Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/425

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Strength of Gen'l Lee's Army during the Seven Days Battles.
417

North Carolina volunteers (Colonel Rutledge), the Twenty-fourth, Thirty-fifth and Forty-ninth having preceded, the Twenty-sixth and Forty-eighth being left to follow." This, then, was his whole brigade, and on page 368 he repeats the enumeration of his regiments, stating that the Forty-eighth North Carolina was absent on duty with the brigade of Walker. He says: "The effective force present was about three thousand." He had in some previous skirmishes lost about 130 men in killed and wounded. Taking the average for the strength of the absent regiment, and we make the whole force brought by him about 3,700. On page 325 Colonel Manning, commanding Walker's brigade, says: "The brigade, composed of the Third Arkansas, Thirtieth Virginia, Fifty-seventh Virginia, Twenty-seventh North Carolina and Fifty-sixth North Carolina regiments, and the Second Georgia battalion, Captains French's and Branch's light batteries, and Captain Goodwin's cavalry company—in all amounting to about four thousand men and officers—crossed the pontoon bridge and reached General Huger about 12 o'clock M. on Friday the 27th of June." The Fifty-seventh Virginia was subsequently transferred to Armistead's brigade, and in its place was put the Forty-eighth North Carolina. On page 151, Holmes says the brigade returned to him on the 29th of June, with 3,600 effective men and two batteries. On page 322 Daniel says his brigade, composed of the Forty-fifth, Forty-third and Fiftieth North Carolina regiments, two batteries of artillery and a battalion of cavalry, "in all about seventeen hundred effective men," left Drury's Bluff on the 29th of June and crossed the river at the pontoon bridges.

Holmes says the infantry of Daniel's brigade was 1,570 strong. On page 319 Wise put his infantry at 814 and his artillery at 147—aggregate, 961. This brigade properly belonged or had belonged to Huger's division, and did not constitute a part of the troops brought by Holmes to the army. Holmes says the battalion of cavalry numbered 130 men; and on page 470 is a return by Colonel Deshler, showing in the four batteries with Walker's and Daniel's brigades, an effective force of 296. Taking the foregoing figures—to wit: 3,700 infantry in Ransom's brigade, 3,600 in Walker's, 1,570 in Daniel's, 961 infantry and artillery in Wise's, 130 cavalry and 296 artillerymen, and we have 10,257 as the whole force added to the army from Holmes' command, including Wise's, and without the latter, 9,296. This latter number constituted the whole force brought by Holmes from his department after Seven Pines, even if the cavalry and artillery belonged to it. On page 270, in speaking of the charge of his brigade, the first it had been in, Lawton says: "A continuous line of thirty-five hundred men moving forward in perfect order into the wood, and at once opening fire along its entire length (chiefly armed with Enfield rifles), made a decided impression, and promptly marked the preponderance of musketry sound on our side, as was observed by other commanders on the field." Lawton's brigade was composed of six