The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South
Alexander Kelly McClure, Ed.

[318] evidence is against General Meade. General Hooker, on the 27th of June, 1863, telegraphed to General Halleck, from Poolesville: “My whole force of enlisted men for duty will not exceed one hundred and five thousand (105,000).” This would make his total effective force (officers and men) full one hundred and twelve thousand. This dispatch was received by General Halleck at nine A. M. On reaching Sandy Hook, subsequently, on the same day, General Hooker telegraphed as follows, concerning the garrison at Harper's Ferry, under General French: “I find ten thousand men here in condition to take the field. Here they are of no earthly account. They cannot defend a ford of the river; and, as far as Harper's Ferry is concerned, there is nothing of it. As for the fortifications, the work of the troops, they remain when the troops are withdrawn. No enemy will ever take possession of them for them. This is my opinion. All the public property could have been secured to-night, and the troops marched to where they could have been of some service.” This dispatch was received by General Halleck at 2.55 P. M. It is evident that the garrison at Harper's Ferry was not embraced in the returns alluded to by General Hooker in his first dispatch. Although General Halleck refused these troops to General Hooker, they were immediately awarded to General Meade, on his assuming command when General Hooker was relieved.

With t more accurate returns of the two armies at Gettysburg, we are left to form our conclusions as to their strength from the data given above. I put the Army of the Potomac at one hundred and five thousand, and the Army of Northern Virginia at sixty-seven thousand of all arms-fifty-three thousand five hundred infantry, nine thousand cavalry, and four thousand five hundred artillery-and believe these figures very nearly correct. In this estimate, I adopt the strength of the Federal army as given by its commander on the 27th of June, but four days before the first encounter at Gettysburg, excluding all consideration of the troops at Harper's Ferry, although General Meade, on assuming command, at once ordered General French to move to Frederick with seven thousand men, to protect his communications, and thus made available a like number of men of the Army of the Potomac, who would otherwise have been detached for this service.

On the side of the Confederates, the entire cavalry corps is included. That portion which General Stuart accompanied made a complete circuit of the Federal army, and only joined General Lee on the evening of the second day; and the brigades under Generals Jones and Robertson, which had been left to guard the passes of the Blue Ridge, did not rejoin the army until the 3d of July.