And no Bill, no one is "Bragging" about the statistic, but they are what they are.
Hindman was only in command in Arkansas from May until August 1862. That doesn't account for the whole war. The war was a 'War to the Knife', it was brutal and no quarters given and everybody was involved. Harrel in his book made the comment about the comparison of these numbers, I am assuming that his comments, though as biased as they may be, were made made based on closer first hand information.
According to the 1860 U.S. census of white males 15 -19 y.o.a. there were enumerated 17,810. Of white males 20 -29 y.o.a. there were 31,413. Of the 30 -39 y.o.a. there were 19,793. Of the 40 -49 y.o.a. there were 12,164. That repersents a total conscription age male population of of 81,180. Clearly not all of these men would have been physically able and would have been otherwise exempted from service. So by any other accounting more than 100% of all the draftable and physically able white males in the state of Arkansas in 1860 were enlisted. IF Bryans figures are correct.
Now I realise that Bryan has stated that his figures are subject to adjustment such as duplicates. We also must consider imigrations into the state after the census was taken and such other factors. That being what it is, you are still talking about an estimated 10,000 adjustments to this raw data, just to get down to the estimated military age white male population of the state..
As you say from your reading of these letter the land was basically devoid of a males population. So that would seem to support these figures.
That would also make any physically able male subject to question. That he would stand out like a sore thumb to anyone in the community, Union or Confederate, now wouldn't he? Units were recruited from local communities as we all well know. Under those conditions anyone who showed back up in his home community and not sick or physically disable would most likely be a desserter. Let alone the community itself would have known who had gone off to war in the first place. Do you think that if someones husband was off with the army, or maybe had been killed, and that physically strong man was back in the community, do you think that there would be some resentment towards that individual by those whose family members were still fighting?
So it wasn't JUST political policy that was a factor. If my men were off fighting and you weren't, I would wonder why not. And if the conscript officer was in town, well I might ask him why my men were fight and he wasn't. And for the same reason if a Union Patrol rode into town and saw such a person they would ask the same questions of why he wasn't in the army? What would his answer be? If he said that he was a Unionist, they would say that he needed to enlist in their army. If he was a deserter they would say the same thing, or place him in prison. So what choice did he have?
Some did come home in Union occupied area Like Little Rock and Pine Bluff and took the oath. And southern patrol and raids had as one of their objective was to round up such persons and return them to their companies.
No, not all of these conscripts were totally loyal to "the cause". But neither were all the draftees in the US Army during Viet Nam. There were many a soldier that was 'in country', and even in the states, that wished they were somewhere else and did not get where they were because they wanted to be there. Does that make the United States Government ruthless because it had a draft law at the time and prosecuted objectors and draft dodgers?