Alan,

No one is arguing aganst that point at all - the main thrust of this was what happened to them afterwards and Southern mythology made it seem like they were even held against their will up North after the war - when scholarship has since proven that to be very incorrect.

This is akin to the Southern myth that Joe Johnston only had 45,000 men to protect Atlanta from Sherman - when his own OR figures list 54,500 and does not count two divisions of his cavalry nor the massive reinforcements he received as the campaign began. Dennis Kelly, former historian at Kennesaw Mountain NBF once told me that the park library has a note from one of Johnston's commissary officers stating that 75,000 rations were served in one day on the Kennesaw Line. Richard McMurry did a great deal of scrutiny on the CS troop strength and found out that the Army of Tennessee had a lot more men in it during the campaign than ever thought before - some 86,000 (but not all at one time).

Same thing with the Roswell women - easier to believe the myth that dig and find out what happened to them.

Greg Biggs