ncy increased with each returning day, and especially after the
battle of Sailor's Creek. They threw away their arms in constantly
increasing numbers, dropping out of the ranks and betaking themselves to
the woods in the hope of reaching their homes. I have already instanced
the case of the entire disintegration of a regiment whose colonel I met
at Farmville. As a result of these and other influences, when Lee
finally surrendered at Appomattox, there were only 28,356 officers and
men left to be paroled, and many of these were without arms. It was
probably this latter fact which gave rise to the statement sometimes
made, North and South, that Lee surrendered a smaller number of men than
what the official figures show. As a matter of official record, and in
addition to the number paroled as given above, we captured between March
29th and the date of surrender 19,132 Confederates, to say nothing of
Lee's other losses, killed, wounded and missing, during the series of
desperate conflicts which marked his headlong and determined flight.
The same record shows the number of cannon, including those at
Appomattox, to have been 689 between the dates named.

There has always been a great conflict of opinion as to the number of
troops engaged in every battle, or all important battles, fought between
the sections, the South magnifying the number of Union troops engaged
and belittling their own. Northern writers have fallen, in many
instances, into the same error. I have often heard gentlemen, who were
thoroughly loyal to the Union, speak of what a splendid fight the South
had made and successfully continued for four years before yielding, with
their twelve million of people against our twenty, and of the twelve
four being colored slaves, non-combatants. I will add to their
argument. We had many regiments of brave and loyal men who volunteered
under great difficulty from the twelve million belonging to the South.

But the South had rebelled against the National government. It was not
bound by any constitutional restrictions. The whole South was a
military camp. The occupation of the colored people was to furnish
supplies for the army. Conscription was resorted to early, and embraced
every male from the age of eighteen to forty-five, excluding only those
physically unfit to serve in the field, and the necessary number of
civil officers of State and intended National government. The old and
physically disabled furnished a