Comrades, which will you follow, General Adams or General Lee? To ask this question is to answer it.
I cannot follow Dr. McKim in his examination of Gen. Adam's argument. Suffice it to say that I have read this book twice carefully, and I fully endorse Dr. McKim's reasoning, though I must add that I agree with Col. Taylor, Gen. Lee's Adjutant General, who says (McKim, Preface ad fin.), "I regret to have to say that I know of no reliable data in support of any precise number, and have always realized that it must ever be largely a matter of conjecture on our side."
Dr. McKim gives in his Preface eight main points of his counter-argument, which each one can read for himself, although it will not take more than an hour to read the whole book.
Dr. McKim makes a comparison between the Boers and the Confederates, following and refuting Gen. Adams' assertions; he further comments on "the fundamental error in the argument of Northern writers, sums up the "affirmative evidence in support of our conclusion," drawing evidence from the conscriptions, and supports his views by a quotation from the New York Tribune of June 26, 1867, which says, "we judge in all 600,000 different men were in the Confederate ranks during the war."
This is about as near as we can ever get to it, and Dr. McKim supports his view by quotations Col. Wm. F. Fox's "Regimental Losses in the Civil War," who assures us that "no statistics are given that are not warranted by the official records," and these sum up the strength of the entire Confederate army as 601,980. But for the Navy we should have gained our independence, and we came very near doing it anyhow on more than one occasion. Let some Northern writer examine the whole record, and give us the results; we can stand them. And let some Southern writer examine those precious muster-rolls, as Dr. McKim calls them, and also give us the results, which no Southern writer has yet been allowed to do.
Dr. McKim further examines "the weak points in General Adams' argument," especially the effect of the conscription, which egregiously failed to bring in the men it was estimated
