Late 1st Lieut, and A. D. C. 3d Brigade Army of Northern Virginia. Author of "A Soldier's Recollections." Exigui numero sed bello vivida virtus—Virgil It will be difficult to get the world to understand the odds against which we fought. — General Robert E. Lee NEW YORK THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1912 Copyright, 1912, by The Neale Publishing Company...

The distinguished soldier and critic whose name appears on the title page argues, as do various other Northern critics, that the usual Southern estimate of the strength of the Confederate army is too small by half. This conclusion is supported, they contend, both by the census of 1860, according to which there were at the very beginning of the war between the States nearly a million men in the Southern States of military age, and by the number of regiments of the several armies, as shown by the

Charles Francis Adams holds a warm place in the hearts of the survivors of the Army of Northern Virginia, and, indeed, of all the Confederate Armies, not only because of his splendid tribute to General Robert E. Lee and to the army he commanded, but also because of his generous recognition of the high motives of the Southern people in the course they pursued in 1861. It is therefore in the friendliest spirit that I undertake to question the accuracy of his conclusion as to the numerical strength

The arguments adduced in the preceding pages are believed by the writer to be valid and sufficient to refute the conclusion reached by Colonel Livermore, the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, and others, that there was in the Confederacy a "minimum of 1,160,000 effectives, to which we must add 117,000 men from the Border States, giving a total Confederate strength of 1,277,000." I have not attempted to give definite figures as to the actual enrollment in the Southern armies. My argument is of necessit