Did the Federals fight against superior numbers?
an Historical paper
This is not an idle question.
The historian has not yet definitely settled it. The ‘superior numbers’ of the
Confederates figure largely in the reports of nearly all the great battles.
Grant at
Shiloh says he fought against ‘overwhelming numbers;’ McClellan at
Richmond says he fought against ‘great odds;’
Keyes in his report of battles around
Richmond says, “The Confederates outnumbered us during the greater part of the day, four to one;”
Rosecrans says at
Stone's river he fought against ‘superior numbers,’ and at
Chickamauga he says his army withdrew from the field ‘in the face of overpowering numbers;’ McClernand at
Shiloh, said that the ‘Union forces were probably less than one-half the enemy,’ and
Pope, with his usual modesty, at the
second Bull Run, speaks of the ‘enormously superior force of the enemy.’
The stereotyped report of ‘overwhelming and overpowering’ numbers which came up from every lost battlefield called out from
Mr. Lincoln one of his best anecdotes.
An old
Illinois friend of
Mr. Lincoln who had two sons in the Army of the Potomac, called
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to see him at the
White House in the summer of 1862, and feeling a parental solicitude about the safety of his sons and their chances of success, asked
Mr. Lincoln how many men he thought
Jeff. Davis had in the field.
Lincoln responded that ‘
Jeff. Davis had 3,000,000 men in the field.’
This startled the old man. After regaining his composure he asked
Mr. Lincoln how he knew this fact.
Mr. Lincoln replied by saying, ‘I have 1,000,000 of men in the field, and whenever one of my generals gets whipped down in
Virginia he always says that the
Rebels had three men to his one.
Yes, sir, I have 1,000,000 in the field and
Jeff. Davis has 3,000,000.’
We have said that no correct history of the civil war has yet been written.
Most of the histories now before the public were written before all the official facts from both sides had been published.
The histories of the civil war up to this time have been written with pens dipped in the battle-blood of the fierce conflict, and at the high tide of personal and national prejudice.
The Roman Empire found no historian till
Gibbon arose and gave his immortal history 1,383 years after its fall.
Some Plutarch or
Gibbon will yet arise who will evolve the truth from the tomes of contradictory evidence now published, and give us a history which shall honor alike victor and vanquished.
In order to properly discuss the question, ‘Did the
Federals fight against superior numbers?’
it is necessary to compare the resources of the two governments.
The seceding States in 1861 had, in round numbers, a population of 8,000,000, about 4,000,000 of which were slaves.
The non-seceding States had a population of 24,000,000.
This gave the
Union side about three to one of the aggregate population.
The
Confederate States had a seaboard from the
Potomac to the mouth of the
Rio Grande in
Texas, and, having no navy, was exposed as much to naval attacks as those by land.
They were, in fact, a beleaguered fortress, girdled on one side by a line of battleships, and on the other by a line of bayonets.
In fact, the morning drum-beat of the
Federal navy was heard in an unbroken strain from
Fortress Monroe to where the
Mexic sea kisses the Mexic shore.
During the war six hundred vessels stood sentinel along the
Confederate coast.
The South having been cut off from the outside world by the blockade, and being an agricultural country, had neither navy-yards nor shops for the manufacture of cannon and small arms, and in the first battles her soldiers were often armed with shot-guns till they could capture better arms from the enemy.
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There were enlisted in the
Federal army during the war 2,778,304 soldiers, which was about twelve per cent. of her population; while, according to Federal statistics, the enrollment in the Confederate army was only 690,000, which was about seventeen per cent. of the population.
The Confederates, on the estimates made by
General Wright, agent for collection of Confederate statistics, deny that they ever had 690,000 enrolled, as the Army of the
Confederacy.
‘Absent and present,’ was as follows for each year: January, 1862, 318,011; January, 1863, 465,584; January, 1864, 472,781; January, 1865, 439,675.
（‘
Battles and Leaders,’ Vol.
IV., p. 768.)
Taking the
Federal enlistment at 2,778,304, and the number of Federals on the pay-roll May 1, 1865, at 1,000,516, it would give about thirty-seven per cent. of the enlistment present.
This would give, on the same basis, about 222,000 Confederates under arms.
This would preserve the ratio of 600,000 to 2,778,304 enlistments, and the general ratio of population, 8,000,000 to 24,000,000.
The difference between the
Confederate reports of January 1, 1865, 439,675, and the number paroled after the surrender, 174,000, is accounted for by the heavy losses of the
Confederates by death and desertion between January i, 1865, and the date of parole.
We now propose to select twelve of the greatest battles of the civil war, not that they are all decisive battles, but because they represent the largest forces engaged on both sides, and because the official record and ‘
Battles and Leaders’ furnish us reliable statistics as to the actual forces on or near these battlefields.
They are
Shiloh,
Stone's river,
Chickamauga,
Richmond,
second Bull Run,
Antietam,
Fredericksburg,
Chancellorsville,
Gettysburg, The Wilderness,
Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor.
Shiloh was the first great battle-test between the opposing armies of the
West.
Grant was there with the veterans of
Donaldson and Henry.
Sherman, with his splendid division on the right, while to his left were
McClernand,
Prentiss,
Wallace (W. H. L.), Hurleburt and
Stuart, with the division of
Lew Wallace only five miles away, and
Nelson's division of the Army of Ohio across the river at
Savannah, not more than seven miles from the field of battle.
Albert Sydney Johnson, the
Confederate commander, began forming his line of battle the day before about noon, and by 5 P. M. of the 5th his line was ready for action, though on account of the lateness of the hour the battle was postponed till the next morning.
At 5 o'clock the next morning, April 6, 1862, the battle opened by an
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assault along the entire Federal front with the corps of
Hardee,
Bragg and
Polk.
It is not our intention to attempt a description of the bloody tragedy.
Sherman's lines were broken,
Prentiss with his brigade was captured, Hurleburt and
McClernand and
Wallace were driven in utter rout.
At 6 o'clock P. M. the
Confederates occupied every camp of the
Federals except the one guarded by the gunboats on the bank of the
Tennessee.
The Federal army, which had fought with splendid gallantry that day, cowered that night on the river bank, no longer an army, but a disorganized mass of fugitives, many of whom were trying to cross the river on logs and such driftwood as the river afforded.
(See report of
McCook,
Crittenden and
Buell.) It is said that in the afternoon of
Waterloo, when
Napoleon's battalions had captured
La Ha Saynte, and
Wellington felt that the day would be lost, that, looking up to the sun, then seeming to stand still in the afternoon sky, he exclaimed, in the anguish of a grand despair, ‘Oh, that night or
Blucher would come!’
Blucher, with his fifty-two thousand Prussians, came, and
Wellington was saved.
Is it not probable that on that fatal Sunday afternoon at
Shiloh, when the very streams ran crimson, that
Grant's prayer was, ‘Oh, that night or
Buell would come’?
Buell, with his army of veterans, was then crossing the
Tennessee,
Nelson's division of which landed on the western bank in time to take part in the closing fight of the evening.
These soldiers, seeing the soldiers of
Grant cowering armless on the bank of the river begging for any kind of transportation across the
Tennessee, feeling the inspiration born of a forlorn hope,
Came as the winds come
When forests are rended,
Came as the storms come
When navies are stranded,
and, with the courage of the true American soldier, hurled themselves into the deserted breastworks of
Grant's fled army.
During the night of the 6th the broken fragments of
Grant's army were reorganized and united with
Buell's twenty-one thousand five hundred and seventy-nine fresh troops, and the battle was renewed at 5 A. M. on Monday, the 7th.
The Federals now took the offensive, and by 2 o'clock P. M. had driven back the
Confederates from the positions captured by them the day before.
The Confederates retired in good order, and no effort was made till the next day to
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pursue them, and they were allowed to take their own time to get back to
Corinth.
The first day's fight was a decisive victory for the
Confederates; the second day victory perched on the banners of the
Federals.
We give below the strength of
General Grant's army as compiled by the War Department, giving the last returns of the various commands made just before the battle:
Grant's army, present for duty, 49,314; total present, 38,052.
Deducting
Lew Wallace's division of 7,771 effectives, which was only five miles away, guarding the right flank, and for some cause did not participate in the first day's fight, and
General Grant's effectives are 41,543.
General Johnston's army at
Corinth, on the 3d of April, when he began the march to
Shiloh, twenty-three miles distant, numbered, total effectives of all arms, 38,773.
Of course many of these dropped out in the march, and were not present in the fight.
Summary—In the first day's battle, Federals, 41,543 effectives, with
Lew Wallace's division of 7,771 within five miles, and the gunboats,
Tyler and
Lexington, with four twenty-pound parrot guns in, and a battery of rifle guns.
First day, Confederates, 38,773 effectives.
Second day, Federals same as first day, except losses, with
Wallace's division of 7,771, and
Buell's 21,579 added.
Second day, Confederates the same as first day, less their losses on first day.
It is supposed from the most accurate statistics which can be gotten as to the loss, in both armies, the first day, that three-fourths of the entire loss occurred on that day. The Federal loss (‘
Battles and Leaders’ Vol.
I, p. 538.) was 3,049; three-fourths of this would be 9,783, for the loss of the first day. Deducting this amount from the 41,543 effectives of the first day, and it would give 31,760 effectives, to which add
Wallace's 7,771 and
Buell's 21,579, and the grand total of effectives for the
battle of Monday would be 61,110.
Applying this same rule to the
Confederates, the result would be as follows: The Confederate loss was 10,699; three-fourths of this amount, viz., 8,025, deducted from 38,775 effectives, would leave 30,748 Confederates for the field on Monday.
This gave
Grant, on Monday, 61,110;
Beauregard, on Monday, 30,748; difference in favor of
Grant, 30,362.
This was two to one against the
Confederates, lacking 386.
Verily, did the
Federals fight against ‘superior numbers’ at
Shiloh?
This battle made
Grant and
Sherman famous, and
Buell, the Blucher of the occasion, was soon retired into obscurity.
We do not propose to discuss in this article the generalship displayed
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on either side.
This is a matter for the future.
But were we to allow ourselves to speculate on this question we would be constrained to ask the
American people how it was that
General Grant, who up to this time had never achieved a single success except by vastly superior numbers, should have been accepted as the Moses to lead the
Union forces to victory and final triumph.
On December 31 and January 1-3, 1862-1862, the
Federal army, commanded by
General Rosecrans, met the
Confederates, commanded by
General Bragg, at
Stone's river, or
Murfreesboro.
The fight lasted a part of two days, the
Confederates withdrawing from the field, but carrying off their dead and wounded and artillery.
The last returns of
Rosecrans' army before this battle were as follows: Present for duty—Centre corps, 29,682; right wing, 13,779; left wing, 13,061; unattached forces, 9,748; total, 66,270.
Rosecrans, in his official report (
Official Records, Vol.
XX, p. 196), says: ‘We moved on the enemy with the following force: 46,940.
We fought the enemy with 43,400.’
Thus it will be seen that 3,540, or seven and one-half per cent, of those who ‘moved on’ the enemy did not participate in the battle.
The Confederates had ‘present for duty’ at this battle, 37,712.
Allowing them the seven and one-half per cent. granted the
Federals between the number that ‘moved on’ the enemy and those actually engaged in the fight, would give them a credit of 2,828, which would reduce their number actually engaged to 34,884.
It would then stand—Federals actually engaged in the fight, 43,400; Confederates, 34,884; difference in favor of Federals, 8,516.
This was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the war, and superb gallantry was shown on both sides.
We ask again: ‘Did the
Federals fight against superior numbers’ at
Stone's river?
The official losses reported on each side were as follows: Federals—Killed, 1,730; wounded, 7,802; captured, 3,717; total, 13,249.
Confederates—Killed, 1,294; wounded, 7,945; captured, 1,029; total, 10,266.
Losses of Federals over Confederates, 2,983.
The two great armies of the
West nerved themselves for a trial of their strength on the field of
Chickamauga on the 19th and 20th of September, 1863.
The soldiers in both armies had had their baptism of blood at
Shiloh and
Stone's river and
Gettysburg, and were veterans indeed.
The Federals were commanded by
General Rosecrans, while his divisions were commanded by such distinguished officers as
Thomas,
McCook,
Crittenden,
Sheridan,
Negley,
Granger and
Steedman.
The Confederates were commanded by General
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Bragg, with
Cleburne,
Cheatham,
Stewart,
Walker,
Bushrod Johnson,
Hindman, Law,
Preston,
Breckinridge and
Forrest as division commanders.
It was to be a battle of the Titans.
Rosecrans hung his fine army as a massive iron gate across the valley leading into
Chattanooga.
Thomas, whose pathway had always been lighted with the star of victory, was on the left,
Crittenden in the center and
McCook on the right.
Bragg placed his right wing under
Polk, with
D. H. Hill second in command, while Longstreeet commanded the left wing.
The battle opened along the whole line on the 19th, and the
Confederates were successful along their entire front, except on the
Federal left, where
Thomas seemed to have his wing of this great iron gate anchored in the everlasting rocks.
Cleburne threw his division against him only to recoil.
Cheatham and
Breckinridge hurled their veterans on his breastworks only to retire with great loss.
The iron gate was ajar on the right, on the center, but its left was as solid as the grand mountains overhanging it.
The second day the battle opened furiously.
The divisions of
Walker,
Preston,
Cheatham and
Cleburne foamed themselves away on
Thomas, but he stood like a rock.
Longstreet, commanding
Bragg's left wing, massing his divisions, making his right division the pivot, wheeled his entire wing to the right against
McCook and
Crittenden.
This was a conflict of giants.
McCook's splendid corps is soon ground to powder.
A Confederate division wedges itself in between
Crittenden and his command, and strikes it in the rear, and it vanishes and falls back, part of it in the rear of
Thomas and part of it on the nearest road to
Chattanooga.
Rosecrans leaves the field and sends word to
Thomas to do the best he can to save himself.
McCook and
Crittenden follow
Rosecrans to
Chattanooga looking for their lost commands.
The Federal right and center are now massed as a support to
Thomas.
Longstreet presses open the iron gate tills it hangs on only one hinge, and that hinge was
Thomas.
Thomas' corps was now girdled with a line of victorious bayonets, while
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered,
till at last, overwhelmed and beaten, he sullenly retires, fighting as he goes, till he is safe behind the hills of
Chattanooga.
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Rosecrans, in his report of September 10, 1863, the last made before the battle, has 63,143 effectives, after deducting all detachments which were absent. (
Official Records, Vol.
XXX, p. 169.)
In order to get absolutely correct statistics of
Bragg's army in this battle, the writer has gone through the regimental, brigade and division reports made at the time, and they show that
Bragg had effectives of all arms, 53,124.
Summarized, it is as follows: Federals 63,143; Confederates, 53,124; Federal excess, 10,019.
The losses were, Federals killed, 1,656; wounded, 9,749; captured, 4,774; total, 16,179.
Confederates killed, 2,389; wounded, 13,412; captured, 2,003; total, 17,804.
The abstract of returns for
Rosecrans' army on September 20, the day after the great battle of the 19th, is as follows: Present for duty, 67,877; present equipped, 60,867.
If
Rosecrans had 60,867 equipped for duty on the morning of the 20th, after the great losses of the day before, it is not possible that he had more than 63,143 at the beginning of the fight?
At 5.40 P. M. on the 22d
General Rosecrans telegraphed to
Mr. Lincoln from
Chattanooga that ‘we are about 30,000 brave and determined men.’
Rosecrans' army had occupied
Chattanooga several weeks before the
battle of Chickamauga, and was just as much in possession of
Chattanooga before the
battle of Chickamauga as after that event.
In his congratulatory address to his army, after they had been driven back on
Chattanooga after two days of bloody battle, he says: ‘When the day closed you held the field, from which you withdrew in the face of overpowering numbers to occupy the point for which you set out—Chattanooga.’
Had
Napoleon, when reaching
Paris after the disastrous rout of
Waterloo, issued to the survivors of the Old Guard an address congratulating them on the fact that they occupied ‘the point for which they set out—Paris,’ would not the world have considered it an unpardonable satire on their heroism?
The scene now shifts to
Virginia.
General McClellan with the best organized army seen since the days of
Napoleon, advances on
Richmond.
He advances till the spires and towers of the capital city are in full view of his beleaguering army.
The front of every division and corps is girdled with
abattis and breastworks.
Chickahominy is an entrenched camp from
Mechanicsville to
Malvern Hill.
The authorities at
Washington urged
McClellan on, but he would
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not move till he had the best organized army of the world to sustain him. There must be no mistake about capturing the
Rebel capital.
On the 26th of June the battle opened on the right wing of
McClellan at
Mechanicsville by an attack by
A. P. Hill on the breastworks of
Fitz John Porter.
Soon the roar of artillery is heard round the flank of
Porter and in his rear.
It was the wizard of the
Valley of Virginia, who but a few days ago had defeated in quick succession
McDowell,
Shields and
Fremont.
It was the guns of
Stonewall Jackson.
Porter made a brave fight, but no troops could stand long with
A. P. Hill assailing them in the front and
Stonewall Jackson in the rear.
They fell back on their next supports, and when these supports were driven away they continued to fall back for seven long, bloody days, leaving baggage, artillery and equipments to the victors, till
Malvern Hill is reached, and there they check the
Confederates, inflicting on them great loss, till their trains and artillery had so far passed that they could fall back to
Harrison's Landing on the
James river, some thirty miles further from
Richmond than they were on the first morning of battle.
The losses in these battles were enormous on both sides.
The Confederates were, in the main, poorly armed, and as they assailed the enemy behind breastworks their loss was much larger than the
Federals.
Comte-de-Paris, in his ‘
Civil War in America,’ Vol.
II, p. 76, gives us
General McClellan's army report for June 20, 1862, six days before the battle opened, and his total ‘present’ was 156,838, while his ‘present for duty’ was 115,102.
This seems a great disproportion between ‘present’ and ‘present for duty,’ but we accept this as the number that were engaged in battle under
General McClellan.
From the most accurate statistics obtainable from the
Confederates,
General Lee's army ranged between 82,000 and 85,000, no estimate from regimental returns making it over 85,000.
General McClellan, in his letter to the
Secretary of War July 3, 1862, says, ‘it is impossible to estimate our losses, but I doubt whether there are to-day more than 50,000 men with their colors.’
If the report of
General McClellan of June 20, 1862, is correct, then here are 115,102 Federal soldiers who, after fighting seven days against 82,000 to 85,000 Confederates, find themselves thirty miles further from
Richmond than when the battle commenced.
Verily, this was not one of the battles when the
Federals fought against superior numbers.
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The scene shifts, and
Stonewall Jackson's corps is again on the historic field of
Bull Run, the field which only thirteen months before gave him his immortal sobriquet, ‘
Stonewall.’
He had been guilty of a piece of Napoleonic rashness, which was the marching of his corps, in forty-eight hours, fifty-six miles, and quietly taking a position on the enemy's line of communication at
Manassas, having
Pope's army of 60,000 to 70,000 and
Rapidan river between his own little army and that of
General Lee, while to the north of him and distant only a few miles, lay the garrison of Washington city, 40,000 strong.
After having destroyed many army supplies he begins to retreat, assailed as he was by all of
Pope's available army.
He fights a great battle on the 28th, holding the surging masses of the enemy at bay till nightfall.
The next day
Pope's entire army girdled him as with a zone of fire, but at this fateful moment a very sunburst of glittering bayonets pours through Thoroughfare Gap and adjacent hills, and the banner which floats over them is that of
Longstreet.
The field was an open one, and nerved, perhaps, by the memories of the
First Bull Run, prodigies of valor were performed by both armies, but at the close of the day
Pope's veterans had fretted themselves away against
Jackson's ironsides and
Longstreet's ‘Hearts of Oak,’ and, routed, riven, they flee, and the bulk of that proud army finds itself, in less than forty-eight hours, safe under the guns of
Washington.
General Pope had in this battle 63,000 effectives (See ‘
Battles and Leaders,’ Vol.
II, pp. 499-500), while on the same authority
Lee's army numbered 54,000.
Federal loss, killed, 1,747; wounded, 8,452; captured, 4,263; total, 14,462.
Confederate loss, killed, 1,553; wounded, 7,812; captured, 109; total, 9,474.
August melts itself away, and Indian summer hangs its veil of film-like witchery over the hills of ‘
Maryland, my
Maryland.’
Pope has been replaced, and
McClellan controls the united armies of the
James and the
Potomac.
Lee's army, after a series of minor conflicts, finds itself brought to bay on the plateau between the
Antietam and the
Potomac.
It is a glorious battlefield for armies of equal strength.
It was full of danger to the smaller army, with a great river in its rear in case of disaster.
McClellan comes to retrieve the disasters of
Richmond, and to infuse new life in the vanishing
morale of
Pope's disheartened army.
It is an open field and a fair fight.
It was a conflict between two chiefs who had walked face to
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face the fiery edge of battle on the banks of the
Chickahominy.
Hooker's veteran division assailed with intrepid daring
Lee's right, but as
Gibraltar has dashed for ages the Mediterranean wave, so dashed
Lee the assaulting column.
Then
McClellan's oncoming hosts fling themselves with reckless courage on
Lee's center, but ‘as roll a thousand waves to the rock, so Swaran's hosts came on; as meets a rock a thousand waves, so Inisfail met Swaran.’
The sun rises to the zenith, and
Lee's army still holds its front of flame defiant to
McClellan's hosts.
Burnside occupies the
Federal left, but a dangerous bridge across the
Antietam has to be crossed ere he can have an equal chance in the fight.
But only after being held in check, with enormous slaughter, for four and a half hours by 219 men of
Toombs' brigade, by a heroic dash he crosses the bridge and pushes
Lee's column back into the edge of the village of
Sharpsburg.
But
Lee, anticipating this movement, sends five brigades, under
A. P. Hill, from his left and center, and
Burnside is hurled back with great loss.
'Tis the bloodiest day in the ides of
Maryland.
The September frost had already painted the forest with crimson-war had that day left her carmine footprints on her soil.
It is a drawn battle.
Lee remained on the battlefield till the night of the 18th, and then quietly withdrew and crossed the
Potomac into
Virginia.
General McClellan had on and near this battlefield 87,164 troops, and
General Lee had 40,000.
(See ‘
Battles and Leaders,’ Vol.
II, p. 603.)
In the eighteen days of the
Maryland campaign, which includes
Harper's Ferry,
Lee's army, never larger than 40,000, fought the battles of
South Mountain, Crampton's Gap,
Harper's Ferry,
Sharpsburg (
Antietam), and
Shepherdstown, losing in killed, wounded and captured, 11,172; while
McClellan, with an army of 87,000, lost, killed, 2,662; wounded, 11,719; captured, 13,494, a total of 27,875.
(See Vol. 1, p. 810, for Confederate loss, and the same volume for Federal loss.)
Lee retires his army to
Fredericksburg, on the south bank of the
Rappahannock, and
McClellan moves his army to the other side.
Both armies go into winter-quarters.
McClellan's head, like
Pope's, has fallen under the official axe of the War Department, and
Burnside is now the commander.
Burnside's army crossed on pontoons and made several heroic attempts to storm
Marye's Heights, but were driven back with great slaughter.
Burnside on December 13th, had 116,683 present;
Lee, on December
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13th, had 58,500 present (See ‘
Battles and Leaders,’ Vol.
III, p. 143); difference in favor of the
Federals, 58,183.
Burnside lost, killed, 1,384; wounded, 9,600; captured, 1,769; total, 12,653.
Lee lost, killed, 458; wounded, 4,743; total, 4,201.
Burnside has failed to capture
Fredericksburg, and his head goes into the War Department's official waste basket, and ‘Fighting’
Joe Hooker takes command of the
Federal forces.
His forces from May 1-3, 1863, were 130,000, with 404 pieces of artillery, while
Lee's were 60,000, with 170 pieces of artillery.
(See ‘
Battles and Leaders,’ Vol.
III, p. 233.)
General Hooker's abstract of returns for April 30th, when his advance on
Lee began, was as follows: Present for duty, 157,990; present equipped, 133,708; artillery, 404 pieces.
General Couch, commander of the second corps, and second in command to
Hooker, estimates
Hooker's seven corps at 113,000, ready for duty, not counting 1,000 cavalry and reserve artillery, and 400 cannon, and his estimate of
General Lee's army was 55,000 to 60,000, not including cavalry (‘
Battles and Leaders,’ Vol.
III,) and on page 161 of this volume he says
Hooker's artillery ‘was equal to any in the world.’
Hooker takes the greater part of his army, leaving
Sedgwick 30,000 strong to threaten
Fredericksburg, and marches up the northern bank of the
Rappahannock and crosses his army to attack
General Lee in the rear.
His army has crossed successfully the
Rappahannock, and he issues the following congratulatory address, being
general order No. 47: ‘It is with heartfelt satisfaction that the commanding general announces to the army that the operations of the last three days have determined that our enemy must either ingloriously fly or come out from behind their defences and give us battle on our own ground,
when certain destruction awaits him.’
(Italics ours.) On May 1st, after the successful crossing of his troops,
Hooker says, ‘I have
Lee just where I want him. He must fight me on my own ground.’
At 2 P. M. of the same day he said, ‘
Lee is in full retreat toward
Gordonsville.
I have sent out
Sickles to capture his artillery.’
This flank movement of
Hooker made
Lee remove the larger part of his army to the rear of
Fredericksburg in order to confront the forces of
Hooker.
Lee had come out from his defences.
Lee then occupied a position between the two great wings of
Hooker's army, either of which was numerically able to crush him. It was a position
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of great danger.
Hooker presses his grand army down to
Chancellorsville, with his right commanded by
Howard.
Lee confronts him at
Chancellorsville, and in the meantime
Stonewall Jackson works himself around and strikes, like a thunderbolt,
Howard's right wing and doubles it back.
Hooker's center is held at bay by
Lee, but in the meantime
Sedgwick crosses his 30,000 troops over the
Rappahannock, and attacks the fortifications in rear of
Fredericksburg and captures them, and then advances on
Lee.
Lee, having checked and to some extent routed
Hooker's right and center, withdraws a portion of his troops and assails
Sedgwick.
After a bloody fight,
Sedgwick is driven back across the
Rappahannock.
Hooker is disabled by a shock of cannon ball, and he turns his army over to
General Couch and retires across the river.
He had ‘
Lee just where he wanted him,’ but circumstances made it necessary for him to find safety on the northern bank of the
Rappahannock.
Soon his whole army crossed to the northern bank, and thus ended
Hooker's ‘On to
Richmond.’
The losses in this great battle were as follows: Federals—Killed, 1,606; wounded, 9,762; captured, 5,919; total, 17,287.
Confederates—Killed, 1,649; wounded, 9,106; captured, 1,708; total, 12,463.
(See ‘
Battles and Leaders,’ Vol.
III. p. 233.) Summarized, it is as follows: Federals, 130,000; Confederates, 60,000.
Federal loss, 17,287; Confederate loss, 12,463.
Excess of Federal army, 70,000; excess of Federal loss, 4,884.
This campaign on the rear of
Lee was a brilliant conception on the part of
Hooker.
Hooker had in this campaign 10,000 more soldiers than
Wellington had on the field of
Waterloo, and 48,000 more than marshalled under the banner of
Napoleon.
Wellington, with his 120,000, crushed
Napoleon with his 72,000.
Hooker, with his 130,000 fled, leaving
Lee, with his 60,000, master of the field.
The battle-cloud lifts itself from
Chancellorsville and the
Wilderness, but not for long, as the coming
May will rebaptize these fields with the blood of slaughtered thousands.
Two months from the day when
Hooker's splendid army was driven by
Lee across the
Rappahannock, these same armies confronted each other on the heights of
Gettysburg.
Hooker's official head has gone to sleep in the waste-basket of decapitated generals, with those of
Pope,
McClellan and
Burnside, and
General Meade, a brave and cautious soldier, commands all the forces for the defense of the capital at
Washington.
Lee's army is there, but the wizard of
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the
Valley of Virginia, whose cyclonic stroke had pulverized
Hooker's right at
Chancellorsville, and who, on his many battlefields, had known no other song than the shout of victory, had ‘crossed over the river.’
The South, to her remotest borders, ‘gave signs of woe’ over his death, and
Lee had spoken of him as his ‘right arm,’ while a northern poet, in a poem of exquisite beauty, calls him ‘a light—a landmark in the clouds of war.’
These great armies met by an accidental collision around the village of
Gettysburg, the
Federals having possession of the commanding heights of
Seminary Ridge,
Cemetery Hill, Little and Big Round Top. Too many able pens have already wasted their wealth of expression in describing this great conflict for us, in the brief limits of this article, to attempt a description of this great battle.
It is our province to fairly portray the numbers and resources of the combatants.
According to abstracts of returns for
General Meade's army, June 30th, the day before the battle, he had, including the reinforcements which reached him during the battle, 101,679 effectives.
In an editorial note of the volume in which this abstract is found—viz: ‘
Battles and Leaders,’ Vol.
III-is the following in regard to
General Lee's strength: ‘It is reasonable to conclude that
General Lee had under his command on the field of battle, from first to last, an army of 70,000.’
General Meade's abstract of June 30th, for ‘present equipped,’ was 98,150.
This would give
General Meade 28,150 in excess of
General Lee.
The student of history in the far-off future, when reading of how
Pickett's and
Pettigrew's men charged unflinchingly through this valley of the shadow of death, into the very entrenched works of
Cemetery Hill and then melted away as wreaths of vapor before a July sun, will meditate on what ‘might have been’ if
Stonewall Jackson had been there with 21,500 fresh soldiers, the number necessary to have equalized the strength of the opposing armies.
General Lee, in his report, says the battle closed after the repulse of
Pickett and
Pettigrew's charge on the afternoon of July 3d.
Lee then fell back to his line of the morning.
The order to recross the
Potomac was given the night of July 4th, twenty-four hours after the fight was over, and
Ewell's corps did not leave
Gettysburg till late in the afternoon of the 5th, full forty-eight hours after the close of the battle on the 3d.
(See Report of
General Lee, ‘
Official Records,’ Vol.
XXVII, pages 313-325.)
Lee carried back into
Virginia seven pieces
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more of artillery than he carried with him into
Pennsylvania.
(See Report of Lieutanant-
Colonel Briscoe,
Chief of Ordnance, ‘
Official Record’ Vol.
XXVII, page 357.)
At ten minutes past 4 o'clock P. M. on the 4th
General Meade says that he ‘would make a reconnoisance the next day (5th) to see where the enemy was,’ and in that telegram reports his effectives, ‘exclusive of cavalry, baggage guards, ambulance attendants, etc., as 55,000.’
Now, supposing the cavalry corps which was present at
Gettysburg, 12,653, had lost as many as 653, it would leave 12,000 to be added to the 55,000, making 67,000 outside ‘baggage guards and ambulance attendants,’ to which add 23,003, losses in the battle, and it gives
General Meade 90,003 as present in the fight or on the field.
Even on this basis,
General Meade had 20,000 more soldiers present on the field than had
General Lee.
While the
Federals reaped the material as well as the moral fruits of that victory, yet the fact that a part of
Lee's army lingered around
Gettysburg for two days after the battle, and that it was ten months before
Meade's army was ready for an advance on
Richmond, shows at what a great cost the victory was achieved.
The personal loss of friends on both sides at
Gettysburg was so great, and the wounds are yet too fresh for us to contemplate without passion that field of slaughter; but the coming bard in the far-off years will tell how the Tennesseans, Alabamians,
Virginians and North Carolinians charged with
Pickett and
Pettigrew,
Armistead and
Garnett, into the very ‘gates of hell’ on
Cemetery Hill.
Ten months after the
battle of Gettysburg these same armies confront each other on the
Rappahannock.
Meade's head has joined company with
McClellan,
Pope,
Burnside and
Hooker, and
General Grant, who, with the aid of
Porter's fleet with 300 cannon and 75,000 men, had, between November 1, 1862, and July 4, 1863 overrun the
State of Mississippi and captured
Vicksburg, whose largest force within the campaign had only been 40,000, was there as commander; not as a general of a particular army, but as generalissimo of the armies of the
United States.
General Grant, perhaps because he did not wish to follow in the footsteps of
McClellan, adopted the overland route to
Richmond by way of the
Wilderness,
Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor.
He crossed the
Rappahannock with 118,000 veteran troops, while
General Lee confronted him with 62,000.
(See ‘
Battles and Leaders,’ Vol.
IV, page 179.)
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General Grant's tactics were to flank
Lee out of all his fortifications and to interpose his army between him and
Richmond.
Having numerically a vastly superior army, he could simply leave
Lee in his fortifications and beat him in the race to
Richmond.
When
Grant had crossed the river and began his flanking,
Lee struck his right flank and, in a battle of two days in which great endurance and courage were shown by both armies,
Grant was beaten, with a loss of 2,246 killed, 12,037 wounded and 3,383 captured; a total loss of 17,666.
Grant then moved his army towards
Richmond, and
Lee confronts him at
Spotsylvania, and a two days battle ensues, and
Grant retires with a loss of 2,725 killed, 13,416 wounded, and 2,258 captured; a total loss of 18,399.
In the meantime
Sheridan makes two raids on
Richmond.
After the repulse at
Spotsylvania,
Grant is met at
North Anna, where his loss is 591 killed, 2,734 wounded and 661 captured; a total loss of 3,986.
Grant then moves by the left flank, intending to assault
Richmond by way of Cold Harbor, but on arriving at that point
Lee is there, and there occurred one of the bloodiest battles of the war, in which in less than one hour of actual battle
Grant lost 1,884 killed, 9,077 wounded, and 1,816 captured; a total loss of 12,737.
Grant had lost in the battles of the
Wilderness,
Spotsylvania and
North Anna, 40,051, and had when he reached Cold Harbor, 103,875, and was there reinforced with
Smith's corps 12,500 strong, which made his effective force at that battle 116,375.
As his original army when he crossed the
Rappahannock was 181,000, and he had lost before reaching Cold Harbor 40,051, then he had left his original army, 118,000, less 40,051, which is 77,949; but as his report at Cold Harbor before the fight was 103,875 plus 12,500
Smith's corps, making 116,375, he must have received, after crossing the
Rappahannock, 38,426 reinforcements.
Grant's army, then, from the day he left the
Rappahannock up to and including the fight at Cold Harbor, was 156,426, leaving
Butler's army south of the
James, depleted only by
Smith's corps of 12,500.
Lee's army on the
Rappahannock was 62,000, to which add 14,400 reinforcements, makes his entire force, up to and including the fight at Cold Harbor, 76,400, against
Grant's 156,426.
Grant's losses, beginning at the
Wilderness, including the
Sheridan's two raids and the
battle of Cold Harbor, were as follows: Killed 7,620, wounded 38,342, captured 8,967; making an aggregate loss of 54,929 between May 5th and June 3d; and in
Butler's army,
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which was simply a wing of
Grant, the loss within the same time was—killed, wounded and captured—6,215.
Summarized,
Grant's losses for thirty days were as follows: Killed 8,254, wounded 42,245, captured 10,645; total, 61,144.
(See
Battles and leaders, Vol.
IV, pp. 184, 185.)
The
battle of Cold Harbor was fought on June 3, 1864.
We give below the monthly returns of the effectives of
Grant's and
Lee's armies for each month thereafter up to December 31, 1864:
| Grant. | Lee. |
| June 30 | 107,419 | 54,751 |
| July 31 | 77,321 | 57,079 |
| August 31 | 58,923 | 34,677 |
| September 30 | 76,775 | 35,088 |
| October 31 | 85,046 | 47,307 |
| November 30 | 86,723 | 56,424 |
| December 31 | 110,364 | 66,533 |
| （‘Battles and Leaders.’
Vol. 3, pp. 593, 594.) |
From June 3d, not including Cold Harbor,
Grant's loss was, to December 31, 1864, 47,554.
（‘
Battles and Leaders,’ Vol. 4. p. 593.)
If grant's effectives were, on December 31st, 110,364 and he had sustained between June 3d and that date a loss of 47,554, he must have had an army, between those dates, of 157,918.
If to this we add the losses between the
Rappahannock between May 5th to and including Cold Harbor on June 3d, 61,244, the sum total of
Grant's army from May 5th to December 31st was 219,162.
In other words,
Grant, after a campaign from May 5th to December 31st, had an army of 219,162 soldiers and having on hand December 31 only 110,364, he must then have lost during that time 108,798.
Since the days of the coalition against
Napoleon no grander army ever appeared than that controlled by
Grant in his advance to
Richmond.
Major-General Webb, United States army, in his ‘
Through the Wilderness’ (‘
Battles and Leaders,’ Vol.
III, p. 152), says: ‘
Grant's army, 118,000 men, properly distributed for battle, would have covered a front of twenty-one miles, two ranks deep, with one-third of them held in reserve, while
Lee with 62,000 men similarly disposed would cover only twelve miles.
Grant had a train which, he states in his “Memoirs,” would have reached from the
Rapidan to
Richmond, or sixty-five miles.’
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At the end of thirty days
General Grant found himself, after a loss of 54,929, within ten miles of
Richmond, a point which he might have reached without the loss of a man. War's appetite for slaughter was gorged in this brief campaign, and while we do not propose to discuss the generalship of the overland route to
Richmond, the friends of those who fell at the
Wilderness and
Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor must sometimes feel that they were the victims more of a political prejudice than of a military necessity.
Lee's entire army, from the
Rappahannock and including Cold Harbor was 76,400.
If his losses were as great as
Grant's, that is, 54,929, then he would have had only 21,471 of his original army left.
This campaign had reduced the result of the war to a mathematical problem.
Grant's army was the upper millstone, two inches thick, and
Lee's was the nether-stone, one inch thick.
The friction being the same, it required little mathematical knowledge to divine the result.
For the benefit of the future historian, we compile the following statistics issued by the
Adjutant-General's Office of the
United States July 15, 1885:
| Total enlistments in Union army | | 2,778,304 |
| Deducting Indians | 3,530 |
| Deducting Negroes | 178,975 | 182,505 |
| | ——— |
| Total enlistment of white men | | 2,595,799 |
The seceding States of
Alabama,
Arkansas,
Florida,
Louisiana,
Mississippi,
North Carolina,
South Carolina,
Tennessee,
Texas and
Virginia (then including
West Virginia) furnished to the
Federal army 86,009 white troops, while the slave-holding States, Kentucky,
Maryland and
Missouri, which never formally seceded, furnished to the
Federal army 190,430 white soldiers, and the negro population of the various States furnished 178,975 negro troops.
Summarized, it is as follows:
| White soldiers furnished to Federal army by seceded States, | 86,009 |
| White soldiers furnished to Federal army by non seceding slave States | 190,430 |
| Negro troops | 178,975 |
| ——— |
| Total troops furnished United States army by slave-holding States | 455,414 |
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The largest muster-roll of the Southern Confederacy (See ‘
Battles and Leaders’ Vol.
IV, page 768) was on January 1, 1864, and was 472,781.
Deducting 455,414, troops furnished by the
Southern States to the
Federal army, from 472,781 on the
Confederate roll January I, 1864, it would be as follows:
| Troops on Confederate muster-roll January I, 1864 | 472,781 |
| Troops furnished by Southern States to Federal army | 455,414 |
| —— |
| 17,367 |
In other words, the
Southern States contributed to the
Federal army within 17,367 as many soldiers as the
Confederacy had on its rolls January 1, 1864.
Efforts have been made to get the number of foreigners enlisted in the
Federal army, outside of those who were previously naturalized, but no accurate statistics have been found on that subject.
It may safely be estimated at 144,586.
General Wright, agent for the United States Government for the collection of Confederate statistics, gives 600,000 as the greatest number of soldiers enlisted in the
Confederate service.
Tabulated, it would be as follows:
| Total Confederates enlisted | | 600,000 |
| Federals from Southern States | 276,439 |
| Negroes | 178,975 |
| Foreigners (estimated) | 144,586 |
| ——— | 600,000 |
Above we have given the ‘estimated’ number of foreigners enlisted as soldiers in the
Federal army.
Later statistics show the nationality of all foreigners who fought for the
Union as follows: Germans, 176,800;
Irish, 144,200;
British Americans, 53,500;
English, 45,500; other foreigners, 74,900; total, 494,900.
It will be seen that our estimate of 144,586 was really far below the actual facts.
Thus it will be seen that the
Federals had an army fully as large or larger than the entire Confederate enlistments without drawing a man from the
Northern or non-slaveholding States.
The Federal army in its report for May 1, 1865, had present for duty 1,000,516, while it had ‘present equipped’ 602,598.
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The Confederates on April 9, 1865, had 174,223 who were paroled, which added to their prisoners then in Federal prisons, 98,802, made an army of 272,025.
Thus it stood at the time of the surrender— Federals, 1,000,56, and Confederates, 272,025.
That it may not appear that we have taken a one-sided view of the number of Federals to overcome a given number of Confederates, we append the conclusions, written many years after the war, by a brave and distinguished Federal General—
Don Carlos Buell—copied from his article, ‘
Battles and Leaders,’ page 51, Vol.
III, entitled ‘
East Tennessee and the Campaign of
Perryville,’ which is as follows:
‘A philosophical study of our civil conflict must recognize that influences of some sort operated fundamentally for the side of the
Confederacy in every prominent event of the war, and nowhere with less effect than in the
Tennessee and
Kentucky campaign.
They are involved in the fact that it required enormous sacrifices from 24,000,000 of people to defeat the political scheme of 8,000,000; 2,000,000 of soldiers to subdue 800,000 soldiers; and, descending to detail, a naval fleet and 15,000 troops to advance against a weak fort manned by less than 100 men, at
Fort Henry; 35,000 with naval co-operation to overcome 12,000 at
Fort Donelson; 60,000 to secure a victory over 40,000 at
Pittsburg Landing (
Shiloh); 120,000 to enforce the retreat of 65,000 intrenched, after a month of fighting and manoeuvering at
Corinth; 100,000 repelled by 80,000 in the first
peninsular campaign against
Richmond; 70,000, with a powerful naval force to inspire the campaign, which lasted nine months, against 40,000 at
Vicksburg; 90,000 to barely withstand the assault of 70,000 at
Gettysburg; 15,000 sustaining a frightful repulse from 60,000 at
Fredericksburg; 100,000 attacked and defeated by 50,000 at
Chancellorsville; 85,000 held in check two days by 40,000 at
Antietam; 43,000 retaining the field uncertainly against 38,000 at
Stone's river; 70,000 defeated at
Chickamauga and beleaguered by 70,000 at
Chattanooga; 80,000 merely to break the investing line of 45,000 at
Chattanooga; 100,000 to press back 50,000 (afterwards increased to 70,000) from
Chattanooga to
Atlanta, a distance of 120 miles; 500,000 to defeat the investing line of 30,000 at
Nashville; and finally, 120,000 to overcome 60,000 with exhaustion after a struggle of a year in
Virginia.’
We are not discussing the question of ‘which is the better soldier.’
There are logical reasons why it took three or more Federals to
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overcome one Confederate.
It was not for want of courage on the part of the
Federal soldier.
The men who laid their lives on the sacrificial altar in front of
Marye's Heights, the men who stormed the ‘
Bloody Angle’ at
Spotsylvania, were certainly brave men, vet the fact stands uncontested that the
Confederates, with 600,000 held at bay for four years the
Federals with 2,778,304.
Colonel Dodge, in the August (1891) number of the
Century, speaks of the subduing of the
South as having been ‘well done and in a reasonable time.’
When we remember that the coalition against
Napoleon in 1814 invaded
France in January, and in sixty days they had her capital in their possession and
Napoleon was in exile; when we remember that the next coalition against
France was made on March 25, 1815, and that in less than ninety days
Napoleon was a prisoner, and
France was at the feet of the allies; when we remember that in the Franco-Prussian war the German army in less than six months from the declaration of war sang the songs of their Fatherland under the shadows of the Tuilleries, we may think the subduing of the
South may have been well done, yet we do not think that in point of time it was a great military achievement.
Some of the readers of this article may ask why it was ever written.
We answer frankly, it was written simply to focalize the facts of history so they might be accessible to those who had not the time to go through many volumes of official records to find them.
The current history of the day, as taught in our public schools, has impressed the children of those who sustained the ‘Lost Cause’ as though the history of their ancestors would not bear criticism.
These children have heard nothing but the songs of the victors, and it is due them that they should have the facts of history as presented by the official records, to prove to them that though the children of the vanquished, yet they are descended from heroes.
We say to the victors, Raise your
Arc de Triomphe and write in letters of gold,
Vicksburg,
Gettysburg,
Appomattox, and our children will pass with uncovered heads under its shining arch; but let them, as they look up through their tears at the obverse side of this arch, see written, ‘Federal enlistments, 2,778,304; Confederate enlistments, 600,000,’ and this is all they ask.
It is the truth which makes a man free.
In this article we have spoken unstintingly of the gallantry of the
Federals on many hard-fought fields, and have not spoken, except incidentally, of the bravery and endurance of the
Confederates.
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The
North, after four years of bloody battle, with an enlistment of 2,535,799 white soldiers, calling in her dire extremity for 178,795 negroes to help her subdue an army never numerically one-fourth as strong, by this act placed the capstone on the arch of Confederate valor, and with this we are satisfied.
The Union Army has the glory of success, but the gallantry and endurance of the
Confederates will be the inspiration of the epic of the coming years.
