Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/599

Rh States secretary of war, Mr. Stan ton, reports that Grant’s available force at the same period, March i, 1865, was 162,239. According to General Humphrey s calculations Grant s total on the morning of his final assault on Lee’s lines was 124,700 present for duty, equipped in line of battle. This is exclusive of officers, details, sick and non-combatants. The fairest comparison of forces at that time, March 31, 1865, is made by the respective reports of both armies, which show in round numbers on cavalry, 46,000 effectives as the highest total, and on the Federal side 125,000 as the lowest available total in actual line of battle. Thus it appears indisputable that Grant had three lines of battle each the equal of one under command of Lee. He was enabled thereby to cover Lee’s entire front with a line as strong as his own and still could move two nearly equally strong armies on his flanks. With this advantage on the morning of April 1, 1865, the attack was made by three men against one, and at the close of the day that ratio was largely increased through Confederate losses.

This, however, was not the only disparity between the two armies. Perhaps no armies had been so well equipped as those which Grant commanded in his advance on Richmond during 1864, but the preparation for the final assault in 1865 exceeded all equipment which had been made during the war. Lee had met these armies through the preceding years with constantly decreasing numbers and daily diminishing supplies. Hence his army was in all extremities from the 1st of January, 1865.

Thus it appears even from the military situation around Richmond that the Confederate States government had now no adequate military support, and its attempts to negotiate a peace on terms which ought to be understood before surrender had wholly failed. Its life, like that of every other civil government, was dependent upon military resources. Its civil authority was obeyed indeed to the