" September 9 he imagined Johnston to have 130,000
men, against his own 85,000; and he argued that Johnston could move
upon Baltimore a column 100,000 strong, which he could meet with only
60,000 or 70,000. Later in October he marked the Confederates up to
150,000. He estimated his own requirement at a "total effective force"
of 208,000 men, which implied "an aggregate, present and absent, of
about 240,000 men." Of these he designed 150,000 as a "column of active
operations;" the rest were for garrisons and guards. He said that in
fact he had a gross aggregate of 168,318, and the "force present for
duty was 147,695." Since the garrisons and the guards were a fixed
number, the reduction fell wholly upon the movable column, and reduced
"the number disposable for an advance to 76,285." Thus he made himself
out to be fatally overmatched. But he was excessively in error. In the
autumn Johnston's effective force was only 41,000 men, and on December
1, 1861, it was 47,000.[152]
Such comparisons, advanced with positiveness by the highest authority,
puzzled Mr. Lincoln. They seemed very strange, yet he could not disprove
them, and was therefore obliged to face the perplexing choice which was
mercilessly set before him: "either to go into winter quarters, or to
assume the offensive with forces greatly inferior in number" to what
was "desirable and necessary." "If political considerations render the
first course unadvisable, the second alone remains.
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