*E491 
 41 n 
 
 THRUSTON 
 
 NUMBERS AND ROSTERS OF THE 
 TWO ARMIES IN THE CIVIL WAR
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 The Numbers and Rosters of 
 
 the Two Armies in the 
 
 Civil War 
 
 BY GEN. GATES P. THRUSTON 
 
 OF NASHVILLE, TENN.
 
 The Numbers and Rosters of the 
 
 Two Armies in the 
 
 Civil War 
 
 GEN. GATES P. THRUSTON 
 
 OF NASHVILLE, TENN.
 
 The Numbers and Rosters of the Two 
 Armies in the Civil War/ 
 
 (This article reprinted from The Olympian Magazine) 
 
 In this new era of universal devo- 
 tion to the interests of our country, 
 I am reluctant to revive the con- 
 troversies of the past or to recall the 
 victories or defeats of the Civil War. 
 There is a subject, however, that has 
 not received the attention from our 
 military critics and writer? at the 
 North or South which its importance 
 merits. I shall take the liberty, there- 
 fore, of considering briefly The Num- 
 bers and Rosters of the two Armies in 
 the Civil War. 
 
 The veterans of the Civil War, 
 Federal and Confederate, are com- 
 mending our able Secretary of War 
 for his efforts to obtain the names, 
 numbers, and full enrollment of the 
 soldiers of the Confederacy. These 
 records are necessary to complete the 
 official history of the war, and to give 
 just recognition to the American sol- 
 diers of the South. 
 
 We have had very meager and in- 
 definite figures by which to compare 
 the number of enlistments and the 
 magnitude of the two armies, Federal 
 and Confederate, in the great conflict. 
 Unfavorable comparisons and con- 
 trasts are frequently suggested as to 
 the number of soldiers engaged upon 
 each side, but I believe when the offi- 
 cial rolls and figures are placed on the 
 same basis and finally reported and 
 compared, there will be no room for 
 contrasting criticism as to the mag- 
 nitude of the two armies, or as to the 
 
 courage, the prowess, or generalship 
 of the American soldiers from the 
 North or the South. 
 
 Fortunately the names and full en- 
 rollment of the union forces are .com- 
 plete. The official figures, embracing 
 the entire rolls, the enlistments and re- 
 enlistments for long and short terms 
 of service, the one hundred days' men, 
 three months' men, the ninety days' 
 men, the veteran reserve, the home 
 guards, the colored troops, amount to 
 the large aggregate enrollment of 
 2,778,304 men. This large total re- 
 duced to the basis of a full term en- 
 listment for the war would probably 
 cut down the aggregate number to 
 about 1,700,000 men. 
 
 The absence of systematic records 
 of the Confederate forces, the loss or 
 destruction of official papers, during 
 the evacuation of Richmond, and dur- 
 ing the chaos of the reconstruction 
 period, has left no definite summary 
 nor figures by which the total enroll- 
 ment of the armies and detached 
 forces of the Confederacy can be ac- 
 curately estimated. 
 
 In 1869, soon after the Civil War, 
 and during the era of prejudice that 
 naturally succeeded, Dr. Joseph Jones, 
 an ex-Confederate surgeon, Secretary 
 of the Southern Historical Society at 
 New Oreleans, prepared a paper upon 
 the "Confederate Losses During the 
 War." In this paper he stated that 
 "the available Confederate force, ca- 
 
 *This article, reprinted from The Olympian magazine of November, 1903, published at 
 Nashville, Tenn., contains the main portion of an address delivered by Gen. G. P. Thrus- 
 tonfibefore the Society of the Army of the Cumberland in Washington, D. C., October 14. 
 1903, the advance sheets having been furnished The Olympian by the author. 
 
 460032
 
 NUMBERS AND ROSTERS OF THE TWO ARMIES. 
 
 pable of active service in the field, did 
 not during the entire war exceed six 
 hundred thousand men." I quote 
 from his brief paper It contains no 
 statistics nor special grounds for his 
 estimate of the number of forces. Dr. 
 Jones states that his "calculation is 
 given only as an approximation." 
 
 The official papers of the Confede- 
 rate War Department, including the 
 incomplete army rolls, had been cap- 
 tured at the close of the war, and were 
 stored in the War Department at 
 Washington, and, therefore, I do not 
 think Dr. Jones' estimate from mem- 
 ory or unofficial data can be relied 
 upon as accurate. "Available force" 
 is a very indefinite and confusing 
 term. We would usually interpret it 
 as the efficient field force or fighting 
 strength of an army. It does not 
 generally constitute more than about 
 sixty or sixty-five per cent, of the full 
 army enrollment. There may have 
 been a million enlistments on the origi- 
 nal Confederate rolls, during the four 
 years of the war, including re-enlist- 
 ments and transfers, and men on post 
 or detached and temporary duty, or 
 home guards, veteran or invalid sol- 
 diers guarding forts, or enlisted de- 
 serters (who are counted on the Fed- 
 eral rolls), and yet out of this whole 
 number, the available force capable of 
 active service in the field may not have 
 been over 600,000 soldiers. The aver- 
 age effective strength of the Federal 
 army during the Civil War was sixty- 
 five per cent, of its enrollment. In the 
 same proportion "an available force" 
 of 600,000 Confederates would repre- 
 sent on enrollment of nearly a million 
 men, or to be exact, 923,076. 
 
 Dr. Jones' "approximate" estimate 
 was published in the Southern Histor- 
 ical Society papers, and later his 
 figures were republished in various 
 forms throughout the South. Un- 
 
 fortunately his statement that the 
 "available force in the field, capable 
 of active service amounted to 600,000 
 men" was quoted and requoted from 
 time to time, until, by some process 
 of evolution, it was later regarded as 
 an official statement of the entire en- 
 listed forces of the Southern Army of 
 all classes and duties, and it is now 
 quite generally accepted at the South 
 as the aggregate of the enrolled forces 
 of the Confederacy. 
 
 Dr. Jones' 600,000 estimate is en- 
 graved upon enduring monuments in 
 the South, commemorating the Con- 
 federacy, in contrast with the engraved 
 figures of the large official Federal en- 
 rollment. The contrasting figures are 
 printed upon the certificates of mem- 
 bership in the Confederate socie- 
 ties. The Southern orators usually re- 
 peat the contrasting numbers at meet- 
 ings and dedications in honor of the 
 Confederate soldier. They are printed 
 in the Southern school books, and thus 
 a misleading historical error in figures, 
 as I believe, originally possibly a 
 just "approximate calculation" of the 
 available force of the Confederacy, 
 has been repeated, until its original 
 significance and meaning have been 
 changed and forgotten ; and this 
 mainly from lack of the full Confed- 
 erate rolls and of definite information 
 upon the subject, and usually with 
 no intention to misrepresent the facts. 
 
 It was not the special duty of any 
 Southern Governor, or Confederate 
 veteran, to worry through the haystack 
 of Confederate army rolls to find the 
 exact number of the total enlistments. 
 The majority of the Southern veterans 
 are too busy with the earnest things of 
 life to bother with the statistics of the 
 Civil War, and the camp fire or biv- 
 ouac regulars who, after the manner 
 of our Northern Grand Army posts, 
 usually administer upon the military
 
 NUMBERS AND ROSTERS OF THE TWO ARMIES. 
 
 affairs of the Confederacy at the 
 South, were quite content with Dr. 
 Jones' estimate of 600,000. Why 
 should they not be? It is certainly 
 small enough ! 
 
 The main material is in the War 
 Department at Washington. The 
 carpet-baggers had also camped in 
 several of the Southern capitol build- 
 ings, and perhaps had lighted their 
 pipes and kindled the fires with the 
 army rolls. Occasionally some thought- 
 ful Confederate has urged in the South- 
 ern papers that the accepted estimate 
 of Confederate forces was much too 
 small, but the protests have made 
 very little impression. No salary was 
 waiting for the industrious historical 
 pioneer who might investigate and 
 work up a reliable summary of the 
 rolls. It was in fact a convenient 
 temptation to accept Dr. Jones' "ap- 
 proximate calculation" as the true 
 history and number of the entire en- 
 rollment. Dr. Jones was a most ex- 
 cellent gentleman and an accom- 
 plished physician. I knew him per- 
 sonally. Six hundred thousand in 
 round numbers sounded well. The 
 very figures suggested the immortal 
 six hundred of Balaklava. They were 
 enshrined in poetry and printed in 
 eloquent prose, and thus those ancient 
 figures of Dr. Jones and this chronic 
 and misleading historical error, as I 
 believe it to be. have drifted down to 
 our time without serious investigation 
 or contradiction, and as I have stated, 
 mainly from lack of exact and definite 
 information, and usually with no in- 
 tention to misrepresent the facts. 
 
 I desire to present a brief analysis 
 of the figures representing the enroll- 
 ments and actual strength of the two 
 armies. Confederate and Federal, in 
 the Civil War, and some reflections 
 regarding them, with the view of cor- 
 recting, to some extent, at least, this 
 
 widely spread misapprehension as to 
 the 600,000 estimate, and to give a 
 more just impression of the actual 
 fighting strength upon each side. I 
 trust I may be able to discuss the sub- 
 ject impartially and without partisan 
 spirit. The truth, I am sure, will leave 
 no grounds for unfavorable comment 
 or comparison, as to the military 
 record upon either side. 
 
 The time has come when the veter- 
 ans of both armies desire to know the 
 truth, the whole truth, unbiased by 
 sentiment or prejudice. The sincere 
 purposes, the patriotic aspirations, and 
 the honorable and indeed brilliant 
 record of the Confederate soldier have 
 long since been crystallized into his- 
 tory, and no presentation of the facts 
 can detract from the laurels he has 
 won. His enduring courage and man- 
 hood through the years of the great 
 conflict stand clear above the collapse 
 at Appomattox and have survived 
 after the war in a citizenship of 
 which any nation might be proud. 
 His sons shared with our sons the 
 new honors of the Spanish War in 
 loyal devotion to our united country. 
 The heroism of the American soldiers 
 on both sides of the great struggle 
 will continue to challenge the admira- 
 tion of the student of history as long 
 as the story is told. 
 
 We shall not be able to know the 
 total enrollment of the soldiers of the 
 Confederacy until Secretary Root's 
 investigations are completed, and the 
 final reports are received from the 
 Southern States (and it may be years 
 before final and satisfactory results 
 are reached), but for some time past 
 we have had approximate informa- 
 tion and figures that I think readily 
 establish the fact that the estimate of 
 an "available force of 600,000 sol- 
 diers" does not represent much more 
 than half of the enlistments, and re-
 
 NUMBERS AND ROSTERS OF THE TWO ARMIES. 
 
 enlistments, and transfers, and enroll- 
 ments of Confederate soldiers during 
 the four years of the war, which must 
 have aggregated in numbers at least 
 a million men. 
 
 It is, therefore, manifestly unjust to 
 set up in contrasting figures the full 
 official Federal enlistment on the one 
 side, and the "available force in the 
 field" estimate of 1869, on the other 
 side, as history or true history. They 
 represent two entirely different stand- 
 ards of estimation that are confusing. 
 
 This method of calculation and crit- 
 icism is a relic of the war and of the 
 days when we were all partisans. It 
 is one of the myths of that unhappy 
 era that has outlived its day and gen- 
 eration. If practical and useful re- 
 sults are to be reached, the two full 
 enrollments, or rosters of enlistments, 
 Federal and Confederate, should be 
 placed upon the same basis and com- 
 pared and contrasted, and I am satis- 
 fied that neither side will suffer by this 
 just method of comparison. 
 
 Upon making some investigation as 
 to the approximate numbers of the 
 Confederate enrollment, I find that the 
 State of North Carolina some time 
 since printed the rolls of its Confede- 
 rate soldiers, aggregating about 125,- 
 000 men. A more recent summary in- 
 creases the number to 127,000. The 
 State of Tennessee has long claimed 
 and fairly established the fact that she 
 sent 115,000 soldiers into the Southern 
 armies, besides her contribution to the 
 Union forces. At the dedication of the 
 battlefield of Chickamauga, Governor 
 Gates, of the State of Alabama, in 
 his admirable address, reported that 
 Alabama had furnished 100,000 sol- 
 diers to the Confederacy, a larger pro- 
 portion than I have assigned to Ten- 
 nessee. Mississippi by a quite gener- 
 ally accepted computation furnished 
 85,000. 
 
 By these estimates the enlistments 
 or enrollments of these four States ag- 
 gregate 427,000 soldiers. Virginia, 
 according to the official reports, sent 
 twelve or fourteen more regiments 
 into the war than North Carolina, or 
 their equivalent in battalions and com- 
 panies, and the State of Georgia a 
 number of regiments more. A pro- 
 portionate increase in the enlistments 
 in Virginia and Georgia would credit 
 Virginia with an enrollment of about 
 150,000, and Georgia with about 125,- 
 000 or 130,000. 
 
 These six of the eleven seceding 
 States, by this estimate, seem to have 
 furnished over 700,000 Confederate 
 soldiers, or enlistments to that number. 
 The remaining five seceding States, 
 including the large States of Texas, 
 Louisiana, and Arkansas, according to 
 the census of 1860-61, giving the num- 
 ber of men of military age in them, 
 should have furnished over 300,000 
 soldiers, computing numbers in the 
 same proportion. Add these numbers 
 to the 700,000 and you have an ap- 
 proximate aggregate of over a million 
 men, not counting the large number of 
 soldiers (probably 100,000) furnished 
 by the border States to the Confed- 
 eracy. 
 
 Suppose we try another method of 
 calculation. On the base of the im- 
 posing and beautiful Confederate mon- 
 ument erected at Austin, the capital 
 city of Texas, the Confederate and 
 Federal enlistments are engraved as 
 follows : 
 
 "Number of men enlisted Confed- 
 erate Armies, 700,000; Federal Ar- 
 mies, 2,859,132." 
 
 An increase of nearly 100,000 over 
 the official Federal figures, and also of 
 100,000 over the usual Confederate 
 estimates. Again, and below the 
 above inscription on the same monu- 
 ment:
 
 NUMBERS AND ROSTERS OF THE TWO ARMIES. 
 
 "Losses from all causes Confede- 
 rate, 437,000; Federal, 485,216." 
 
 It will be observed that there is 
 manifestly an error upon the face of 
 this enduring record, presuming death 
 losses may be intended. It seems im- 
 possible that there should be a loss of 
 437,000 Confederate soldiers out of 
 so small an enlistment as 700,000, or 
 a loss of over four-sevenths of the en- 
 tire enrolled forces of the Confede- 
 racy. Upon the examination of the 
 census of 1890, twenty-five years after 
 the Civil War, I find that at that time, 
 there were still living in the United 
 States 432,020 Confederate soldiers, 
 leaving out of the account the number 
 of deaths that occurred during this 
 long interval. 
 
 Now, if we should add to the num- 
 ber of surviving Confederate soldiers 
 in 1890 the number of deaths during 
 the war, as registered on the Texas 
 monument, we have an aggregate of 
 nearly 900,000 Confederates. Add to 
 this number the deaths during the in- 
 terval of twenty-five years, according 
 to the approved American tables of 
 death rates, 144,000, and we will have 
 over a million soldiers or enlistments. 
 
 Again, referring to the official cen- 
 sus of 1890. If there were then sur- 
 viving 432,000 Confederate soldiers, 
 the American life tables show that at 
 the close of the war in 1865 there 
 must have been 600,000 surviving 
 Confederate soldiers, after all the 
 losses of the war are deducted. (Ac- 
 cording to the life tables the numbers 
 would be about 575,000, but the veter- 
 ans of the war, owing to their disabil- 
 ities, would show a slightly increased 
 death rate, bringing the numbers up 
 to at least 600,000.) How much more 
 accurate are the official figures of the 
 census than the "approximate esti- 
 mates" and misleading guesses of the 
 local historians, sometimes so sensitive 
 
 lest errors might creep into the his- 
 torical records. 
 
 Let us take a third illustration. 
 According to the census of 1860 the 
 eleven seceding States (omitting Mis- 
 souri and Kentucky) had more than 
 a million white men eligible to mili- 
 tary duty that is, between the ages 
 of eighteen and forty-five; and, as 
 General Grant is said to have aptly re- 
 marked, during the war the Confede- 
 rate authorities "robbed the cradle and 
 the grave" for soldiers between the 
 ages of seventeen and fifty years or 
 over, in their struggle to maintain the 
 strength of their armies! Thus in- 
 creasing the number of available men 
 to about 1,200,000. Owing to the 
 South's large agricultural slave pop- 
 ulation, she was able to send to her 
 armies, or to some class of military 
 service, almost her entire white male 
 population. Over 200,000 youths in 
 these States arrived at the military 
 age during the four years of the war. 
 With this large number of available 
 soldiers at her command, does it seem 
 just, or complimentary, to the seced- 
 ing States, to insist that only one-half 
 of their white military population was 
 willing to enlist in the Southern 
 cause ? 
 
 Is it not more of a compliment to 
 the courage and patriotism of these 
 States to recognize the fact, so often 
 claimed by them, that nearly their en- 
 tire white male population, including 
 young and old, capable of bearing 
 arms, arose to resist what the South 
 then regarded as invasion and coer- 
 cion, rather than attempt to limit their 
 total enlistments and re-enlistments to 
 the small number of six or seven hun- 
 dred thousand, about one-half of their 
 available military population, omitting 
 the large number of recruits from the 
 border States, which much more than 
 equaled the Federal enlistments in the 
 seceding States.
 
 NUMBERS AND ROSTERS OF THE TWO ARMIES. 
 
 The State of Ohio, with a popula- 
 tion in 1860 of about one-third of the 
 population of the seceding States, ac- 
 cording to her official reports, enlisted 
 over 313,000 soldiers for long and 
 short terms to maintain the integrity 
 of the Union. According to the cen- 
 sus Indiana sent over seventy-four 
 per cent, of her men of military age 
 into the war. Can the eleven seced- 
 ing States afford to admit that Ohio 
 and Indiana were more patriotic than 
 the South, and that their sons, enlisted 
 in much larger proportion than the 
 men of the South, who were resisting 
 the (so-called) invasion of their 
 homes and firesides? I think not. 
 
 The theory of the total enrollment 
 of only 600,000 or 700,000 men cer- 
 tainly does injustice to the South. It 
 minimizes its patriotism. It does in- 
 justice to the North in presenting a 
 contrast of figures that has no real 
 basis of fact. Can the South afford to 
 exalt and idealize the courage of a 
 limited number of its soldiers at the 
 expense of its patriotism or what it 
 regarded as loyalty to the secession 
 cause? If there were only 600,000 
 patriots on the army rolls, there must 
 have been 300,000 or 400,000 unpa- 
 triotic shirks hiding out in the woods 
 somewhere. The theory of small 
 numbers cuts both ways. It places 
 the South in a dilemma. It reminds 
 me of the story of the old Federal 
 at the North, who talked so much at 
 the family fireside about how he had 
 fought and how many rebels he had 
 killed in the war, that one day his 
 little son said to him, "I say, Pa, did 
 anybody help you put down the Re- 
 bellion?" 
 
 When the Confederate rolls are 
 finally summarized I think it will be 
 found that there were other Southern 
 patriots who took a hand in the big 
 war besides the alleged 600,000. 
 
 Mr. Elaine in his "Political His- 
 tory" states that the armies of the 
 South numbered about 1,100,000 men. 
 When the rosters of the regiments and 
 detached forces of the Confederacy 
 are complete, as called for by the Sec- 
 retary of War, I think the aggregate 
 will nearly reach Mr. Elaine's calcu- 
 lation. General Ainsworth, of the 
 War Department, has recently esti- 
 mated their strength at about a million 
 men, and Senator Daniel, of Virginia, 
 at 800,000. 
 
 I have lived in the South nearly 
 forty years. My ancestry is mainly 
 Southern, and 1 feel that I have a 
 right to discuss this subject as a 
 Southerner, as well as from the stand- 
 point of an ex-Federal soldier. I have 
 perhaps become sensitive as to this 
 contrast of figures, but to my mind it 
 gives so misleading an impression that 
 it should not be perpetuated and al- 
 lowed to go down as history to the 
 new generations. North and South. 
 The figures 2,700.000 or 2,800,000 and 
 600,000 have a kind of five to one 
 flavor and significance quite out of 
 harmony with the Federal army ideas 
 of history. They, in fact, suggest the 
 arithmetical proportions of that old 
 ante-bellum myth, or fiction, held by 
 an occasional radical or hot blood of 
 the South, "befo' the wah" that one 
 Southerner could take care of about 
 five Yankees, a very misleading 
 dogma as it turned out. 
 
 The figures remind me of an inci- 
 dent of the unhappy and demoralizing 
 days of reconstruction : Judge Rice, a 
 prominent and well-known politician 
 of Alabama, who had been a Demo- 
 crat and a Confederate soldier, under- 
 took to change front and run for 
 Congress upon the Republican ticket. 
 When he delivered his first campaign 
 speech his old Democratic friends 
 began to guy him with questions :
 
 NUMBERS AND ROSTERS OF THE TWO ARMIES. 
 
 "Say, Jedge, didn't you urge our 
 young men to jine the Southern army? 
 Didn't you say one Southerner could 
 whip five Yankees?" "Well, perhaps 
 I did," the judge replied. "Didn't 
 you say right here in Huntsville that 
 we could whip the damn Yankees 
 with pop guns ?" "Yes, I did," the 
 judge said, "but damn it, the Yankees 
 wouldn't fight us with pop guns. They 
 wouldn't fight us that way. The ras- 
 cals came at us with powder and shot 
 circumstances changed." 
 
 I have rarely met a Southerner who 
 claimed to be a "five to one hero" 
 during my residence at the South. I 
 think the species has long since be- 
 come extinct. We are all more or 
 less influenced by our environment. I 
 have had some things to learn at the 
 South and some to unlearn. My con- 
 victions as to the war, I may say, have 
 stuck pretty close by me, but I would 
 be recreant to the truth, to my home, 
 and to my friends at the South, if I 
 had anything but kindness and com- 
 pliments to report a c to them. The 
 veterans of the Southern army are 
 among my best friends. They are the 
 South's best citizens the peers of the 
 best type of gentlemen to be found in 
 any country, liberal, generous in sen- 
 timent and free from partisanship. 
 They are looking to the present and 
 the future, not complaining as to the 
 past. The friendships, the mutual 
 consideration and regard of the sol- 
 diers at the South, Confederate and 
 Federal, have been an important 
 factor in allaying our political antag- 
 onism and reviving the spirit of na- 
 tionality throughout the South. No 
 section of our great republic has to- 
 day more interest or pride in its unity 
 and its destiny than the South. 
 
 Turning to my subject again, and 
 to the large official Federal enroll- 
 ment, we find that the number of sol- 
 
 diers credited to the national armies 
 usually gives a misleading impression, 
 owing to the very completeness o.f the 
 official record. The large aggregate 
 of 2,778,000 in round numbers must 
 be carefully analyzed and sifted to give 
 a just estimate of the available force, 
 or of the fighting strength of the 
 Union armies. These figures include 
 the entire enrollments or enlistments 
 of all classes, single, double and treble 
 during the four years of the war. 
 
 As I have stated, they include all 
 local and temporary enlistments. For 
 instance : The First Ohio Infantry, 
 with which I entered the service, en- 
 listed three times. First in 1861 "for 
 three months," again in 1861 "for 
 three years," and in 1864 "till the end 
 of the war." Thus this large regiment 
 is counted three times in the general 
 enlistment. One hundred and thirty- 
 six regiments enlisted two or three 
 times during the war, and are counted 
 two or three times on the rolls. Three 
 hundred regiments entered upon the 
 rolls served upon the border or in the 
 rear, and never got into action or saw 
 a battle. Nearly 400,000 enlistments 
 were for one year; 88,000 for nine 
 months ; 108,000 for three months, and 
 over 86,000 for one hundred days. 
 Nearly 300,000 of the men enrolled 
 enlisted just before the close of the 
 war, too late to participate in its active 
 campaigns or engagements. One hun- 
 dred and eighty-six thousand enlist- 
 ments of colored troops were carried 
 upon the rolls. Owing to various 
 causes the names of the same soldiers 
 often appear upon the general roll four 
 or fives times. Every transfer added 
 a new name to the roll. These illus- 
 trations enable us to realize how mis- 
 leading are the large figures and num- 
 bers usually credited to the national 
 armies. They give an exaggerated im- 
 pression of the actual forces. If every
 
 8 NUMBERS AND ROSTERS OF THE TWO ARMIES. 
 
 enlistment, re-enlistment and transfer 
 of soldiers made in the Southern 
 armies during the four years of war 
 was counted upon their rolls, it would 
 certainly nearly double any estimate 
 of their available force in the field. 
 
 Mr. Fox, who has published the 
 most complete statistics of the Federal 
 forces in the Civil War, states that "it 
 is doubtful if there were two million 
 individuals actually in service during 
 the war," on the Federal side that is, 
 for all long and short terms of service. 
 
 The official report of the Provost 
 Marshal General shows the combined 
 strength of the Federal armies at dif- 
 ferent periods during the war (deduct- 
 ing absentees) in round numbers as 
 follows : 
 
 On July 1, 1861, the combined armies 
 numbered 183,000. 
 
 January 1, 1862, the combined ar- 
 mies numbered 527,000. 
 
 January 1, 1863, the combined ar- 
 mies numbered 698,000. 
 
 January 1, 1864, the combined ar- 
 mies numbered 611,000. 
 
 March 31, 1865, the combined ar- 
 mies numbered 657,000. 
 
 This was "the available force capa- 
 ble of active service in the field," to 
 use Dr. Jones' expression regarding 
 the Confederate forces; more than 
 half of them were practically rear 
 guards. As you see, the numbers do 
 not run up into the millions. They 
 include the entire Union forces, at the 
 front, in the rear, in reserve, guarding 
 cities, bridges, railways, block houses 
 and stores. The front of the army 
 line extended from the Atlantic Ocean 
 to the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 The armies of the Confederacy 
 were of necessity much less in num- 
 bers. They had probably not one- 
 half the strength of the forces en- 
 gaged upon the Federal side, perhaps 
 less, much less than one-half, but at 
 the front at the points of actual con- 
 
 tact and conflict, in the great battles, 
 owing to their interior lines, railways, 
 and defensive advantages, the South 
 as we know full well, was able to bring 
 equal or nearly equal forces into ac- 
 tion. 
 
 The stupendous and appalling task 
 that confronted the armies of the 
 Union required a vastly superior 
 force ; a task that might well have 
 caused the patriotic people of the 
 North and border States to hesitate in 
 dismay. An army of invasion and ag- 
 gression, under the conditions of mod- 
 ern warfare, has to meet and over- 
 come tremendous odds, as compared 
 with the demands upon an army of de- 
 fense. This general rule as to offens- 
 ive and defensive warfare has been 
 well recognized ever since the time 
 when Leonidas and his little band of 
 Spartans held back the hosts of the 
 Persian army in the narrow pass of 
 Thermopylae. 
 
 In the American Revolution, our 
 small Colonial forces 
 
 "The Old Continentals, 
 With their ragged regimentals" 
 
 held the disciplined armies of England 
 at bay for six or seven years. When 
 the British ventured to leave their 
 ships and the cities of the Atlantic 
 Coast, and march into the interior, 
 their campaigns of invasion soon 
 ended at Saratoga, King's Mountain, 
 and Yorktown. General Andrew Jack- 
 son, with a handful of Tennesseeans 
 and Kentuckians, occupying a strong 
 defensive position below New Orleans, 
 in a single battle well nigh destroyed 
 Packingham's large army of British 
 veterans. 
 
 The difficulties of an army of in- 
 vasion were remarkably illustrated in 
 the recent war in South Africa. Su- 
 periority in numbers to the extent of 
 ten or twenty, or even thirty to one, 
 did not seem to bring success to Brit-
 
 NUMBERS AND ROSTERS OF THE TWO ARMIES. 
 
 ish arms. Great Britain sent over 
 445,000 soldiers, according to recent 
 official reports, to fight an armed force 
 of perhaps 30,000 or 40,000 Boers. 
 We know the English, Scotch High- 
 landers, the Irish, the Canadians and 
 Australians made good soldiers. The 
 resources of the British were appar- 
 ently without limit, yet this "wretched 
 little population of Boers," as Lord 
 Salisbury calls them, defied the power 
 and prowess of the whole British em- 
 pire for two or three years, and the 
 final result was only humiliation and 
 partial success. 
 
 Our friends, General John Morgan 
 and General Basil Duke, undertook a 
 little byplay in the way of a campaign 
 of invasion north of the Ohio River. 
 They were as gallant and dashing a 
 pair of soldiers as ever led a charge. 
 They struck terror into the hearts of 
 the home guards for a time, but their 
 campaign soon degenerated into a kind 
 of cavalry stampede, that was finally 
 rounded up at Columbus, Ohio. 
 
 When Robert E. Lee, the great and 
 lovable General of the Confederacy, 
 crossed Mason and Dixon's line, and 
 marshaled his splendid army upon the 
 hills near Gettysburg, only a few miles 
 north of Maryland, how rapidly his 
 difficulties multiplied. The Army of 
 the Potomac had but recently suffered 
 repeated disasters upon Virginia soil. 
 General Meade had been in command 
 only three days, but when his army 
 became an army of defense, upon the 
 loyal hills of Pennsylvania, General 
 Lee's army of invasion was soon com- 
 pelled to retire behind the protecting 
 line of the Potomac River. 
 
 Ah! the love of home is an inspir- 
 ing sentiment. It gets close to the 
 heart. It nerves the arm of the de- 
 fenders to strike hard 
 
 "For our altars and our fires, 
 God and our native land." 
 
 If an army of invasion (so called) 
 from the South could have fought its 
 way northward, and threatened or at- 
 tacked the cities and homes of New 
 England or Michigan, they would have 
 struck the same desperate courage with 
 which the South met that so-called 
 army of invasion from the North at 
 Shiloh and Atlanta. General Lee had 
 to meet this new spirit of defense 
 when he crossed the line and ventured 
 to invade the North. 
 
 These illustrations show how im- 
 possible it is to measure the honors or 
 to fix the standard of courage or man- 
 hood on either side of a great conflict 
 like our Civil War. The disproportion 
 in numbers lays no foundation for un- 
 favorable comparison or contrasting 
 criticism. There are other controlling 
 factors that must be taken into ac- 
 count, if the question of superiority is 
 to be considered, or a judicial decision 
 reached as to which were the best 
 types of physical prowess and man- 
 hood in the Civil War. 
 
 The territory of the seceding States 
 (omitting Missouri and Kentucky), 
 comprised over 800,000 square miles, 
 an area as great, or greater, than the 
 combined territory of Great Britain 
 (including Ireland), France, Germany 
 and Italy. It had a white population 
 of five or six million Americans of al- 
 most pure Anglo-Saxon strain. It is 
 the land of the Scotch-Irish men, the 
 Puritans of the South, tough in fiber 
 of brain and body, the land of the de- 
 scendants of the old-time Virginia 
 aristocracy, of the South Carolina 
 Hotspurs, a class of Americans born 
 and bred to rule or fight. Great dis- 
 tances had to be fought over, high 
 mountains scaled, deep rivers crossed, 
 vast stores transported, and the whole 
 area in the rear defended. What 
 greater example of courage and man- 
 hood has history, ancient or modern,
 
 io NUMBERS AND ROSTERS OF THE TWO ARMIES. 
 
 furnished than was shown by our na- 
 tional armies in marching five hun- 
 dred miles down into the heart of the 
 Confederacy, scaling the high moun- 
 tains, crossing the deep rivers, push- 
 ing through forest and field into the 
 territory of six million Americans of 
 our own blood, the home of more than 
 a million Confederate soldiers, and 
 what is more, staying there, winning 
 great victories there, and finally main- 
 taining and restoring the supreme au- 
 thority of the National Government 
 over this vast Southern section and 
 population. There is no rule of num- 
 bers that can measure such success. 
 The very achievement defies compari- 
 son or criticism. 
 
 When our beloved and great-hearted 
 President, Abraham Lincoln, stated 
 that he was proud to belong to the 
 same race as the Southern soldiers 
 who marched with General Pickett up 
 the slopes of Cemetery Hill, at Gettys- 
 burg, he paid a beautiful and well- 
 merited tribute to the almost match- 
 less soldiers of General Lee, but what 
 veteran of the armies of the Cumber- 
 land was not reminded by the remark 
 that the slopes of Mission Ridge at 
 Chattanooga were even steeper than 
 the famed heights of Gettysburg? In 
 the cruel drama of war, what more 
 splendid example of enduring courage 
 does history recall than was shown 
 when Rosecrans' army changed front 
 and stayed the storm of disaster at 
 Mnrfreesboro, turning defeat into 
 victory ; or when glorious old "Pap 
 Thomas," with half our army of the 
 Cumberland, held at bay from noon 
 till night the entire arrny of Bragg and 
 Longstreet, far off upon the hills of 
 Northern Georgia, at Chickamauga, 
 nearly four hundred miles south of 
 our base of supplies? 
 
 No, my comrades, there is no stand- 
 ard by which we can compare the sol- 
 
 diers of the North and the soldiers of 
 the South in the great war that does 
 not reflect honor upon both. It was 
 a war between Americans, Anglo- 
 Saxons in the main, of the same gen- 
 eral ancestry and of the same inherited 
 characteristics. 
 
 The best lesson of the Civil War, 
 and one that every section of our great 
 Republic should remember, teaches us 
 that there are no geographical limits 
 to American manhood. It can not be 
 sectionalized. All opinions to the con- 
 trary must be regarded as the off- 
 spring of mere partisanship and pro- 
 vincialism. They do not rise to the 
 true standard of the broad spirit of 
 Americanism. As one of our distin- 
 guished Confederates, ex-Governor 
 Porter, of Tennessee, stated at the 
 dedication of our Tennessee monu- 
 ments, Confederate and Federal, at 
 Chickamauga, "If the combatants had 
 not already learned it, they learned it 
 upon this field, that educated Ameri- 
 cans, of every section of the American 
 Union, were alike brave in action, and 
 that advantages won by either re- 
 sulted from the character of their 
 leadership." 
 
 In the conflicts and struggles be- 
 tween the Puritan and the Cavalier 
 and their descendants, many victories 
 have been won and lost, but the ques- 
 tion as to "Who is the master" is still 
 unsettled. 
 
 In the words of the poet of Scot- 
 land there are 
 
 "Hills beyond Pentlancl and lands beyond 
 
 Forth, 
 Be the Lords in the Lowlands, there are 
 
 chiefs in the North." 
 
 As Admiral Schley said of Santiago, 
 "There's glory enough to go round." 
 Yes ; and to spare. We are proud to 
 have him as our guest tonight. Every 
 true soldier honors the grand Admiral 
 for his generous sentiment.
 
 NUMBERS AND ROSTERS OF THE TWO ARMIES. n 
 
 We won the honors of success in the 
 Civil War, and we know full well that 
 \ve shall never have a share in any 
 other duty or achievement so useful, 
 so honorable, or so memorable ; but the 
 Federal soldier must be cold and un- 
 generous indeed, whether his home be 
 at the North or South, if he fails to 
 pay the tribute of respect and admira- 
 tion to the soldiers of the Confederacy, 
 who matched deeds with us through 
 four long years, who with a narrower 
 and mistaken loyalty, as we think, but 
 with like sincerity, courage and devo- 
 tion, and under greater trials and sac- 
 rifices, fought a losing fight, clear 
 through to the bitter end of the great 
 tragedy ; who lost all save the jewel 
 of an honorable record, and yet, with 
 enduring manhood arose from defeat, 
 and with equal courage and devotion 
 turned their bronzed faces to the fu- 
 ture, a future full of golden promise, 
 
 and set about to build up anew and 
 recreate their homes and country. 
 
 And have they not, they and their 
 sons and daughters, amid constant 
 trials and embarrassments, recreated 
 and rebuilt the South and brought that 
 promise into fruition? Has not the 
 South arisen from the ashes of war 
 and waste into a splendid prosperity? 
 Activities and energies, born of neces- 
 sity and poverty have stimulated every 
 avenue of commerce and developed 
 her latent forces, until the South of 
 today is rivaling the industrial and 
 commercial prosperity of the North. 
 Neither tradition nor partisanship can 
 stay her progress. 
 
 The New South has no interest 
 apart from her sisters of the North 
 and West, and what is more, she is 
 inspired with the same spirit of nation- 
 ality and loyalty to every interest that 
 affects our common country. Her pa- 
 triotism is as broad as the Republic. 
 
 The Confederate Armies. 
 
 To the Editor of the Olympian: 
 
 In an article or address published 
 in the last number of the Olympian, 
 upon the "Numbers and Rosters of 
 the Two Armies in the Civil War," I 
 endeavored to show that the Confed- 
 erate armies were much larger than 
 the estimate generally accepted at the 
 South, and that instead of having but 
 600,000 soldiers upon the rolls during 
 the four years of the Civil War. they 
 had from 1,000,000 to 1,100.000 sol- 
 diers. I presented three methods of 
 calculation reaching practically the 
 same result, in support of my views, 
 as to these numbers. 
 
 Since your November number was 
 issued, my attention has been called to 
 a Confederate official report, made to 
 
 the Confederate War Department in 
 January, 1864, that gives more direct 
 and definite information upon this sub- 
 ject than I was able to present in the 
 November publication. 
 
 In Serial No. 129, page 95, of the 
 official records of the Union and Con- 
 federate Armies, in the War Depart- 
 ment at Washington, there is an offi- 
 cial report of Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Blake, "Superintendent of Special 
 Registration," made to the Bureau of 
 Conscription of the Confederate War 
 Department, at Richmond, Va., in 
 January, 1864. 
 
 The report contains a detailed state- 
 ment of the number of troops fur- 
 nished to the Confederate armies by 
 the six States in his department of
 
 12 NUMBERS AND ROSTERS OF THE TWO ARMIES. 
 
 duty, to wit: The States of Virginia, 
 North Carolina, South Carolina, 
 Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. It 
 gives the number of volunteers and 
 conscripts, and the number of exemp- 
 tions owing to physical disabilities, in 
 each of these States, and points out 
 methods by which the Confederate 
 forces can be increased. 
 
 In his final summary, Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Blake reports that these six 
 States in his department had furnished 
 566,456 soldiers to the Confederate 
 armies up to January 1, 1864. 
 
 If the remaining five Confederate 
 States, including Tennessee, furnished 
 soldiers to the Confederate armies in 
 like proportion (according to the 
 census of their military population in 
 
 1860-1861), they must have furnished 
 416,176 soldiers. 
 
 By this just method of calculation, 
 we are able to show, approximately, 
 that the eleven Confederate States 
 sent to the armies of the Confederacy, 
 up to January 1, 1864, 982,632 men. 
 The enlistments and conscripts during 
 the last fifteen months of the war 
 must have increased this number to 
 much more than a million men. 
 
 Add to this number the recruits ob- 
 tained from the border States (from 
 90,000 to 100,000 men), and you have 
 about 1,100,000 soldiers, thus reaching 
 practically the same result we arrived 
 at by the three methods of calcula- 
 tion presented in my article in your 
 last issue. G. P. T. 
 
 Statistics of Soldiers in Both Armies. 
 
 By Gen. Gates P. Thrust on (U. S. A.}, Nashville, Tenn. 
 
 I notice in the excellent March num- 
 ber of the Confederate Veteran that 
 you reprint from the Baltimore Sun 
 Mr. Cassenove G. Lee's ancient Civil 
 War statistics as to the number of 
 soldiers in the armies of the North 
 and South. There is no historical 
 foundation whatever for the statement 
 made by him that the "total enlist- 
 ments in the Confederate Army" con- 
 sisted of "six hundred thousand men." 
 
 A much more distinguished and re- 
 liable Southern authority, Dr. Wood- 
 row Wilson, of Virginia (now presi- 
 dent of Princeton College), in his ad- 
 mirable "History of the American 
 People" states the number of Fed- 
 eral and Confederate soldiers in 
 the Civil War as follows : "In the 
 North four men out of every nine of 
 
 the military population had enlisted 
 for a service of three years in the 
 field in all, 1,700,000 out of a mili- 
 tary population of 4,600.000." fVol- 
 ume IV, page 267.) And again (page 
 267) he gives the numbers in the Con- 
 federate armies as follows : "The total 
 military population of the South (the 
 seceding States) was but 1,065,000. 
 Nine hundred thousand of these she 
 drew into her armies for at least three 
 years of service, and before the war 
 ended mere half-grown boys and men 
 grown old were included in the mus- 
 ter." The Confederate soldiers in the 
 border States were not included in Dr. 
 Wilson's statement. 
 
 In the carefully prepared "History 
 of the United States," by Mr. Waddy 
 Thompson, of Atlanta, Ga., published 
 
 * This article reprinted from the Confederate Veteran.
 
 NUMBERS AND ROSTERS OF THE TWO ARMIES. 13 
 
 in 1904, after its Civil War chapters 
 had been reviewed by that prince of 
 gentlemen and soldier, Gen. John B. 
 Gordon, he slates that "it is probable 
 that the total number of enlistments 
 in the Confederate armies was nearly 
 a million." (See preface and page 
 406.) 
 
 I am so fond of the editor of the 
 Confederate Veteran and read the 
 magazine with so much pleasure that 
 I am anxious that it shall be historic- 
 ally accurate in its statements. 
 
 General Thruston has been studying 
 the statistics of the two armies for 
 years, and there can be no question 
 of his absolute sincerity in seeking to 
 have the truth established ; but he has 
 been in the South so long that he must 
 
 be pardoned for pride in reducing dis- 
 crepancy of numbers. General Thrus- 
 ton is one of the best citizens in the 
 South, and none the less good for hav- 
 ing man ied twice into families of cul- 
 tured, ardent Southern people. True, 
 he simply quotes in the foregoing from 
 cordially accepted Southern authors ; 
 yet the Veteran, while having due es- 
 teem for him and them, does not agree 
 to quite so great compromise of the 
 statistics that have been so long ac- 
 cepted. The Union Army reduced 
 from 2,800,000 to 1,700,000 and the 
 Confederate increased from 600,000 to 
 1,000,000 men is too great a difference. 
 Southern authors should be very care- 
 ful of their figures. A compromise 
 from both sides as to actual three-year 
 soldiers might be nearer the truth.
 
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