My Dear Sir — In my letter of March 2d, in regard to Federal and Confederate strength and losses at
Cedar Run, as published, there is a typographical error on page 183, line twenty from the top. The figures 1,161 at the beginning of that line should be 1,661.
Confederate strength.
Deducting
Jackson's loss of 1,314 at
Cedar Run from his total strength of 23,823 we have left for his force of all arms at the beginning of the
second Manassas campaign about 22,500.
What forces did
General Lee add to this from
Richmond?
Colonel Walter Taylor (Four Years with
General Lee, page 60) says: “
General Lee . . . took with him the divisions of
Longstreet,
D. R. Jones,
Hood and
Anderson, leaving in front of
Richmond the divisions of
D. H. Hill and
McLaws, and two brigades under
J. G. Walker.”
The return of these troops for July 20th exists in the
Archive Office at
Washington, and is the nearest one extant to the date of the battle.
But in addition to these commands of infantry,
General Lee took “two brigades (
Drayton's and
Evans'), recently arrived from South Corolina.”
The whole infantry force was organized, I believe, as follows:
| Longstreet's division. |
| | Regts. |
| Kemper's Brigade--First, Seventh, Eleventh, Seventeenth and Twenty-fourth Virginia regiments | 5 |
| Jenkins' Brigade--First, Fifth and Sixth South Carolina regiments, Second South Carolina rifles, Palmetto Sharpshooters and Fourth South Carolina battalion | 5 1/2 |
| Pickett's (or Garnett's) Brigade--Eighth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-eighth and Fifty-sixth Virginia regiments | 5 |
| Wilcox's Brigade--Eighth, Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Alabama regiments | 4 |
| Pryor's Brigade--Fifth and Eighth Florida, Third Virginia and Fourteenth Alabama regiments | 4 |
| Featherstone's Brigade--Twelith, Sixteenth and Nineteenth Mississippi regiments, and Second Mississippi battalion | 3 1/2 |
| D. R. Jones' division. |
| Toombs' Brigade--Second, Fifteenth, Seventeenth and Twentieth Georgia regiments | 4 |
| G. T. Anderson's Brigade--First, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Eleventh Georgia regiments | 5 |
| Hood's division. |
| Whiting's (Law's) Brigade--Fourth Alabama, Sixth North Carolina, Second and Eleventh Mississippi regiments | 4 |
| Hood's (Wofford's) Brigade--First, Fourth and Fifth Texas, and Eighteenth Georgia regiments and Hampton's legion | 5 |
| R. H. Anderson's division. |
| Mahone's Brigade--Sixth, Twelfth, Sixteenth, Forty-first and Forty-ninth Virginia regiments | 5 |
| Wright's Brigade--Third, Twenty-second and Forty-eighth (Fourth?) Georgia, and Forty-fourth Alabama regiments | 4 |
| Armistead's Brigade--Ninth, Fourteenth, Thirty-eighth, Fifty-third and Fifty-seventh Virginia regiments | 5 |
Add--
| Drayton's Brigade--Fifteenth South Carolina and Fiftieth and Fifty-first Georgia regiments | |
| Evans' Brigade--Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Twenty-second and Twenty-third South Carolina regiments and Holcombe legion | 5 |
| | |
| | 67 |
[
218]
The strength of the last two brigades (no returns having been found)
Colonel Taylor obtained from
Major Young,
Adjutant-General for
General Drayton, who at one time commanded both brigades, and from
General Sorrel,
General Longstreet's
Adjutant-General.
Major Young says the strength of the two brigades “did not exceed 4,600 present for duty.”
General Sorrel puts them at 4,500 when they marched forward from
Gordonsville towards
Manassas.
The return of July 20th gives, according to
Colonel Taylor--
| Longstreet's division, present for duty, officers and men | 8,486 |
| D. R. Jones' division, present for duty, officers and men | 3,713 |
| Hood's division, present for duty, officers and men | 3,852 |
| Anderson's division, present for duty, officers and men | 6,117 |
Add--
[
219]
The cavalry, under
General Stuart, consisted of two brigades under
Hampton and
Fitzhugh Lee.
Hampton was left at
Richmond, and
Fitzhugh Lee's brigade, consisting of the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Ninth Virginia cavalry, accompanied the army on the
Manassas campaign.
The total of
Stuart's force July 20th was 4,035, of which
Colonel Taylor estimates that
Fitzhugh Lee had 2,500.
This estimate is no doubt nearly correct.
The artillery taken consisted of twenty batteries (and possibly a few more). There were the four companies constituting the Washington artillery, viz:
Squiers',
Richardson's,
Miller's and
Eshleman's; the five under
Colonel S. D. Lee, viz:
Eubank's,
Parker's,
Rhett's,
Jordan's and
Taylor's; three attached to
Hood's division, viz:
Reilly's,
Bachman's and
Garden's, and the following: Dixie artillery, Striblings',
Maurin's,
Leake's,
Rodger's,
Brown's,
Grimes' and
Anderson's batteries.
This list, I think, is incomplete, and I hope someone who has the knowledge will make it correct.
Colonel Taylor puts the strength of this artillery at 2,500, which seems to me an over-estimate, as artillery companies in the Confederate army were far more frequently under than over one hundred men.
In the foregoing roster of troops there may be some errors as to the assignment of a few of the regiments, for so many changes were made during the summer, that in the absence of full official reports it is sometimes hard to follow them.
No reports of
Anderson's division, for instance, are published, and, in consequence, I am not fully certain of the organization of
Armistead's brigade.
But the gross numbers will not be effected by such errors.
To sum up the entire force at
General Lee's disposal between August 16 and September 2, 1862, was
In round numbers, 54,000.
This I believe to be an outside estimate of the Confederate strength.
Federal strength.
As was seen in my former letter,
General Pope had 45,000 men at the time of the
battle of Cedar Run, even after deducting nearly 3,000, which he claims as an error in
Banks' report, but
[
220]
which the latter has never admitted.
Deducting the losses at
Cedar Run,
Pope must have had nearly 43,000 men in his three corps.
Reno joined him with 8,000 men on August 14th.
He had thus, on August 18, the day he began to withdraw behind the
Rappahannock, a total of 51,000 men against
Lee's 54,000.
General Gordon says: “At this time the
Union army was greatly outnumbered by the enemy.”
He exaggerates the Confederate forces to 63,500, without deigning to give any data for such an estimate, and in the face of the returns given by
Colonel Taylor.
This error of
General Gordon may have been due to want of information, but the opposite one in regard to
Pope's strength can hardly be thus explained.
He makes
Pope's strength, August 18, including
Reno, to have been only 42,000 men, in spite of
Pope's own official report, from which his numbers are seen to have been 51,000, as above.
Thus, by deducting 9,000 from one side and adding it to the other, he finds
Pope a reason for retreating that had no foundation in fact.
On his retreat
Pope was reinforced as follows (
Pope's report):
| Reynolds' division, August 23 | 2,500 |
| [General Gordon puts it at 4,500.] | |
| Piatt's brigade of Sturgis' division, August 26 | 1,100 |
| Heintzelman's and Porter's corps | 18,000 |
| | |
| [General Gordon puts them at 19,000.] | |
| | 21,600 |
| Strength on the Rappahannock | 51,000 |
| | |
| Total | 72,600 |
| Or, taking General Gordon's figures, above | 75,600 |
Sturgis' division of 10,000, and
Cox's of 7,000, were being sent forward to
Pope when the breaking of the railroad stopped them.
Only one brigade of
Sturgis' reached him, but some of
Cox's troops were about
Manassas Junction.
Franklin's and
Sumner's corps joined
Pope at
Centreville after the battle.
Thus it is seen that in the series of fights ending with the 30th August,
General Pope had from 73,000 to 75,000 men against the 54,000 of the
Confederates.
There is no danger that the figures of the
Federal forces are too high.
General Pope was ever modest in estimating his own numbers.
Thus
Reynolds' division above, put by him at 2,500 in August, had over 6,000 after the battles around
[
221]
Richmond, and
Generals Porter and
Heintzelman had over 30,000 on July 20th, before they left the
Peninsula, and though they dwindled to 18,000 in
General Pope's estimate,
Porter alone had 20,000 men on September 12th, two weeks later.
General Pope states that on August 30th his effective force had dwindled to 50,000.
This, if correct, would show great straggling and demoralization.
General Pope attributes the diminution to the fatigues and activity of the campaign.
General Gordon, in his book, adopts
Pope's estimate, and at the same time most unfairly credits
General Lee on the 30th August with the whole force he had at the beginning of the campaign, “less the killed, wounded and missing of the day before.”
If
Pope's movements had been exhausting, surely
General Lee's ought to have been more so.
Jackson's corps especially marched or fought almost constantly for several days and for part of the time depended upon the green cornfields for rations.
But enough.
No one will ever know precisely how many of his march-worn 54,000 troops
General Lee was able to hurl against what was left of
Pope's 75,000 in the last great struggle of the 30th of August.
By one of the boldest and most skillful military movements of our times, he broke into fragments this army of
Pope, so much larger than his own, while an army equal in number to the
Confederates lay near
Alexandria and
Washington, within one day's forced march of the battlefield.
