them showing the strength of our armies at various times. His statement shows that there were present for duty in the Department of Northern Virginia at the end of July, 1862, 69,559 men and officers. This included not only all the commands which had been at the battles around Richmond, except Daniel's brigade of a little over 1,500 men, which had gone back, but also the brigade of Evans, which had arrived, and Drayton's if it had arrived, as well as the Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Alabama regiments, which had arrived and been attached to Taliaferro's brigade; Robertson's cavalry brigade of three regiments, which had come from the Valley; all the wounded at Williamsburg, Seven Pines, in the Valley, and the Seven Days battles, who had returned to duty; convalescents returned from hospitals, and prisoners who may have been exchanged under the cartel then recently adopted. Add the effective force for duty the last of July to the killed, wounded, and missing in the battles, and we have an aggregate of 89,116. Certainly General Lee's army, at the beginning of the battles, could not have exceeded this number; and from the various sources mentioned it is very certain that more than 10,000 men had come to the army after those battles.
I think this exhibit ought to establish conclusively, to any candid mind, that General Lee's army, at the beginning of the battles, was under 80,000 effectives. In your reply to Colonel Marshall you say: "Colonel Marshall says, on the evidence of subsequent returns, that the troops of Holmes, Ripley, and Lawton, amounted to but 11,866 men. This is not evidence to be put against the statements of those officers." Now, the returns which Colonel Marshall refers to, which are the same I have cited, are the contemporaneous reports of those officers themselves, made under circumstances which imposed on them the very highest obligations to be accurate. Certainly you must admit that their statements in writing, made when the events were fresh in their minds, are of higher authority than oral statements when they did not speak from the record. The pamphlet copy of Colonel Marshall's address, which I send you, explains, in a note, the facts in regard to Holmes' command, and shows, I think, how you might have been led into error in regard to his force. You are likewise mistaken in assuming that McClellan's army was increased by 19,000 after Seven Pines. His report, page 11, shows that on the 30th of April, 1862, he had 4,725 officers and 104,610 men for duty—in all 109,335; and that on the 26th of June he had 4,665 officers and 101,160 men—in all 105,825 for duty. Dix's command never joined him. It was the same command which Wool had at Fortress Monroe when we were at Yorktown. The only change made in its status was the assignment of Dix to the command, on the 1st of June, 1862, in the place of Wool, with orders to report to McClellan; but no part of Dix's command joined McClellan. The only accession McClellan had after Seven Pines and before the battles was McCaul's division, 9,514 strong; and it did not make up for the
