My Dear
Sir--General G. H. Gordon, of
Massachusetts, has published several valuable papers on the war. His last book (noticed in your last number) is, however, by far the most elaborate and useful.
Indeed, it is the most extensive and carefully prepared account of
Pope's campaign (after
Cedar Run) that I have met with.
It is vivid, and, with some exceptions, which may be credited to the natural bias of an earnest and active participant in the struggle, it is fair and truthful.
The faults of style, which are many, and the diffuseness with which the jealousies and spites of
Halleck,
Pope,
Fitz John Porter,
McClellan and others are told over and over again, may be pardoned to a gallant soldier, more at home on a hard fought field than in the cabinet.
Nor is his own temper always serene.
General Banks probably considers him a good hater, if no worse.
But
General Gordon's clear and vigorous description, his manly independence, his oftentimes generous appreciation of his foemen, are qualities that far outweigh his imperfections.
I write not to review his book.
There are passages in the history of
Pope's campaign very unfair and that I hope will receive the prompt attention of our old
chief General Early, whose trenchant pen can best set forth the right.
But
General Gordon has been careless and inaccurate (not in comparison with other writers, but with other parts of his work) in the statement of numbers, and I would do what I can to correct these, and to call out from others the information yet wanting to a complete settlement of the questions involved.
And let me say at the outset, that
General Gordon is entirely free from the gross exaggerations and absurd statements about Federal and Confederate numbers that characterize so many Northern (and I may add not a few Southern) writers.
He has merely not always taken care to be accurate, and has naturally erred in favor of his own side.
Pope's campaign began with the
battle of Cedar Run, and though
General Gordon treats of that in a previous book, I send you such facts as to the strength of the forces there engaged as I am able to find.
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1. In regard to the total Confederate strength under
Jackson on August 9 (
battle of Cedar Run),
General Gordon is not so far wrong.
General Jackson had at that time
Winder's,
Ewell's and
A. P. Hill's divisions and
Robertson's brigade of cavalry.
The organization was, I believe, as follows on July 23d:
| Winder's division. |
| | Regts. |
| Stonewall Brigade--Second, Fourth, Fifth, Twenty-seventh, and Thirty-third Virginia regiments | 5 |
| Jones' Brigade--Twenty-first, Forty-second, Forty-eighth Virginia regiments and First Virginia battalion | 3 1/2 |
| Taliaferro's Brigade--Tenth, Twenty-third, Thirty-seventh Virginia and Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Alabama regiments | 5 |
| Lawton's Brigade--Thirteenth, Twenty-sixth, Thirty-first, Thirty-eighth, Sixtieth and Sixty-first Georgia regiments | 6 |
| Ewell's division. |
| Early's Brigade--Thirteenth, Twenty-fifth, Thirty-first, Forty-fourth, Fifty-second, Fifty-eighth Virginia, and Twelfth Georgia regiments, | 7 |
| Trimble's Brigade--Fifteenth Alabama, Twenty-first Georgia, and Twenty-first North Carolina regiments | 3 |
| Hays' Brigade--Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Louisiana regiments and First Louisiana battalion | 4 |
| Maryland Line | 1 |
| A. P. Hill's division. |
| Thomas' Brigade--Fourteenth, Thirty-fifth, Forty-fifth and Forty-ninth Georgia regiments, and Third Louisiana battalion | 4 1/2 |
| Branch's Brigade--Seventh, Eighteenth, Twenty-eighth, Thirty-third and Thirty-seventh North Carolina regiments | 5 |
| Archer's Brigade--First, Seventh and Fourteenth Tennessee and Nineteenth Georgia regiments and Fifth Alabama battalion | 4 1/2 |
| Pender's Brigade--Sixteenth, Twenty-second, Thirty-fourth and Thirty-eighth North Carolina regiments | 4 |
| Field's Brigade--Fortieth, Forty-seventh, Fifty-fifth and Sixtieth Virginia and Second heavy artilery regiment | 5 |
| Gregg's Brigade--First, Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth South Carolina and First South Carolina rifles | 5 |
Add to this
Stafford's, which arrived just in time for the battle, and was under
General Hill's command that day:
| Stafford's Brigade--First, Second, Ninth, Tenth and Fifteenth Louisiana regiments and Coppen's battalion (of which the Fifteenth Louisiana regiment was mainly composed of the Third Louisiana battalion of Thomas' brigade） | 5 |
| | |
| | 68 |
| cavalry. |
| Robertson's Brigade--Second, Sixth, Seventh and Twelfth Virginia cavalry | 4 |
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A. P. Hill had nine batteries on July 23d, of which six seem to have been with him at
Gordonsville, while the batteries in the other divisions were eleven. Total batteries, seventeen.
Now the return of
A. P. Hill's division for July 20th, 1862, gives his officers and men present for duty as 10,623 (see
Colonel Taylor's Four Years with
General Lee). He had twenty-eight infantry regiments and nine batteries then, and assuming his infantry to have been 10,000, we have the average strentgh of his regiments as 357.
The only portion of his command whose strength is reported at
Cedar Run is
Archer's brigade, which was “1,200 strong” in that fight.
This would give
Archer's regiments but 267 each on August 9.
No return of
Winder's and
Ewell's divisions for this period is to be found.
Colonel Taylor estimates them together at 8,000 men; but I think he has probably overlooked the fact that these divisions contained not merely the troops that had followed
Jackson in his famous Valley campaign, but two brigades and more in addition.
Thus the infantry engaged in the
Valley campaign and taken by
Jackson to
Richmond, consisted of twenty-eight regiments.
The strength of nine of these at
Cedar Run is given in the
Confederate official reports of the battle.
They were the seven in
Early's brigade and the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-third Virginia, in the Stonewall brigade.
General Early reports his brigade as 1,700 “effectives.”
The Twenty-seventh Virginia had 130 “rank and file,” and the Thirty-third Virginia 150 engaged and 160 when it began to march to the battlefield.
Thus
Early's regiments averaged about 250 and the other two about 150 each.
Taking the higher figure the whole twenty-eight regiments may have numbered 7,000, and the artillery would have added 600 or 700 more.
This is probably the force that
Colonel Taylor puts at 8,000 men.
But at
Cedar Run Jackson had in addition six regiments, constituting
Lawton's brigade, five and a half constituting
Stafford's brigade, and the Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Alabama regiments added to
Taliaferro's brigade.
He had lost by transfer one regiment (Sixteenth Mississippi) from
Trimble's brigade Hence, he had gained twelve and a half regiments in addition to
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those that had fought in the
Valley.
Lawton's regiments were comparatively strong.
Stafford's were not; but if we put them at the average of
Hill's regiments on July 20th, or about 350, we shall certainly be over rather than under the mark.
Hence
Jackson had, exclusive of
Hill, possibly 12,000 infantry and artillery.
Robertson's cavalry, after its hard service, could hardly have exceeded 1,000 or 1,200 men. Thus the
Confederate force under
Jackson on August 9 was--
| Hill's division | 10,623 |
| Winder's and Ewell's division's | 12,000 |
| Cavalry | 1,200 |
| | |
| | 23,823 |
Nearly 24,000 men.
Of this force two brigades,
Lawton's and
Gregg's, were not on the battlefield.
This diminished
Jackson's strength by eleven regiments or about 3,800 men. So his force engaged against
Banks was, by the above, about 20,000 men. But this is no doubt an excessive estimate, for in it no account is taken of the diminution which must have taken place between the latter part of July and August 9th, due to the heat and sickness of the season.
In the ten days preceding the battle,
Banks' Federal corps seems to have lost twenty-five per cent. of its strength from this cause.
Jackson's strength was lessened, but not to the same degree.
Jackson's losses in the battle itself were 1,314.
There seems to be an unnecessary tangle about the strength of
Pope's army at the time of
Cedar Run, August 9.
General Pope reports officially as follows:
| | Infantry. | Artillery. | Cavalry. | Total. |
| First corps (Seigel's) | 10,550 | 948 | 1,730 | 13,228 |
| Second corps (Banks') | 13,343 | 1,224 | 4,104 | 18,671 |
| Third corps (McDowell's) | 17,604 | 971 | 2,904 | 21,479 |
| | | | | |
| | 41,497 | 3,143 | 8,738 | 53,378 |
| Deduct infantry brigade stationed at Winchester | 2,500 | |
| Deduct regiment and battery at Front Royal | 1,000 | |
| Deduct cavalry unfit for service | 3,000 | |
| | | 6,500 |
| | | |
| Total | | 47.878 |
Note--“Instead of 14,500 infantry and artillery,
Banks had only about 8,000, from his report to me after the
battle of Cedar Mountain.”
The date of this return was July 31, 1862.
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General Gordon (3d paper, pp. 167-8) says: “Although the consolidated report of
Banks' corps, sent into
Pope some days previous to the 9th of August, exhibited an effective force of something over 14,000 men, made up of infantry, 13,343; artillery,. 1,224; cavalry, 4,104; total, 18,671, less infantry and artillery left at
Front Royal and
Winchester, 3,500.
In his official report
Pope distinctly states that it appeared after the battle that when
Banks led his forces to the front he had in all not more than 8,000 men.” . . .
General Gordon thus leaves the impression that there was a descrepancy of 6,000 between
Banks' report on July 31st and his strength on August 9th.
This is evidently an error, for if we subtract the 3,500 infantry and artillery left at
Winchester and
Front Royal from his total infantry and artillery on July 31st, we have 11,067 as the strength of
Banks' infantry and artillery east of the
Blue Ridge at that date.
Now
Pope says that
Banks had “only about 8,000” at
Cedar Run,
meaning infantry and artillery, as the above extract plainly shows.
Hence the discrepancy was 3,000, and not 6,000; and any one who reads
General Gordon's account of the sufferings of Bank's corps from heat and diarrhea on their march to
Cedar Run, and recalls the fact that one regiment,. Sixtieth New York (
General Gordon says two), was sent back in a body because of excessive sickness, will not find it hard to realize that perhaps
Banks brought “only about 8,000” infantry and artillery into the fight of August 9th.
To this force should be added
Bayard's cavalry brigade of 1,000 or 1,200, according to
General Gordon, which is evidently not included by
General Pope in the “8,000.”
General Gordon seems to have followed in his estimate a statement of
General Strother in the
Harper for August, 1867, in which the latter puts
Banks' infantry and artillery at 6,289 and thirty guns, and his cavalry at 1,200, or 7,500 in all; but as
General Strother gives no definite authority for this estimate, it must be considered as unsupported.
General Gordon also refers to the-testimony of
General Banks, December 14, 1864, before the
Committee on the Conduct of the
War, in which he estimates his strength at
Cedar Run at 6,000, and again on the the next page at 5,000.
This is evidently a loose statement from memory, nearly two and a half years after the event, and not to be set against
Banks' official report made to
General Pope at the time.
Hence
Pope's entire strength early in August, 1862, by his own report, was 47,878,
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less 3,000, or nearly 45,000 men. Of this force there was present at
Cedar Run--
Rickett arrived at nightfall too late to prevent the defeat of
Banks, but in time to stay the further progress of the
Confederates.
Now as to the
Federal losses,
General Pope says: “No report of killed and wounded has been made to me by
General Banks.
I can, therefore, only form an approximation of our losses in that battle.
Our killed, wounded and prisoners amounted to about one thousand and eight hundred men, besides which fully one thousand men straggled back to Culpeper Courthouse and beyond, and never entirely returned to their commands.
He also states that on the 10th
Banks' corps was reduced to about 5,000 men.”
Thus
Pope puts the loss at from 2,800 to 3,000 men including stragglers, the larger part of whom returned to their commands.
General Gordon, following
Strother, gives the
Federal loss as 1,161 killed and wounded, and 732 missing, of whom half were prisoners and the remainder stragglers.
This would give an actual loss of about 2,000.
Medical Director McParlin says: “In the Second corps (
Banks'), which was principally engaged, the losses were 280 killed, 1,346 wounded, and 241 missing. This report underestimates the full number of wounded and missing.”
By this estimate the total loss in
Banks' corps was over 1,867.
The
Surgeon-General (Federal) reports the total loss among all the troops engaged as--
| Killed | 450 |
| Wounded | 660 |
| Missing | 290 |
In this report the “660” is evidently a misprint, and was probably intended to be “1,660.”
If so, the loss by this report would be 2,400.
As
Jackson captured 400 prisoners, the above estimate seems under, not over, the mark.
Taking all these estimates together, it is evident that
Pope's loss was over 2,000.
This letter is too long to add anything in reference to the
second Manassas.
