Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/185

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ally muzzled by military rule, and the Confederate cause has no appropriate organ by which the ears of the world can be reached. The time will arrive, however, when a true history of the warfare (.in be written so as to enable foreign nations and posterity to do justice to the character of those who have sustained so unequal a struggle for all that is dear to man. In anticipation of that time, I will call attention to some facts which will show the tremendous odds the Confederate armies had to encounter.

Mr. Secretary Stanton's report shows that the available strength present for duty in the army with which General Grant commenced the campaign of 1864 was, on istof May, 1864, as follows:

The Army of the Potomac (under Gen. Meade) 120,386

The Ninth Army Corps (under Gen. Burnside) 20,780

Aggregate 141, 166

Beside this, he says the chief part of the force designed to guard the Middle Department and the Department of Washington "was called to the front to repair losses in the Army of the Potomac," which doubtless was done before that army left the vicinity of Spot- sylvania Courthouse, as General Grant says: " The i3th, i4th, i5th, i6th, i7th, and i8th (of May, 1864) were consumed in manoeuvering and waiting for re inforcements from Washington," and Mr. Stanton says the sending of these troops to the front caused the detaching from General Lee's army of the force under me to threaten Baltimore and Washington. The available strength of the forces in those departments, on the ist of May, according to Mr. Stanton's report, was as follows:

In the Department of Washington. 42, 124

In the Middle Department 5.627

Aggregate 47,751

of which it may be safely assumed that at least 40,000 men were sent to the front, as General Grant says that when I approached Washington, the garrisons of that place and Baltimore were "made up of heavy artillery regiments, hundred days' men, and detach- ments from the Invalid Corps," and hence it became necessary to send troops from his army to meet me. This, therefore, made an army of over 180,000 men which General Lee's army had to meet before, as I will show, it had received any re-inforcements whatever. This estimate does not include the re-inforcements received in the