Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/186

 178 Southern Historical Society Papers.

way of recruits from voluntary enlistments and the draft, which were entirely going on, nor does it include re-inforcements from the Northern Department and the Department of the East and the Sus- quehanna, where they were, by Mr. Stanton's showing, 15,344 avail- able men for duty, the greater part of which, it is presumed, were sent to Grant, as, otherwise, they might have been brought to Wash- ington to meet my force with more ease than troops from his army.

General Lee's army, at the beginning of the campaign, consisted of two divisions of Longstreet's Corps, Ewell's Corps, A. P. Hill's Corps, three divisions of cavalry and the artillery. I commanded, at different times during the campaign, Hill's and Ewell's Corps, and am, therefore, able to state very nearly the entire strength of the army. Ewell's Corps, to which I belonged, did not exceed 14,000 muskets at the beginning of the campaign. When I was placed in command of Hill's Corps on the 8th of May, by reason of General Hill's sickness, its effective strength was less than 13,000 muskets, and it could not have exceeded 18,000 in the beginning. Long- street's Corps was the weakest of the three, when all the divisions were present, and the two with him had just returned from an ardu- ous and exhausting winter campaign in East Tennessee. His effect- ive strength could not have exceeded 8,000 muskets. General Lee's whole effective infantry, therefore, did not exceed 40,000 muskets, if it reached that number. The cavalry divisions were all weak, neither of them exceeding the strength of a good brigade. The artillery was in proportion to the other arms, and was far exceeded by Grant's, not only in the number of men and guns, but in weight of metal, and especially in the quality of the ammunition. General Lee's whole effective strength at the opening of the campaign was not over 50,000 men of all arms. There were no means of recruit- ing the ranks of his army, and no reinforcements were received until it reached Hanover Junction on the 23d of May. It was this force, therefore, which compelled Grant, after the fighting at the Wilder- ness and around Spotsylvania Courthouse, including the memorable 1 2th of May, to wait six days for reinforcements from Washington before he could move, and baffled his favorite plan of reaching Rich- mond. At Hanover Junction General Lee was joined by Pickett's Division of Longstreet's Corps, one small brigade of my division of Ewell's Corps, which had been in North Carolina with Hoke, and two small brigades, with a battalion of artillery, under Breckinridge. This force under Breckinridge, which General Grant estimates at 15,000, and which was subsequently united to mine at Lynchburg,