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. And, besides, it is not to be supposed that General Lee permitted two such unwieldy bodies to remain so in an army in which the average strength of brigades did not much exceed 2,500. It is much more probable that their numbers were reduced by transfers to the weaker brigades than that their commanders were grossly ignorant of them. Of the 11,866 men estimated by Colonel Marshall, General Ripley's 2,300, and 3,000 of General Holmes', reached Richmond before General Lee commanded. According to this our zealous and vigorous leader kept his army inactive twenty-six days waiting for 6,500 men, while his enemy was receiving 19,000 (see McClellan's return of June 20th, volume 1, page 337, Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War)—Dix's and McCall's divisions—and covering his front south of the Chickahominy with entrenchments. According to Colonel Marshall's representation the delay to attack was greatly to our disadvantage by enabling McClellan to increase the odds in his favor. According to the obnoxious passage in my narrative, General Lee made that delay advantageous to us by greatly reducing the Federal superiority of numbers, and thus increasing our chances of success.
I claim, then, that it is your orator, not I, who detracts from the just fame of the great Virginian.
J. E. Johnston.
REPLY OF GENERAL J. A. EARLY TO GENERAL JOHNSTON.
Editors of the Dispatch:
Having received from General Johnston a copy of his reply to Colonel Marshall's address, with the request that it be filed along with the address in the archives of the Association of the Army of Northern Virginia, I took occasion to write him a communication in regard to the matters in dispute between himself and Colonel Marshall. As the subject is one of much historic importance, and of very great interest to the survivors of the Army of Northern Virginia at least, I send you a copy of my communication to General Johnston, with the request that you publish it in your paper. In a letter to myself, which is published by the Rev. J. William Jones in his recent book, General Lee said: "It will be difficult to get the world to understand the odds against which we fought." And this has proved to be the case. In a late criticism by the London Times, of the biography of General Lee by Mr. Childe, of Paris, that paper, while speaking very favorably of the biography in other respects, takes occasion to discard as utterly incredible the statement of the numbers of the opposing armies as given by Mr. Childe; and yet I am informed—for I have not
