Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 13.djvu/273

 272 Southern Historical Society Papers.

have been troubled with enormous straggling. For we find on page 98, Volume XIII, Records of the Rebellion, a statement from Quar- termaster-General Rufus Ingalls, that he had furnished transportation for 190,185 officers and men of McClellan's army. This statement was made on the ist daj r of October, 1862, fourteen days after the battle of Sharpsburg and the wastage of that battle is not in the estimate. If we put McClellan's casualties at 12,000 in the battle, he must have had 202, 185 on his rolls on the morning of Sharpsburg. For the same record shows a complaint from him that he had not re- ceived any reinforcements after the battle. If then there were but 87,164 at Sharpsburg, there were 105,021 elsewhere.

I have always contended that General Lee had less than 27,000 infantry and artillery in the battle of Sharpsburg. He crossed the Potomac with nine divisions. As mine had not been in the Pope campaign and had therefore suffered less than the other eight from battle, disease and fatigue, I supposed it to be one of the very largest, and yet it had but little over 3,000 men in it at Sharpsburg. As nine times 3,000 gives 27,000, I thought that 27,000 was the maximum number in Lee's army. Dr. Dabney, a very careful statistician, puts Lee's strength at 33,000 including the cavalry. My estimate, which I have had to reduce, was of infantry and artillery alone.

On page 813 of this Volume XIII, I find Lee's losses in killed and wounded in the Maryland campaign to have been 10,291, of which, my division is credited with 2,902 or 28.19 P er cent, of the whole. It is not reasonable to suppose that this division should sustain more than one-fourth of the entire loss pf the army, if its strength was not greater than one-ninth of the whole. It is true that the loss at South Mountain fell largely upon my division, but the loss there was probably as great in prisoners as in killed and wounded, and the 10,291 loss is in killed and wounded only. So I had two reasons for believing that my division was the largest of the nine at Sharps- burg, and that therefore Lee's infantry and artillery did not come up to 27,000.

But the result can be reached in other ways, for though the reports are most meagre on the Southern side, we still have data enough to make an estimate different from that of the prisoners, deserters and spies, whom General Banks saw.

General Lee crossed the Potomac with nine divisions, forty brigades, one hundred and sixty-six regiments and nine battalions of infantry. Three divisions were made out of two, so that at Sharpsburg, he had