How badly outnumbered was the Confederate Army?
A total of 2,200,000 men fought for the Union and 800,000 fought for the Confederacy; but that does not mean the Confederates were outnumbered nearly 3:1 on the battlefield. Union armies averaged about 25-30% more men on the battlefield, but sometimes the numbers were fairly even or favored the Confederates. In most battles, superior leadership, not more manpower, determined the outcome. Often poor Union commanders in the East (McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker) badly deployed their superior numbers and failed to get many brigades into the fighting, so the size of the Union armies on the battlefield generally was not nearly as overwhelming as it might appear “on paper.” The real manpower advantage of the North was in reinforcements. Because of the smaller population (including millions of slaves), the South was running out of fighting men by 1864. A higher percentage of white Southern men served in the Confederate Army (80% compared to 50% in the North). The North had a 4:1 numerical a
