The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 104, July 2000 - April, 2001 Page: 34
673 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
the estimated number of soldiers by the aggregate male population
reported in the census-that produced similarly high estimates for
Texas. Larry Logue, in the only available study that began with census
data and then sought information on military service, took a sample of
1,olo white males aged 13 to 45 in the 186o census for Mississippi and
found that 65 percent of those men entered the army. This statistic is
notably higher than that for Harrison County (51.4 percent when the
age range is limited to thirteen to forty-five), but then Mississippi proba-
bly had more dedicated support for the Confederacy than did Texas.
Northern communities, by contrast, had somewhat lower proportions of
service by their 186o military-age populations. For example, in Newbury-
port, Massachusetts, 45 percent, and in Newport, New Hampshire, 40
percent of those aged thirteen to forty-three served. In Kenosha County,
Wisconsin, the comparable statistic was 39 percent among those aged
thirteen to forty-five. These studies, however, also simply divided the
number of soldiers by the totals reported in the published census and
thus, if findings for Harrison County apply elsewhere, overstate the pro-
portion who actually served.26
Turning to demographic characteristics, an examination of age shows,
not surprisingly, that the men who served were approximately five years
younger than those who did not. Soldiers from the military-age group
had a median age of twenty-three in 186o, whereas the median for non-
soldiers was twenty-eight (see Table 2). For those who served, the rela-
tionship between age and the time they entered the army is revealing.
The median age in 186o of men who began service in 1861 was twenty-
two; for those who entered in 1862, twenty-four; and for those who
entered in 1863, thirty-three. This upward progression ended in 1864
when the few individuals (only fifteen) who joined the army that late in
the war had a median age in i86o of fourteen.
A comparison of the birthplaces of those who served and those who
did not confirmed a pattern that might be expected (see Table 2).
Among those who entered the military, 63 percent were natives of states
in the lower South, 32 percent were from Upper South states, and only
5 percent were from the free states and foreign nations. Among those
who did not serve, 54 percent were from the Lower South, 31 percent
from the Upper South, and 15 percent from the free states and foreign
26 Maris A. Vinovskis, "Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War? Some Demographic Spec-
ulations,"Journal of American History, 76 (June, 1989), 40; Larry M. Logue, "Who Joined the Con-
federate Army? Soldiers, Civilians, and Communities in Mississippi," Journal of Social History, 26
(Spring, 1993), 613; Thomas R. Kemp, "Community and War: The Civil War Experience of Two
New Hampshire Towns," in Maris A. Vinovskis (ed.), Toward a Social History of the American Civil
War: Exploratory Essays (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 59; Kurt Hackemer,
"Response to War: Civil War Enlistment Patterns in Kenosha County, Wisconsin," Military Hstory
of the West, 29 (Spring, 1999), 34.July
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 104, July 2000 - April, 2001, periodical, 2001; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101221/m1/62/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.