I have a hard time with Gov. Parson's figures of 122,000 Alabama soldiers enrolled in military service out of a total eligible male population of 126,587: that's a 96.4% participation rate. Maybe if you threw in the militia, the home guard, some factory workers, and the local teamsters you might get those kind of numbers.(100,000 enlistments would be a more believable 79%)

Regardless, it raises a good point: what happened to all of those people if the numbers are close to being accurate? Just to play a stupid little game for a minute: If there were 122,000 Alabama soldiers enrolled during the war- and just to argue a higher figure- let's say 35,000 were killed or died of disease/wounds; and 35,000 were disabled (and presumed discharged during the war) that would be 70,000 dead or disabled leaving 52,000 men still enrolled. Assuming a good Alabama soldier, who is neither dead nor at home disabled, is willing to fight to the end for the Confederacy; with approximately 4,200 were still active in the field at the end of the war in 1865 (60 regiments with an average of 70 men per regiment) that leaves 47,800 soldiers still unaccounted. What Robert E. Lee could have done with them is food for thought...

In 1865 the 9th Alabama was down to just 80 men (they had arrived in Petersburg with just under 100)...76 would eventually surrender at Appomattox. This was in a regiment that started the war with over 1,000 men and enrolled a total of 1,506 during the course of it. Many of these men were not killed or wounded. The regiment had lost 400 men before it ever went into battle on the Peninsula in March 1862- mainly due to disease and discharges. Regimental totals dipped from 575 at the start of the Peninsula Campaign, to 295 by the end of it, and to 165 after Antietam. They built back up to 325 before Gettysburg, but were back down again to 262 by the Wilderness Campaign. With the exception of the stragglers during the Antietam Campaign (which may have been as many as 100), most of the losses between Williamsburg in 1862 and the Wilderness/Spotsylvania Campaign in 1864 were on the battlefield. That would not be the case for the remainder of the war.

In August 1864 a 9th Alabama soldier reported that they had 50 men fit for duty (out of 80) in the regiment, but that almost 500 were still on the roles. Where were they? They certainly weren't killed and wounded during this time, since the 9th only took significant casualties during the Battle of the Crater. That same week the 9th had lost 25 men to desertion in one night, and a man in Company H had elected himself Captain of the Company, since he was the only man left in it.

The point of all of this is that there are a lot of Alabama soldiers (probably about the same as in every state) who left the ranks via discharge, straggling, desertion, and transfer to other units. The 400 men in the 9th Alabama who show up on the muster rolls in the summer and fall of 1861 are gone from the 9th before March 1862. (Are they in the totals? Are they casualties?) Another 500 men are brought in over the course of the war and most of them are gone by the end of it. Are these some of the soldiers who transferred home and joined other units- the ones that Robert E. Lee complained about in 1864? Are they in with the stragglers who just went home after the battles and stayed there?

The census figures would list the men who were considered to be enlisted soldiers, regardless of what they did during the war. A soldier could be on that list if he enlisted in Athens, Alabama in June 1861, then took the train to Richmond, Virginia for the camps, and one week later was discharged for poor health and then died after arriving back home. In what category would he show up? If you are in the Alabama militia or Home Guard (and show up in the total of 122,000) and you are killed in a Union cavalry raid in northern Alabama, are you in the casualty totals? Should you be?

As I said in an earlier post about this subject back in October, I think we have to define our terms as who should be included in the figures and for what reasons. We need to look at the regimental level, rather than the aggregate totals, to see the ebb and flow of casualties and enrollments in the regiments over time.

What is the question we are trying to answer? For me, it's finding out what happened to those 47,800, if they existed at all, and when it happened to them. The accuracy of the above number is not as important as what it represents- a segment of the Alabama soldiers who left their regiments for a reason other than death or discharge.

I am trying to build as complete a roster as I can for the 9th Alabama from a variety of sources- the National Archives service records, regimental muster rolls, veterans' remembrances, census data, genealogical records, and county and state publications and records. I am also trying to match that list up with casualty reports and lists for individual members of the 9th. I would also like to look at the number of soldiers who died within 5 years after returning home, due to war-related injuries or illness.

I would appreciate suggestions.

John