The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-04-14
"DREADFUL THINGS"
Gen. Stones False Figures as
to Confederate Killed.
With White Population Of 625,00O in 1860
North ca,o'in1 furnished 1900
Confederate Soldiers

Republic people have recently been mo
ing some dreadful things in southern
school histories. General Stone, com
manding the Department of the Potomac,
has had his truth loving soul stirred TO
it's profoundest depths by statement
in one of these histories that the Confed-
eracy never brought more than 100000
men into the field. When" he is report
ed in the Washington Post to have said,
eve killed and captured that many du-
ring the first two years of the war Kill
ed and captured 200 rebels before
April, 1863!
The Confederate official reports made
by the men who called the rolls and
noted on the spot the killed and captured
show the total to have been about one
fifteenth CT what this virtuously indg-
nant gentlemen, who burns to re-write
Southern history affirms it to have been
How unluckv it was for his side
that this General Stone, who knows it all
now couldn't have known Just little
then. How it would have ioyed McClel-
Ian or PoDe or Burnside, or Hooker, or
even Ben Butler to have known Just the
moment when 100000 rebels or anywhere
near that number were dead or captive,
and nobody but Bob Lee and JEFF Davis
manning the Richmond works. Though
Ben Butler might have been afraid of even
that number of men, being brave only
against women and spoons.
So much for Yankee prowess which could
kill and capture so many rebels in two
years that it has taken eight and thirty
years to count them. General Stone has
also focused his big counting glass on
the sum total of the Confederate armies
There were he said, "about 1,500,O0O
people in the South between the ages of
fifteen and fifty, who participated. The
General knew to a man how many rebels
had been killed and captured up to April
Itch, 1863. but he hasn't yet had quite
time enough to count how many there
we're from fifteen to fifty years of age. 1t
took him thirty EIGHT years to count the
600, 600. He will at that rate get the last
rebel boy and old man counted by the
fall Of 1858. And General Stones figures
are well worth waiting for. Originality,
real unhampered unshackled originality
like his is mighty scarce thing and we'll
worth waiting for.
But while tarrying for the returns
down to the last man or boy. it will do
no harm to do a little figuring of our
own We can't be as dead exact as this
General % the G. A. r.. but what We
lack in exactness we can make up in
speed.
The shortest way to make this estimate
would be to divide the Generals count
by fifteen just as the official reports have
done his 10000 killed and captured. But
we wont do that at least, not until Cen
Not having the gift of omniscience, We
must have to do with such vulgar things
as at least two of the Rs-reading and
arithmetic-and even then not know to n
man.
The census OF 1860 gave the population
OF the United States at 81 100000 in round
numbers. OF these fully 23,500000 inhab-
tied the non-slave holding States, and
Delaware, Maryland, Missouri and Ken
lucky and the large portions of Ten
nessee, Louisiana and Virginia. which fell
within the Federal lines early in the
war. This left the Southern Confederacy
proper a fraction over 100000 inhabi-
tants. Deductng 100000 negroes the
Confederacy shrinks to 100000 men, wo-
men and children. and to still smaller
population as more and more territory
was held by the Federal armies
Now, North Carolina, with white pop
ulation OF $4,000 in 1860 by raking with
fine tooth comb and taking all from
sixteen to ffty-1ve to war, either in the
field or as reserves, got together $4,000
men or rather men and boys. Had the
same patriotic willingness to volunteer
been supplemented by the same rigidly
enforced CONSUMPTION laws in every nook
and corner of the Confederacy, there
could have been obtained at this ratio
one soldier to five inhabitants 100000
men fer the Southern armies.
Not to speak OF the lax enforcement
Of the CONSUMPTION laws in the isolated
States of the trans Mississippi depart
ment, it is we'll known that with the ex-
cepticn Of South Carolina, the COM
bined effect OF volunteering and the con-
scription was in other States, not
only not ecual to what is was in North
Carolina, but that it was nowhere near it,.
In view of this knowledge it would APP
pear that the closest possible estimate
that made by Confederate officers, which
places the total of Southern troops at not
exceeding 600, 0OO-must be right.
These the North faced with over 2,70O,
600 men. In fact there were alone in the
Northern ranks more foreigners-95O,O 600
than there could have been Confederate
soldiers. had the cradle and the grave
been robbed throughout the South as the
Holdenites said was the case in this State
O. w BLACKNALL.