Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 02.djvu/19

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Relative Strength of the Armies of Generals Lee and Grant.
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* Department of Virginia and North Carolina 59,139
Department of the South 18,165
Department of the Gulf 61,866
Department of Arkansas 23,666
Department of the Tennessee 74,174
Department of the Missouri 15,770
Department of the Northwest 5,295
Department of Kansas 4,798
Headquarters military division of the Mississippi 476
Department of the Cumberland 119,948
Department of the Ohio 35,416
Northern department 9,546
* Department of West Virginia 30,782
Department of the East 2,828
Department of the Susquehanna 8,970
* Middle department 5,627
Ninth army corps 20,780
Department of New Mexico 3,454
Department of the Pacific 5,141
  662,345

Mr. Stanton in this statement accounts for all the extra duty men, the sick in field hospitals and camp, the sick in general hospitals, prisoners and men on furlough, and the men absent without leave, and shows, exclusive of all these, an aggregate available force present for duty on the 1st of May, 1864, of 662,345 of which there were 120,380 in the Army of the Potomac, under Meade, and 20,780 in the Ninth Corps, under Burnside, making an aggregate available force present for duty under Grant, on the north side of the Rapidan, on the 1st of May, 1864, of 141,160, officers and men. Now, I ask what inducement was there, on the 1st day of May, just two days before Grant began his movement across the Rapidan, and four days before the commencement of the battle in the Wilderness, for the officers commanding Grant's corps, "intentionally to misstate or mislead" in regard to their available force, in the official reports which they made, or for Grant to give countenance to such misrepresentations by forwarding the reports, or for Stanton to mislead the Congress and the country in December, in regard to the strength of Grant's army? Does not this statement of Mr. Stanton's, taken from the official reports filed in the War Office, conclusively show that General Badeau has made a great mistake, to say the least of it?

But the latter says that "to make out Grant's army three times as large as Lee's, Grant's two forces in the Valley of Virginia and