted, seems in conformity with the facts.
THE ARGUMENT OF GENERAL ADAMS
Turn we now to examine the estimate made by General Adams and quoted at the beginning of this paper.
But first let me say that I quite agree with him when he says that if the South had as many as 600,000 men in arms she ought to have been unconquerable, and probably would have been so, but for the United States Navy.
That opinion was expressed by a distinguished Southern writer, Dr. Bledsoe, Assistant Secretary of War, in an article written about forty years ago. He said: "The decisive circumstance which robbed the South of the defensive advantage of its wide territory was the superiority of its enemy upon the water." All the water front of the Confederate States was "an exposed frontier," both ocean coasts and navigable rivers. The best authorities in the South have maintained the same view with practically unanimity; hence, in differing from Mr. Adams I am not influenced by a desire to account for our defeat by the overwhelming force of numbers opposed to us, but by the desire to establish the truth of history.