Someone pointed out to me that Wilma's grandfather's numbers didn't add up, so I looked to see what I could find on the same subject. For me that doesn't affect the power of his speech, but it does make me curious as to where the numbers came from. [and I wouldn't want to pass the numbers on without including their context, and noting the discrepancies] I have no doubt that with a list as exacting as his was, he read it someplace & I'd love to know of the source of his numbers. The source I have is EB Long's _The Civil War, Day by Day_ Doubleday, 1971,p707. Long cites _Ages of US Volunteer Soldiers, U.S. Sanitary Commission_, NY, 1866 pp5-6. The Sanitary commission's report follows the end of the war so closely that their figures are sure to have been adjusted later, accounting for some of the differences. [look at the jump between 17 & 18 year olds<g>] I think I remember a similar discussion on one of the Civil War newsgroups, so Dejanews might have some more on ages-- but in the meantime..... "gencon" <gencon@harborside.com> wrote: -snip- > Listen to the figures taken officially from the Adjutant Generals Office: > > Those enlisted at: > 10 years of age & under...................25 > 11 years of age. ...............................38 > 12 years of age................................225 > 13 years of age................................300 > 14 years of age.............................1,520 > 15 years of age........................104,987 > 16 years of age.........................231,051 > 17 years of age.........................844,891 > 18 years of age.....................2,151,438 > 21 years of age.....................2,159,891 > 22 years & over.......................618,511 > 25 years & over.........................46,326 > 45 years & over.........................16,071 > > Making a total of 2,778,309 and of this number 2,159,789 were under > twenty-one years of age. I wonder if he[or someone before him] saw a column that was a cumulative number representing those 'under age 21', etc-- and they added them together? The Sanitary commission only has about 500,000 below age 21-- a huge difference.-- Not to mention George's statement 'making a total of 2,778,309-- after he has listed over 5,000,000. [Long gives the total enlistments for the Federal force as 2,778,304- though he qualifies that with "it must be born in mind that many thousands .. enlisted more than once...Estimates run from 1,550,000 to 2,200,000 federals." With that in mind, it would be possible for a single person to be counted as a 13, 14, 15,& 16 yr old. [or even more than once at a single age- some enlistments only lasted days or weeks- many were 1yr or 6 months] Long says; "All but 1.5% of the enlisted men in the Federal Army were between 18 and 46 at the time of enlistment; all but 3.3% of the officers fell into that age bracket. The average age was slightly under 26 years"... There were; 127 aged 13 330 aged 14 773 aged 15 2758 aged 16 6425 aged 17 133, 475 aged 18 90,215 aged 19 71,058 aged 20 97,136 aged 21 "From there it gradually went down until" by age 45; 7012 aged 45 967 aged 46 2366 aged 50 or over. jim