any "reason" in such a matter but a desire to tell the truth; but the circumstances attending his testimony show how unfounded is Dr. Bates' statement.
Let us examine for a moment the process by which Dr. Bates arrives at his 72,000. In the "return" given by Butterfield, the First corps (Reynold's) numbered, June 10th, 11,350. On July 1st it went into battle, Dr. Bates says, with 8,200—decrease 3,150. This ratio of decrease is then applied without hesitation to all the other corps, and no explanation is attempted of the fact. The Federal army is thus shorn of one-fourth its strength, though it had not suffered meantime from any battles, hard marches, or peculiar sickness, but had received on the contrary all the accession the Federal government, under the spur of invasion, could hasten to its assistance. Had Dr. Bates been a soldier he could not have made such a statement.
The source from which Dr. Bates derives the number of the First corps on July 1st, is no doubt Doubleday's testimony. This officer commanded that corps on that day, after the fall of Reynolds, and in a statement before the committee on the conduct of war, strongly marked by bad temper and a vivid imagination, he says, among other things: "According to reports rendered to me, we entered the fight with 8,200 men in the First corps, and came out with 2,450 men." He says further: "I do not believe that our forces actually engaged belonging to the two corps (the First and Eleventh) amounted to over 14,000 men. There was a reserve of 3,000 or 4,000 of the Eleventh corps which did not join actually in the fight. It fired some shots from Cemetery hill, but the most of them fell short into our own front line. Now 14,000 men were wholly inadequate to contend against two immense corps of the enemy, amounting to 60,000 men," &c. This statement makes it appear that about 6,000 men of Howard's corps (Eleventh) were engaged July 1st. Add the 4,000 kept in reserve on Cemetery hill and we have Howard's strength July 1st, as near 10,000 men. On June 10th it numbered in the
