Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/427

in the Valley, Jackson's having fought at Kernstown, McDowell, Middletown, Winchester, and Port Republic, and Ewell's having fought at Front Royal, Middletown, Winchester, Cross Keys, and Port Republic; and all of them having done very rapid and extensive marching. In Jackson's three brigades there were 11 regiments and a battalion, and in Ewell's, including the Maryland regiment, there were 16 regiments and a battalion, equivalent in all to 28 regiments. Your estimate would give an average of more than 2,600 to each brigade, and of about 570 to each regiment. Can you think it possible that those brigades and regiments could have numbered that many in the field after the service they had gone through? Longstreet had six brigades in division, and they had seen nothing like as hard service as Jackson's and Ewell's; yet the report of the strength of his six brigades, including a battery of artillery with each, and the Washington Artillery, as furnished by General Alexander, shows an effective force of only 9,051 on the 26th of June, 1862. Let us see how the facts stand on the reports: Winder, in command of the Stonewall brigade, states, in his report of Port Republic, that "the total strength of the brigade was one thousand three hundred and thirty-four, rank and file." There were five regiments in that brigade, and only six and a battalion in the other two brigades of the division. The loss in the brigade was 199 at Port Republic, leaving only 1,135 in it. That was the largest brigade in Jackson's division, and, indeed, the other two were so small that they were not carried into action around Richmond, though present with the division. In Ewell's division, Elzey's brigade numbered seven regiments. It had lost 243 before Malvern Hill, and when I took command of it on the 1st of July, near Malvern Hill, there were only 1,050 officers and men in it, as reported to me by regimental commanders. One regiment (the Forty-fourth Virginia) had just 44 men present—the precise number of the regiment. Trimble's and Taylor's brigades were smaller than Elzey's, having four regiments each and an extra battalion in Taylor's; though there is a strange inconsistency in General Trimble's reports, which, doubtless, is the result of an error in copying or printing. In his report of Cross Keys, page 80, volume I., he says: "My three regiments [Fifteenth Alabama, Sixteenth Mississippi, and Twenty-first Georgia], counting 1,348 men and officers, repulsed the brigade of Blenker three times." His other regiment (the Twenty-first North Carolina) was not engaged, and his loss was 54. In his report of Cold Harbor, page 311, he says: "The Fifteenth Alabama and Twenty-first Georgia, numbering 1,315 men, stood under a destructive fire for an hour or more,"—&c. and: "The Sixteenth Mississippi and Twenty-first North Carolina, numbering one thousand and two hundred and forty-four men, passed under as hot a fire an equal distance in fifteen minutes," &c. If the statements in both reports be true, then, without taking into consideration the loss at Port Republic, there could only have been thirty-five men and officers in the Sixteenth Mississippi, and