pensity for the special sin that besets him, when the morning telegrams shall announce that Grant is dead, men will lament and wonder that capacities so good, with opportunities so great, should reach a conclusion so impotent.
NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF THE ARMIES AT GETTYSBURG.
BY COLONEL WALTER H. TAYLOR, A. A. G., A. N. V.
[The following explanation and correction of his former article was sent by Colonel Taylor simultaneously to the Philadelphia Times and to us. We exceedingly regret that its publication in our Papers has been unavoidably delayed until now:]
As my account of the battle of Gettysburg was first given to the public in your columns, I respectfully ask space therein sufficient to make the following explanation and correction of the statement of the strength of the Confederate Army then made in that campaign:
I would premise with the mention of the fact that two kinds of returns of the strength of the army were required to be made to the Department during the war—the one a "field return," made twice a month (on the 10th and 20th), and the other a "monthly return," made on the last day of each month.
In the field returns there was a column for the "officers present for duty," and one for "enlisted men present for duty"; the sum of the two would give the "effective total" as generally understood—that is, the fighting strength.
In the monthly report the arrangement was different: there was a column for each grade of officers, both of the line and staff, and also a column for sergeants, one for corporals, and one for privates—enlisted men. There was then a column headed "effective total," which embraced only the enlisted men present for duty—that is, the non-commissioned staff, sergeants, corporals, and privates; there being no column for the aggregate of the commissioned officers present for duty.
There are many methods of comparing the strength of opposing armies. The one adopted by me was to take the "effective total," or the sum of the officers and enlisted men present for duty,
