That which was not understood, and which still remains to be accounted for, was the conduct of the thousands of Southern Unionists who did not express their opinions and maintain their faith with the firmness and effectiveness which had been widely hoped for and expected in the North.

From the timidity of the friends of the Union and the boldness of the advocates of Secession, it is not difficult to understand how the large class of poor whites in the South could be urged into a contest in which every blow struck by them was in support of a system to whose baleful influence they owed their own ignorance, their social degradation, their pitiable poverty.
The wonder excited by the raising of the vast army which saved the Union from destruction was even surpassed by the wonder excited by its prompt and peaceful dissolution.

On the day that the task of disbandment was undertaken, the Army of the United States bore upon its rolls the names of one million five hundred and sixteen men (1,000,516).

The killed, and those who had previously retired on account of wounds and sickness and from the expiration of shorter terms of service, aggregated, after making due allowance for re-enlistments of the same persons, at least another million.

The living among these had retired gradually during the war, and had resumed their old avocations, or, in the great demand for workmen created by the war itself, had found new employment.