"All the numbers I have seen to me to be incredibly inflated."

Amen to that! I long ago decided only God could sort all that out. LOL!

My personal study of my great-grandfather's regiment shows that the men were counted in some cases 3,4 or 5 times by the National Archives (take the CWS&SS as an example) while some were never accounted for. I have been told that Mississippi historian Grady Howell believes up to 1/3 of Mississippi records are lost. How do we balance all that out? My feeble mind trembles :-)