[133] of Northern Virginia. In it Colonel Marshall quotes General J. E. Johnston as saying:
General Lee did not attack the enemy until the 26th of June, because he was employed from the 1st until then in forming a great army by bringing to that which I had commanded 15,000 men from North Carolina under Major-General Holmes, 22,000 men from South Carolina and Georgia, and above 16,000 men from the ‘Valley,’ in the divisions of Jackson and Ewell. . . .These numbers added together make 53,000. Colonel Marshall then proceeds, from official reports, to show that all these numbers were exaggerated, and that one brigade, spoken of as seven thousand strong— that of General Drayton—was not known to be in the Army of Virginia until after the ‘seven days,’ and that another brigade, of which General Johnston admitted he did not know the strength, Colonel Marshall thought it safer to refer to as the ‘unknown brigade,’ which, he suggests, may have been ‘a small command under General Evans, of South Carolina, who did not join the army until after it moved from Richmond.’ General Holmes's report, made July 15, 1862, states that on June 29th he brought his command to the north side of the James River, and was joined by General Wise's brigade. With this addition, his force amounted to 6,000 infantry and six batteries of artillery. General Ransom's brigade had been transferred from the division of General Holmes to that of General Huger a short time before General Holmes was ordered to join General Lee. The brigade of General Branch had been detached at an earlier period; it was on duty near Hanover Junction, and under the command of General J. E. Johnston before the battle of Seven Pines. These facts are mentioned to account for the small size of General Holmes's division, which had been reduced to two brigades. Ripley's brigade on June 26th was reported to have an aggregate force of 2,366, including pioneers and the ambulance corps. General Lawton's brigade, when moving up from Georgia to Richmond, was ordered to change direction, and join General Jackson in the Valley. He subsequently came down with General Jackson, and reports the force which he led into the battle of Cold Harbor on June 27, 1862, as 3,500 men. General Lee, after the battle of Seven Pines, had sent two large brigades under General Whiting to cooperate with General Jackson in the Valley, and to return with him, according to instructions furnished. These brigades were in the battle of Seven Pines, and were counted in the force of the army when General Lee took command of it. Lawton's Georgia brigade, as has been stated, was diverted from its destination for a like temporary service, and is accounted for as reenforcements
