unworthy motive in promulgating his estimate of General Lee's strength, and intending in what I have written only to vindicate the truth of history,
I am, very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,J. A. Early.
Richmond, Va., February 4, 1875.
General—Colonel Marshall's address was delivered before the Virginia Division of the Association of the Army of Northern Virginia, of which General Fitz. Lee was then and General Pickett is now president. I am president of the association at large, which has never met since its organization, but there is a provision in the constitution for divisions in each one of the States that had troops in the Army of Northern Virginia. Your reply to Col. Marshall has been filed with his address among the archives of the Southern Historical Society, of which I am president.
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You have certainly been led into error in your estimates of General Lee's strength, and of the number of troops brought to the army after Seven Pines. You have either misapprehended the information given you by the officers you mention, or they were themselves greatly mistaken, as I think I can demonstrate to you. In the first place, I must say that we have General Longstreet's official report of the Battle of Seven Pines, which has been furnished to the Southern Historical Society by General E. P. Alexander, who undertook to write the history of Longstreet's brigade, division and corps, at his instance. It is in two forms—first, in his headquarter's book, in which all his reports were copied, and then in a separate copy made from the book; and the following is the statement of the losses sustained by the wing of the army he commanded, as given at the close of the report:
| LIST OF KILLED, WOUNDED AND MISSING. | |||
| Officers. | Enlisted Men. | Aggregate. | |
| Killed | 61 | 755 | 816 |
| Wounded | 209 | 3,530 | 3,729 |
| Missing | 3 | 293 | 296 |
| 273 | 4,578 | 4,851 | |
Respectfully submitted,
(Signed)J. Longstreet,
Major-General Commanding.
Headquarters Right Wing, June 11, 1862.
To Major Thomas G. Rhett, A. A. General.
You will perceive that he makes the loss in the portion of the troops commanded by him in the battle 1,851 more than you give it in your book. You give the loss in Longstreet's and D. H. Hill's divisions at 3,000; yet General Hill, in his report, which we also have, says: "Appended is a list of killed and wounded. From this it appears that of less than 9,000 taken into action nearly 3,000 were struck down." Take Longstreet's statement of his loss and your statement of G. W. Smith's loss (1,223) and your total
