Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 1.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

There may have been that number of men borne upon the rolls of the brigade, but we have General Ripley's official report of the number of troops under his command that actually took part in the battles around Richmond.

At page 234, volume 1 of the official report already referred to, General Ripley says:

The aggregate force which entered into the series of engagements on the 26th of June was twenty-three hundred and sixty-six, including pioneers and the ambulance corps.

The “Narrative” puts the force under General Lawton at six thousand men, but before the “historian of the war” ventures to make use of this contribution to his materials, he will do well to look at the official reports, at page 270 of the first volume, where he will find that General Lawton gives the force which he carried into the battle of Cold Harbor, on the 27th June, 1862, as thirty-five hundred men.

I have not been able to find General Drayton's report of the part taken by his command in the battles around Richmond — if he did take part in them — and therefore cannot compare the number assigned to General Drayton in those engagements by General Johnston's “narrative” with any official documents, but if the reports of Holmes, Lawton and Ripley be correct, they brought less than 11,866 men to participate in those battles, instead of 26,000 as stated by General Johnston.

Ripley and Lawton, according to their reports, had 5,866 men in the “Seven days” battles, instead of 11,000 according to Johnston's narrative.

It follows, therefore, that Drayton's brigade, and the other, whose strength General Johnston says he does not know, must have made up the rest of the twenty-two thousand men who we are informed came to General Lee from South Carolina and Georgia to aid in driving McClellan from the Chickahominy — that is, those two brigades, Drayton's and the unknown, must have numbered about sixteen thousand men.

General Johnston says that General Drayton told him his brigade was seven thousand strong, so that the unknown brigade must have numbered nine thousand to make up the twenty-two thousand from South Carolina and Georgia.

It may have been so. There may have been a brigade in General Lee's army nine thousand strong, but in speaking about it before you, I think it safer to refer to it as the “unknown brigade.” And in this connection let me suggest to the future historian of the war, that before he writes Drayton's brigade down as contributing seven thousand men to the army around Richmond in the “Seven days” battles, it will be well for him to inquire whether that brigade