Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 31.djvu/352

 344 Southern Historical Society Papers.

North Carolina in the number she now claims, and may, to some extent, account for how she furnished ten thousand more soldiers to the Confederacy than her voting population, as shown in a then re- cent election, of which fact she now so justly boasts.

As showing that the report from which we have quoted is sub- stantially correct, the largest number of troops we have seen any- where claimed to have been furnished by North Carolina is that contained in the report from the present Adjutant-General's office, and this number is put at about one hundred and twenty-seven thousand, and, of course, this includes the " total of all men dis- posed of" from the State all in the field, and all exemptions, from whatever cause. The report from which we have quoted above (page 103) gives North Carolina one hundred and twenty-six thous- and six hundred and twenty-three, and to Virginia (counting in the same way) one hundred and seventy-eight thousand, nine hundred and thirty-three, or fifty two thousand, three hundred and sixteen more than North Carolina.

Whilst this report gives the number of regiments, battalions and batteries furnished by Virginia, it does not give the number of those furnished by North Carolina; but we are enabled to supply this ap- parent omission from another source, to be found in the same volume at page 722. As late as October n, 1864, Governor Vance wrote to General Bragg (a native of North Carolina), then stationed in Richmond, asking Bragg to furnish him with the number of troops furnished by North Carolina to the Confederacy, and saying he wished this information in order to ' ' know "what North Carolina had done in comparison with the other States," in view of a proposed meeting of the Governors of the South, then about to assemble at Augusta, Ga. On this letter of enquiry there is an endorsement stating, that whilst the number of troops furnished by North Carolina could not be given, without laborious research, there was then in the Confederate service from that State sixty-seven regiments, five bat- talions, twelve unattached companies, two State regiments doing service for the Confederacy, and nine battalions of reserves then organized. The report of January 25, 1864, above referred to, shows that Virginia had then sent to the field sixty-three regiments of infantry, forty battalions of infantry, twenty regiments of cavalry, forty battalions of cavalry, and one hundred and twenty-five bat- teries of artillery (p. 96).

A comparison of these organizations of the two States gives this result, viz : that where North Carolina had furnished the Confed-