[134] brought from the south. These three brigades, though coming with Jackson and Ewell, were not a part of their divisions, and, if their numbers are made to swell the force which Jackson brought, they should be elsewhere subtracted. General J. A. Early, in the same number of the Historical Society Papers, in a letter addressed to General J. E. Johnston, February 4, 1875, makes an exhaustive examination from official reports, and applies various methods of computation to the question at issue. Among other facts, he states:
Drayton's brigade did not come to Virginia until after the battles around Richmond. It was composed of the Fifteenth South Carolina and the Fiftieth and Fifty-first Georgia Regiments and Third South Carolina Battalion. A part, if not all, of it was engaged in the fight at Secessionville, South Carolina, on the 16th of June, 1862. Its first engagement in Virginia was on the Rappahannock, 25th of August, 1862. After Sharpsburg, it was so small that it was distributed among some other brigades in Longstreet's corps.After minute inquiry, General Early concludes that ‘the whole command that came from the Valley, including the artillery, the regiment of cavalry, and the Maryland regiment and a battery, then known as “The Maryland line,” could not have exceeded 8,000 men.’ In this, General Early does not include either Lawton's brigade or the two brigades with Whiting, and reaches the conclusion that ‘the whole force received by General Lee was about 23,000—about 30,000 less than your estimate.’ Taking the number given by General Early as the entire reenforcement received by General Lee after the battle of Seven Pines and before the commencement of the seven days battles—which those who know his extreme accuracy and minuteness of inquiry will be quite ready to do—and deducting from the 23,000 the casualties in the battle of Seven Pines (6,084), we have 16,916; if to this be added whatever number of absentees may have joined the army in anticipation of active operations, a number which I have no means of ascertaining, the result will be the whole increment to the army with which General Lee took the offensive against McClellan. It appears from the official returns of the Army of the Potomac that on June 20th General McClellan had present for duty 115,102 men. It is stated that McClellan reached the James River with ‘between 85,000 and 90,000 men,’ and that his loss in the seven days battles was 15,249; this would make the army 105,000 strong at the commencement of the battles.1 Probably General Dix's corps of 9,277 men, stationed at Fortress Monroe, is not included in this last statement.
