Very little research being done; none in local libraries. Only recently did my own books go back on bookshelves, and I'm still attempting to locate numerous paper files. Much research on my laptop has been lost and has yet to be recovered. Hopefully I can make another attempt to recover files soon.
The past couple of years Confederate military strength has absorbed much of my attention. Steve Newton explores this topic in Lost for the Cause: The Confederate Army in 1864. Newton builds on Thomas Livermore's classic, Numbers and Losses in the Civil War to show Confederate strength as understated during 1864. Aside from errors in arithmetic which account for some mistakes, Newton demonstrates that commands being moved from one department to another at the time of a report were often not counted. Among other points, chapter one, "Missing! One Confederate Army", demonstrates how Lee's present for duty reported for June 30, 1864, is missing 27,488 officers and men. It's not a 'guesstimate' - they simply were not included.
A complete review of Confederate reports for June 30, 1864, do not account for 75,000 PFD, easily the size of another Confederate army.
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Cause-Confederate-Army-1864/dp/188281049X
Newton explores naming conventions which have been raised on different message boards - present for duty, effective strength, aggregate present and aggregate present and absent. Each of these is important - none can be discounted in this kind of study. I'm reading the book a second time to see what I've overlooked.
Applying some of the formulas suggested by Livermore and Newton, I'm perusing the Official Records for Confederate strength reports from the first half of 1863. Excel is a wonderful tool for this kind of pursuit. When finished I should have reconstucted regimental strength in commands in Tennessee, SE Virginia, north Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi prior to the Spring campaigns of 1863. The work is nowhere near finished but I'm pleased with progress to date.
Once done, I'd like to explore this topic -- the War Department waited until after Gettysburg and Vicksburg to concentrate forces with the Army of Tennessee. Forces detached to break the seige of Vicksburg accomplished nothing, and thousands of soldiers were wasted in a futile effort to defend East Tennessee. Morgan's cavalry essentially took itself out of the war that summer.
Stevenson's Division should have been returned to Tennessee by late March-early April 1863. McCown's old division should not have been detached from the Army of Tennessee and sent to Mississippi. The same is true for W H T Walker's command, ordered from the Carolina coast after the Federal assault on Charleston failed in early April of 1863.
Even without Longstreet's two divisions, enough Confederate soldiers could have been assembled to exceed strength available to Bragg at Chickamauga. Had such an army been formed prior to the summer of 1863, what could have been accomplished with it?