Note 16 — Chapter X

The higher death-rate (if that be conceded) of southern soldiers is easily accounted for. The northern soldiers had been carefully selected by competent surgeons. They were physically perfect, or nearly so. They were in the bloom of early manhood or the strength of middle age—not an old man among them, not a diseased man among them, not a broken-down constitution among them. But multitudes of the southern, enrolled by conscription, were physically unfit. Many were much too old or too young. Said our General Grant, "To fill their ranks, they have robbed the cradle and the grave!"