The National tribune., 1904-06-16

| 1, 1850 ................... 133, 433
No. in battle. Confed- FEEDER
| crates. ais.
Seven days fight. ....... .S0.S35 1920
Antiatam .............. .35.255 S7,164
charlottesville ........ 1922 1861
Fredericksburg ..........1S.11O 10000
gettysburg ............. .62.OOO 10000
| Chickamauga .......... $4,000 $1,000
Wilderness ............ .63.9S7 141, 100
Federal prisoners in Confederate
PRISONS .......... .AdUUVU
| Confederate prisoners in Federal
Confederates died in Federal prisons 26436
| Federals died in Confederate prisons 22,570
Who Mr.. Cassenove G. Lee is passes
our mental horizon. In the long years of
| The National Tribune's life we have never
before heard of him. He may be "recog
| nized' authority on civil war statistics, but
| we should be glad to know who has "recog-
| nized' him. There have been all sorts Of
classes and conditions of men writing about
the war, with widely varying degrees of
misinformation. but so far Mr. Cassenove
G. Lee has escaped recognition by all with
in the generally-accepted boundaries. Of
course, the mass of statistics that he gives
is an absurd conglomeration of fallacies,
which have long since been discarded by
real writer's and thinkers on the war In
| the first place there is absolutely no basis
for his total of 2.77S,3O4 men in the Union
| army. Nobody with even moderate infor-
nation as to the war accepts that for
minute. Including those who paid commu-
| tation when drafted, there were 1853, 1872
enlistments during the war. This included
all manner of enlistments, from 80 days up
| to three years, and hundreds Of thousands
Of those appearing in this grand total
served out more than one enlistment. 1t
was possible for man to have served out
five several enlistments during the war, and
a great but unknown number served four
enlistments, while a larger number served
three, and still larger number two
All statements as to the number of indi-
viduals in the Union Army are but
guesses and the best conjecture puts the
number somewhere i'm the neighborhood
of 100000.
Next, We have Mr.. Lees figures as to
the Confederate army, in which he follows
| the old exploded figment of there having
been but 100000 men under the banner Of
| the rebellion. This is so patent an abb
| surdity that it is rather irritating to have
| to demonstrate it's preposterousness so
often. The census of 1860 showed 1,O66,-
600 of military age in the II seeding
| Southern States. with 534 600 more in the
border States. jeff. Davis boasted that no
| Nation having 1.OOO.OO0 fighting men
was ever subdued. In addition to the
4 nf
added several hundred thousand more for
the men over age and the boys under age
who became available in the five years
subsequent TO the taking of the census in
1893. Dividing the men in the border
States by two. and counting all the other
proper items, we know that the rebels had
a fund of from 100000 to 100000 men
to draw from. We all know very con-
clnsively that they put into the ranks
every man who cOuld march a mile, or
carry gun.
While no exact figures will ever be OBJ
tainable. yet everything points in the
strongest manner to the fact that the
rebels had from first to last 10000 men
in the field to encounter the 2,2OO.O 600
who fought for the Union This was not
a great disparity when it is remembered
that the rebels had the immense advantage
Of the defensive. The best confirmation
OF this view is now being furnished by
those who are writing the histories Of the
States which tried to secede They are
all doing their utmost to get accurate fig
ures as TO the contribution of their partic-
ular States to the rebellion. and the eyi-
cence they bring forward supports this
, view. For example, North Carolina has
the rolls to show that she furnished 147,-
OCO men; Virginia produces evidence to
! show that she furnished 5000 more than
: North Carolina, which would make 2O5.
coo from those two States alone. SoutI
: Carolina thinks that she has been success
= ful In showing that she sent 1900 into
! the Confederate army, which makes 277,
e OOO from those three States. leaving til,
, eight great States Of Georgia, Alabama
} Tennessee. Mississippi Louisiana, Ar
e kansas, Texas and Florida to be hear
t from. as well as the Border States Of Mis-
= souri,, Kentucky and Maryland. If thes,
f other States did proportionately as mucl
as Virginia, North Carolina and Soutf
e Carolina. and their people vigorously i'm
{ sist that they did, there must have beer
e fully 100000 men in the rebel army.
The unfortunate part of Mr.. Lees as
e sertion that there were only 10000 in the
5 rebel army is in the fact that IL those
r great States did not furnish any more
t men, they were nothing like as courageous
or patriotic in support of their principles
as the Northern people were.
: His other figures are equally false
There has been no careful collation. of the
. actual rolls of the Union army to deter
. mine exactly how many foreign born
: served in it. An examination Of the mus
ter-out rolls Of about 100000 men