that a considerable number of those reported as wounded did not even require surgical treatment or attention.
The returns at the close of July, 1862, nine days before the battle of Cedar Run or Slaughter's Mountain, show 69,559 for duty in the Department of Northern Virginia. No new troops reached the army after those returns were made before the campaign opened; some embraced in it were left at Richmond, and did not participate in the campaign. The returns for September, made after Sharpsburg and the minor engagements following it, show for duty 52,609, while the loss in Longstreet's, Jackson's, and D. H. Hill's commands, including missing, for the period above stated, was 23,575. This again excludes the cavalry. Add the number shown by the returns at the close of September and the above loss, and there will appear a force of 76,184; yet, it is very certain that General Lee did not have, in the campaign against Pope and McClellan, including all that came up while it was progressing, that number of men by many thousands. Add the 52,609 shown by the September returns to the loss shown by the Medical Director's report in killed and wounded alone for Brownsboro'[1], Crampton's Gap, Harper's Ferry, Sharpsburg, and Shepherdstown, which was 10,291, and we have 62,900 to begin that series of engagements with, and yet we know that we had no such force there. Without counting the loss in killed, wounded, and missing at Sharpsburg, which was 8,000 or 10,000, and the September returns would give us 52,609 to fight that battle with, and counting the losses, about 60,000, yet General Lee says he had less than 40,000 men at Sharpsburg, and I feel sure that 30,000 would cover our force of infantry and artillery on the field at that battle.
It comes within my personal knowledge, that Lawton's brigade of Ewell's division, which division I commanded during the latter part of the battle at Sharpsburg, and from that time, had on the field only 1,150 men, and its loss there was 554 in killed and wounded; and yet, before the return of September was made, it numbered nearly 2,000. This great accession of strength was caused by the return of convalescents, stragglers, and temporarily disabled men who had fallen out of ranks before we crossed the Potomac. A less time elapsed between the battle of Sharpsburg and the close of September than between the battle of Gettysburg and the 20th of July, and these illustrations will serve to confirm
- ↑ Correction per SHSP, vol. V, Editorial Paragraphs
