CHAPTER XV.

A FEW FACTS FROM HISTORY.

The Southern States furnished the Federal army with the following:

White troops 276,439 Negroes 178,975 Foreigners 444,586

Total 800,000

Foreigners in the Federal army were as follows:

Germans 176,800 Irish 144,200 British-Americans 53,500 English 45,500 Other foreigners 74,900

Total 494,900

The Federal army in its report for May, 1865, had present for duty 1,000,576, while it had present equipped 602,598. The Confederate army in its report for April 9, 1865, had 174,223 paroled and 98,802 in Federal prisons, making a total of 272,025.

As the armies stood at time of surrender:

Federal soldiers 1,000,576 Confederate soldiers 272,025 Total enlistment of Federal army 2,778,304 Total enlistment of Confederate army 600,000

1. The State of New York with 448,850 and Pennsylvania with 337,936 Union soldiers aggregated 768,635 soldiers and outnumbered the entire Confederate army.

2. Illinois with 259,092, Ohio with 313,180, and Indiana with 196,363 soldiers aggregated 768,635 soldiers and outnumbered the Confederate army.

3. New England with 363,162 and the 316,424 Union soldiers of the slave States aggregated 679,586 soldiers and outnumbered the Confederate army.

4. The States west of the Mississippi River, exclusive of Missouri and the other Southern States, enlisted 319,563, Delaware, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia 105,632, and the negro troops enlisted in the Southern States and not before counted were 99,337--an aggregate of 514,532 soldiers.

These facts, taken from the war records, show that there were four Union armies in the field, each of which was as large as the Confederate army.

The following list of killed and wounded (exclusive of prisoners) in the nineteen great battles of the war was compiled by Lieut. Col. G. F. R. Henderson, C.B., in his most excellent book of two volumes styled “Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War.” I am glad that some neutral party has so truthfully recorded the facts as they are. He came to the United States after the war in order to investigate and write for the benefit of an impartial public a true history. He was given every facility for that purpose and had access to the reports of both sides, with the personal interviews of both Federal and Confederate officers who had participated from the beginning to the close of the war. After much labor and time spent, he made the following report, touching the killed and wounded of both armies in the battles named, which report received the full indorsement of Field Marshal the Right Honorable Viscount Wolseley, commander in chief of the Army of Great Britain. Taken, then, as such, it should be accepted as impartial and true.

LIST OF KILLED AND WOUNDED (NOT INCLUDING PRISONERS) IN THE GREAT BATTLES OF THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES, 1861 TO 1865. ─────────────────┬────┬──────────────┬────────────────────┬───┬───┐ │ │ NUMBER OF │ │ │ │ Name │ │TROOPS ENGAGED│ KILLED AND WOUNDED.│ │Pct│ of │ ├──────┬───────┼──────┬──────┬──────┤Tot│ of│ Battle. │Date│ Cfd │ Fed │ Cfd │ Fed │ Total│Pct│Vic│ ─────────────────┼────┼──────┼───────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼───┼───┤ Manassas* │1861│18,000│ 18,000│ 1,969│ 1,584│ 3,553│ 9│ 10│ Perryville │1862│16,000│ 27,000│ 3,200│ 3,700│ 6,900│ 16│···│ Shiloh │1862│40,000│ 58,000│ 9,000│12,000│21,000│ 20│ 20│ Seven Pines │1862│39,000│ 51,000│ 6,134│ 5,031│11,165│ 12│ 9│ Gaines Mill* │1862│54,000│ 36,000│ 8,000│ 5,000│13,000│ 14│ 14│ Malvern Hill │1862│70,000│ 80,000│ 5,500│ 2,800│ 8,300│ 5│ 3│ Cedar Run* │1862│21,000│ 12,000│ 1,314│ 2,380│ 3,694│ 11│ 6│ Second Manassas* │1862│54,000│ 73,000│ 9,000│13,000│22,000│ 17│ 16│ Sharpsburg* │1862│41,000│ 87,000│ 9,500│12,410│21,910│ 17│ 23│ Fredericksburg* │1862│70,000│120,000│ 4,224│12,747│16,971│ 8│ 6│ Chickamauga* │1863│71,000│ 57,000│18,000│17,100│35,100│ 27│ 25│ Chancellorsville*│1863│62,000│130,000│10,000│14,000│24,000│ 12│ 17│ Gettysburg │1863│70,000│ 93,000│18,000│17,000│37,000│ 24│ 20│ Chattanooga │1863│33,000│ 60,000│ 3,000│ 5,500│ 8,500│ 8│ 9│ S. River or │1862│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ M’boro* │ -63│33,000│ 60,000│ 9,500│ 9,000│18,500│ 24│ 20│ Wilderness* │1864│61,000│118,000│11,000│15,000│26,000│ 14│ 18│ Spottsylvania │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ C. H.* │1864│50,000│100,000│ 8,000│17,000│25,000│ 16│ 16│ Cold Harbor* │1864│58,000│110,000│ 1,700│10,000│11,700│ 6│ 3│ Nashville │1864│39,000│ 55,000│ 3,500│ 3,000│ 6,500│ 6│ 5│ ─────────────────┴────┴──────┴───────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴───┴───┘ (Cfd ＝ Confederate; Fed ＝ Federal; Vic ＝ Victor) * Indicates battles won by Confederates.

Confederates victorious, 12; Federals victorious, 7.

It will be seen from the report that the per cent of casualties (killed and wounded) at Chickamauga is greater than any other battle of the war--to wit: twenty-seven per cent. The next in order are Gettysburg and Murfreesboro, with twenty-four per cent each. It will be remembered, too, that at Gettysburg the combined armies engaged aggregated 163,000, while at Chickamauga the combined armies engaged numbered 128,000. The killed and wounded at Gettysburg numbered 37,000, while at Chickamauga the killed and wounded numbered 35,100--a difference of 35,000 in the aggregated strength of the two armies and only a difference of 1,900 in the number of killed and wounded. Gettysburg and Chickamauga were the two great battles of the war, as I have before remarked, the one in the East and the other in the West. In these engagements the Confederate army had its greatest strength and enthusiasm. After these two battles they fought with some degree of success to the last. The North continued to gather strength, while the South had no resources to draw upon. “The cradle and the grave” had made their liberal contributions, and for the soldier who fell in action there was no one to supply his place.

In the table I have indicated the Murfreesboro--or Stones River, as it is called by the Federals--battle as a victory for the Confederates when it should have been for the Federals. General Bragg gained a great victory at Murfreesboro on the 30th of December, 1862; but after two days’ inactivity and failing to follow it up, he assaulted the fortified position of the Federals with a single division, that of General Breckenridge, who, after a gallant fight, was repulsed with heavy loss on the 1st of January, 1863. That night General Bragg withdrew his army and retreated to Shelbyville. Technically speaking, Colonel Henderson is correct, for the Federals had won every portion of the field at the termination of the battle.

I do not like to criticize any portion of what Colonel Henderson says in his report, but I am of the opinion that he is in error when he places the Confederate forces at Chickamauga as larger than those of the Federal army. I will do him the justice to say that I have heard the same claimed by Northern writers. The Confederate soldiers claim that the Federal army was numerically the largest. They account for the mistake in this way: It was well known that General Longstreet was ordered to Chickamauga to reënforce General Bragg with his large veteran corps from General Lee’s army in Virginia, numbering some twenty or twenty-five thousand. But General Longstreet did not reach the field until the night of the 19th, and participated in the last day’s fight, the 20th of September. Only two of his divisions reached there in time to take part in the last day’s battle--the divisions of Generals McLaws and Hood, numbering less than ten thousand. At a consultation had at General Bragg’s headquarters on the night of the 19th the Confederate army was divided into two wings, General Polk to command the right wing and General Longstreet to command the left wing. More than two-thirds of the left wing were troops of the Army of Tennessee and were on the field before General Longstreet arrived. These facts show that the two armies were about equal numerically; if anything, the Federal army was the larger. The change of figures would adjust the relative strength of each army. Anyhow, there was honor and glory won at Chickamauga--enough to satisfy every American soldier that took part in that great battle. It was the deadliest battle not only of our War between the States, but stands without a parallel in all modern warfare. The great battle between Wellington and Napoleon at Waterloo, fought in 1815, falls short of it three per cent in killed and wounded, when the stake was the destiny of all Europe.

Since the war the government of the United States has purchased the entire battle field of Chickamauga (thousands of acres) and transformed what was a rugged and immense growth of timber and undergrowth into a beautiful national park, checking every point of interest with smooth roadways, and preserving at the same time every object as it appeared during the battle. A military post has been established there, which the government is now about to enlarge at great expense. Troops from all the States, both North and South, participated in the battle of Chickamauga. Most of them have erected imposing monuments to their respective soldiers. A forest of monumental spires is to be seen in any direction one may travel over the great field of battle, every one of which, as it lifts its tall shaft to the skies, tells of the soldiers who fought there, whether they wore the blue or the gray.

As I have said before, the Confederate armies never enlisted more than six hundred thousand soldiers from first to last. I have said also that the Federal writers have denied this and claimed more, which under the circumstances they are more than anxious should be the fact. I still insist that the Confederate estimate--to wit, six hundred thousand--is approximately correct, as is shown in the June (1912) number of the _Confederate Veteran_ in a well-digested and carefully prepared paper written by Rev. R. H. McKim, which most convincingly confirms these figures. President Tyler, of William and Henry College, writing on “The South in the Building of the Nation,” says: “In round numbers the South had on her muster rolls from first to last about six hundred thousand soldiers.” This estimate agrees with that of Adjutant General Cooper, whose duty it was to keep an accurate roster of the Confederate armies during the entire war; that of Dr. Bledsoe, Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, Gen. Jubal A. Early, and Gen. John Preston; also with that of many other distinguished and reliable writers I could mention who confirm this estimate of the strength of the Confederate armies.

Every paroled soldier at Appomattox under General Lee on the 9th of April, 1865, or under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston at Greensboro, N. C., on the 26th of April, 1865, seventeen days afterwards, knew that he was fighting an enemy that outnumbered him from six or twelve to one. The Confederate paroled list, as well as the morning’s reports of the Federal army, will show that this is an indisputable fact, and it should go down in history at these figures.

The latest United States census report made prior to the breaking out of the War between the States shows that the Northern States had a white population about five times as large as that of the Southern States. By the offering of large bounties, the United States enlisted four hundred and ninety-four thousand foreigners. Many of these at the close of the war never claimed citizenship here, but returned to the land of their nativity. Since the passage of the pension laws they have been paid millions of dollars by the United States. After nearly half a century the survivors are still drawing their pensions--mercenary soldiers in fact and in deed.

The Southern States furnished the Northern army 276,439 white troops and 178,975 colored troops. These are well-authenticated facts and fully justify Southern people for the insistence they make of the comparative strength of the two armies during the war.

We claim that no army has ever fought so valiantly as the Confederate army. All history fails to show a parallel case. For four years they maintained the unequal contest, fighting more and greater battles, conducting longer campaigns, and enduring more privations than were ever before recorded. The South claims this much, though in the contest they lost all save honor.

“No nation rose so white and fair, Or fell so pure of crimes.”

The Confederate cavalry regiments for three winters slept in the open air, without tents, before a log-heap fire. In case of rain or sleet, they would get some forked limbs, place a pole between the forks, put rails on the ground, resting them on the pole, and spread an oilcloth or blanket from the pole down to the ground. The result was a splendid “lay-out” (or “lay-in”), especially with the log-heap fire in front of the opening. The poet has exclaimed in ecstasy:

“Balmy sleep, tired nature’s sweet restorer!”

One can never experience the sentiment unless this is tried. Some died in getting accustomed to it; but generally the survivors were stout, healthy, and active soldiers. A dry snow was not to be dreaded, for it supplied a covering equal to at least two blankets. When morning bugles were sounded, they would rise, throwing blankets and snow off them, feeling stout and strong enough to throw their horse over a ten-rail fence. Such a morning made the boys happy that they were Confederate soldiers and that they could dream of “home, sweet home.”

Every survivor of the Confederate army will indorse what Gen. Bennett H. Young, Commander in Chief of the United Confederate Veterans, so well and truthfully said in his speech on Decoration Day, 1912, at Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Ky., in part as follows:

Our love of country does not dim or tarnish the love for our Confederation. The Confederate States lived only four years, and they occupy upon the pages of human history more space than any other nation that lived for the same length of time. We are not ashamed for what they did; we rejoice in what we suffered. The glory and grandeur of the character of the Confederate soldier we shall maintain for all time. We have nothing to say derogatory to the courage, valor, and patriotism of our countrymen who sleep beneath the stars and stripes, and whose graves are kept green by a nation’s gratitude and love; but we affirm that no nation of equal numbers, with the limitation of a large population of slaves, enlisted proportionately so vast a number of men under its standards or ever undertook to defend so vast a territory. We contend that no army of equal numbers ever fought so many battles in so brief a period or suffered such tremendous losses. One man in every three who wore the Confederate uniform died on the battle field or from wounds received in conflict or in the hospital. History details no account of such a vast percentage of mortality or such tremendous sacrifices. These losses proclaim the incontestable valor of the Confederate soldiers, and no people who ever engaged in war inflicted upon their enemy such vast damage and injury.

But few remain of the line that went down with the flag on the 26th of April, 1865, at Greensboro, N. C. Another generation has come and gone since then. We seldom see each other now. May we meet again in the great hereafter!

“In many a lonely thicket, Far from life’s beaten track, The scout and guard and picket, The boys who never came back: They died where the cannon’s thunder Made savage pulses thrill, That the flag they battled under Might wave o’er free men still.”