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

[123] number of wounded is not always an exact, definite statement, owing to the slightly wounded which are counted in some regiments and not in others. It is sometimes difficult to draw the line between wounds, slight injuries, and lack of injury. The missing is a still more indefinite quantity, including, as it does, the captured, the missing, the stragglers, and, very often, many of the killed and wounded. But there is nothing indefinite about the status of the dead soldier, and, so, for purpose of comparison, it is better that the losses of the various regiments be stated in “killed or died of wounds,” and in that only.

When the total of the killed and died of wounds in any regiment is known, it is very easy to arrive at the number of its wounded, for the proportion, in the aggregate, is a definite and well known one, as has been previously shown.¹ True, this proportion will not always hold good for a regiment in the instance of some one battle; but, in all the battles of a regiment it will be found correct, the variations correcting themselves in the aggregate.

In these three hundred regiments, the title of each is accompanied by the name of its brigade, division, and corps. Of course, many regiments served in more than one brigade, and each brigade had several commanders. Still, in each case, the brigade mentioned will assist largely in identifying the regiment, or recalling to the hasty reader the campaigns in which it served. Lack of space debars the tedious details necessary to trace properly the changing organizations to which most regiments belonged.

The loss by disease in Confederate prisons is stated in many instances, but, at the same time, it is included in the column of “loss by disease, accidents, &c.”

In stating the total enrollments, care has been taken to subtract transferred men who were shifted from one company to another in the same regiment. Deductions are also made for men transferred to a regiment after the war had closed, many regiments having received large accessions from disbanded organizations just before their own muster-out. In comparing these enrollments with the muster-out-rolls, this fact must receive attention; otherwise, there would be an apparent discrepancy.

The bands are also omitted in the enrollments as stated here, as all regimental bands were ordered discontinued, and were mustered out during the summer of 1862. After that, no bands were enlisted, or paid as such, except brigade bands; and, if a regiment had a band, it was formed of enlisted men, or company musicians, detailed for that purpose.

In addition to the battles mentioned,--in which a regiment lost men killed or mortally wounded,--the engagements at which the regiment was “present” are also given. In some of the latter, losses were often sustained in wounded or missing men, but, as none of these wounded or missing are recorded among those who died of wounds, the battle does not appear in the tabulated list. In giving these additional battles at which a regiment was “Present, also,” intentional omission is made of a certain class of minor affairs which are often used by regimental historians to unduly swell their list of battles, but which, if given here, would only confuse or mislead a disinterested reader.

In the cavalry, however, these minor actions were so frequent, and resulted in so many casualties in wounded and captured men, that they form an important feature in the history of each mounted regiment. But the brief sketches given in the succeeding pages afford no room for the long and honorable list of additional actions in which each cavalry regiment participated,--actions replete with meritorious details, although they did not result in any loss of life. Still, the reader should bear these facts in mind to rightly appreciate the services rendered by the mounted regiments.

In most of the three hundred regiments mentioned in this chapter the figures opposite the list of battles show only the number who were killed or who died of wounds. The number of the killed, wounded, and missing, for the more important losses of each regiment, will be found in the notes appended in each case.

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