The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-09-08
GRANTS LOSSES.
a NEW THEORY Az no WHY THEY APE
FEARED so ENORMOUS.

ported fer Esuty, when the Federal
went to- the Hospital.
Especial Correspondence Of the Democrntl
WASHINGTON. d. O., September 3, 1873.
The alleged remarks OF Grant to q Herald
correspondent concerning the relative forces
and losses OF
THE FEDERAL AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES
In the Virginia campaign Of 1864 have stirred
up An active but not particularly useful con-
troversy among tho historiographers of the
period. There Is one point involved In the
discussion, however, which Is worthy of fair
and just calculation for the ordinary purposes
of historical accuracy, and that Is the statis-
tics OF the loss Of human life and limb IN that
great campaign. There Is not much discre-
pancy between the various accounts Of the
losses OF the Confederate army In what has
passed into history under the name Of "the
death-grapple In the Wilderness" Those
losses were easily ascertained, because they
amounted TO Just the difference between the
morning reports of different dates. In those
days the Confederate
ARMY or NORTHERN VIRGINIA,
like Welingtons forces In the Peninsula,
was 80 perfect fighting machine, which
there was q wheel OF q cog left. and out of
which no wheel or cog ever dropped, unless IL
was permanently disabled or destroyed"
Gen. Lees 'loeses," therefore, included only
those who were killed outright, wounded past
possibility of remaining with their flags, or
taken and sent North as prisoners. IF Con-
federate soldier lost finger or bit of his
ear, or suffered a slight flesh wound, he put O
plaster on it or wrapped it with q rag, and
resumed hostilities Thus when the orderly
sergeants of the companies In Lees army
made up their morning statements after bat
ties, they reported as lost only those whom
not even
THE DEATHLEsS PLUCK OF THE AVERAGE
~.. REBEL SOLDIER,
or the iron discipline of his chief, could keep
longer In the ranks.
But In the Federal army the case was diff
ferent. There were always plenty of surgeons
on hand, with ample stores and plenty of
facilities for taking care Of the wounded.
The troops We're well disciplined, but they
lacked, as body, the grim resolution which
characterized their adversaries, and while
their discipline held the individual soldiers to
their posts, so long as they remained unhurt,
Il was very rare that one failed to embrace
the opportunity which slight wound afforded
OF going to the rear. AS a consequence
THE LOSSES" or THE FEDERAL. ARMY
In any close fight would be immense. The
field hospitals would be crowded with stall
wart fellows who had been wounded In tho
finger or in the toe, or had been scraped as to
the outer surface Of the cutice by stray balls
or pieces Of shell. | have known q Federal
regiment to close $50 men out of 800 taken
into, action, and the names Of the lost
would be printed In the Northern newspa-
pers. But In two or three days 200 out of Che
$50 would have been sent back to their COM
panies, to repeat the same performance, per-
haps, in the next fight. There was All in
stance IN the published reports where the
losses four times In less than thirty
days-once on the eighth of May In the
Wilderness, once on the fourteenth at Spott-
syl sylvia once on the twent y-fourth at the
June at Cold Harbor. And yet, though this
man was "lost" four times during the CAM
paign he was mustered out in good health in
1866 and hadn't wounds enough visible on him
swelled the Federal total to frightful proper
tions on paper, and had the same system
been adopted by the Confederates Lee must
have, lost his entire army; since there was
hardly one OF his followers, officers or men,
who did not get chit" in some of the many
battles fought between Mine Run and the
AppomattoX, badly enough to have sent him
to the field hospital II he had been Federal |
IL bAeLcloie aptehIS tuaJ inc
'srxTY-sIX THOUSAND MEN,
lost by Grant in the Wilderness campaign far
exceeded the number actually placed hOrs de
combat. Grant himself always protested
against the practice we have described, and
the medical corps was more than once ordered
to inspect the wounded more closely and send
back to their commands all who were not
actually disabled; moreover, the practice of
reporting vast numbers under the head of
slightly wounded" was severely reprobated
at headquarters, but the observation-disclosures
OF the Federal surgeons. together with the
the men, kept the casualty lists in Grants
army ridiculously in excess of the real
losses. Thus Grant is probably not far
out OF the, way when he puts his actual
1000 were killed, $4,000 wounded sufficiently |
30 cause disability and the rest taken prison
ers or deserted. These things should be re-
If for no other reason than be-
cause they tend to show the difference In
THE TEMpER AND SPIRIT OF THE soLDIERY
IN THE RESPECTIVE ARMIES
and the capacity Of the respective command
ers and officers for administration and dis
cipline.
or course nothing is now to be gained by
facts and nothing to be lost
u any direction by telling the truth about
these matters.
I do not write with any desire to dlsparage
my comrades or eNalt the heroism Of those
who were my enemies. But l do say. as @
faot which cannot be disestabishad, that the
criterion of losses" which woula apply to a
Confederate force would not apply to ours,
and race uersa. In the earlier BATTLES of the
var.-thar is, up to Gettysburg New
York, papers, invariably printed the lists of
Silled, wounded and missing of the Federal
troops, and through sentimentality which,
however natural in war. seems maudlin in
peace these lists became necessary in the es-
imation Of the Northern people. This added
he incentive of desire for honorable notoriety
o that of getting to the rear, and between
he two motives very few Federal soldiers
stayed in the ranks after they had been
pumped or bled ever so slightly.
THESE FACTS WILL NOT BE CoMBATED
" any man who served with the Federal
lrmy In the field.
Now any soldier knows that in fighting
ike that OF the Wilderness which was a
series Of vast skirmisheS In a country that did
lot admit Of heavy columns or complicated
'volutions, the proportion Of slightly
Wounded" to the seyerer casualties must be
immense. The Federals We're moving on the
Intensive and there was hardly an hour of
IsfA