William F. Fox, Lt. Col. U. S. V., Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865: A Treatise on the extent and nature of the mortuary losses in the Union regiments, with full and exhaustive statistics compiled from the official records on file in the state military bureaus and at Washington

Chapter 14: the greatest battles of the war — list of victories and defeats — chronological list of battles with loss in each, Union and Confederate.

Gettysburg may be considered as the greatest battle for various reasons. The strategic issues involved were the most important; it was the turning point in the fortunes of the Confederates; the contending armies were not only large, but were at their best in point of discipline and experience; while the loss of life exceeded that of any other battle field of the war.

Antietam was the bloodiest battle. More men were killed on that one day than on any other one day of the war. There were greater battles, with greater loss of life, but they were not fought out in one day as at Antietam. At Gettysburg, Chancellorsville and Spotsylvania, the fighting covered three days or more; at the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, Shiloh. Stone's River, Chickamauga and Atlanta the losses were divided between two days of fighting; but, at Antietam, the bloody work commenced at sunrise, and by four o'clock that afternoon it was over.

At the Seven Days battle, Lee's army numbered 94, 138¹ effective men actually engaged. exclusive of non-combatants. There were present, 194 regiments and 16 battalions of infantry; 8 regiments and 6 battalions of cavalry; and 59 batteries of light artillery,--equivalent, in all, to 220 regiments. The casualty lists show that each of these commands was engaged, and they specify the loss in each. It was a grand army, composed of the flower of Southern manhood, and Lee never led its like again.

At the Wilderness, Gen. Grant's army, including the Ninth Corps, numbered 118, 769² effective men and 316 pieces of artillery. It included 236 regiments and 3 battalions of infantry; 35 regiments of cavalry; and 64 batteries of light artillery. They were veteran regiments, whose riven banners had waved amid the smoke of many hard fought fields.

But these figures represent the fighting men only, and the armies of Lee and Grant, as a whole, were really larger than these figures indicate. On April 30, 1864, there were in the Army of the Potomac 19,095 men on “extra or daily duty,” and 931 more in arrest, all of whom were present with Grant's army at tihe Willderness, in addition to the number who