Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 06.djvu/28

18 average of 376, which, being multiplied by 169, gives 63,544, an excels of 4,087 above the number actually present, and by 167 gives 62,792, an excess of 3,335 above the number actually present. One of my regiments, the Thirty-first Virginia, was absent and not embraced in the returns of May 20th and 31st, but had returned on the 3d of June, and was embraced in the returns of June the 10th and 20th; so I had only seventeen regiments at Gettysburg, instead of eighteen as the Comte supposes. The strength of the Thirty-first Virginia in present for duty, on the 20th of June, was 280. Adding the strength of this regiment to that of the sixteen present on the 31st of May, and counting the seventeen as eighteen, and the average thus obtained would be about that of the regiments for the whole army. I had a small battalion of two companies, but as two of my regiments wanted a company each, I have not counted it, and as that battalion was detached permanently before the 20th of June and is not embraced in the return of that date, its strength is included in the 919 deducted for the strength, on the 31st of May, of the regiments that were left behind. The Comte's mode therefore of estimating the strength of our infantry, by taking the average for my regiments as the average for the whole number, is not correct, though he arrives at very nearly its strength when it crossed the Potomac by mistaking the number of my regiments. I estimate that we had 169 regiments and battalions at Gettysburg, of which six were battalions, and I think there can be no doubt that that was the precise number of infantry organizations there, not including in them the battalion employed as a provost guard at army headquarters, and the battalion of two companies from my division employed in the same way at corps headquarters.

The Comte makes no allowance for decrease in our infantry after it crossed the Potomac, and hence he gives as its strength at Gettysburg what it probably was on crossing the Potomac. He is entirely mistaken in assuming that I had a battery attached to one of my brigades. This was not the case—I had a battalion of four batteries which accompanied my division, and that is to be counted with the artillery of the army. He is equally mistaken in saying that Imboden had a few hundred infantry with him. Imboden had had three regiments of infantry with him on an expedition into Northwestern Virginia in the spring, to wit: the Twenty-second Virginia of General Sam. Jones' command, the Twenty-fifth Virginia of Johnson's division, and the Thirty-first Virginia of my division, all of which had returned to their