The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1893-12-28
VOL xxxvII. No II.
NORTH CAROLINA LEADS
IN THE EHONOR~RULLO OFTHE CON
FEDERACY.

! A Book of War ReveIations Now Beins
Prepaid by the OfficiaI Histo-
rians of the Late War.
From the New York Times
Though but little has been printed
concerning the work of the War Rec.
ords Office of the War Department
set this has been tremendous task
Forty-nine volumes Of nearly thou
san0 pages each, are completed, and
furnish the most accurate history
ever published of nations inferno
cine war. The work has been impair
Tally done Bcsi0e tic slye Union
officers, employed, two Confederate
general officers have always been en-
gagged in editing the war archives
pertaining to the dead Confederacy.
Those now employed are Lieut.. Gen.
Alexander 7. Stewart, of Mississippi,
a graduate of West Point, and corps
commander in the Army OF the TcL-
nessee, for that army, and Maj. Gen.
L. L. LomaX, of Virginia, one of J. E.
Stuart's best cavalry officers, for the
Army of Northern Virginia.
The most interesting feature OF the
work is not yet in print, but ia course
Of preparation. 1t is an exhaustive
the casualties on both sides in the
war. Here are facts, not opinions.
1t will be made plain beyond all room
for controversy, in this volume, that
much of the hardest lighting of the
war was between the Army OF the PO-
tomac and the Army Of Northern Vir-
ginia, and the figures in this volume
will show that the infantry regiments
from the Eastern States did the hard
est fighting in the Union army. They
also prove that the COnfederacy sue
sumbed by the exhaustion of Lees
army, and are an emphatic comment
theory that different conduct of
campaign or other tactics than those
actually adopted would have ended
the war before the forces of the Con-
federacy were destroyed. They dem
Onstrate, too, that, like other civil
wars which have been prolonged far
beyond the point where one nation
would have acknowledged itself beat
en- by another, the war for the Union
had to be fought out to the end.
Many of the revelations in this i'm
portant volume will astonish the
reader. The tables of deaths and
wounds that are given measure the
actual lighting as nothing else can.
One thing clearly shown is the over
shadOwing Importance Of the bait. es
of Gettysburg and Chickamauga, the
greatest battles the Confederate and
Union armies ever fought. The losses
in These engagements prove how much
flercer was the fighting in these bat
ties than 10 was before or ever was
again between the two armies engaged
during the war. On the other hand,
other battles which have made mill
tary regulations, sink into compare
tive iDsigniflcancc. Meade gains, and
Sheridan, for instance, loses, by the
bringing together of these statistics.
The heroic valor Of the North Caro-
lima troops eXcites the highest admi-
ration, and Pennsylvania, which lost
more in killed and wounded, in pro-
portion to the number of its troops,
than any Northern State, can well
send greeting to North Carolina
whose soldiers at Gettysburg did the
hardest lighting on the other side,
over the happy reunion of the present
year.
In the Union armies there were, in
all, 800 regiments, not including the
three or six months men. The Union
infantry regiment which suffered the
greatest loss in battle during the war
was the Fitch New Hampshire, which
in four years or service lost 295 men
killed or mortalIy wounded in action,
including Is officers. The Eighty
Third Pennsylvania Infantry came
next. 1t lost 262 officers and men
There were only fOrty-tive infantry
regiment which had, during the war,
over 200 mcn killed or mOrtally wound
ed in action. or these regiments
Pennsylvania furnished eleven, a
greater number than any other State.
New York, Massachusetts and Michi-
gan furnished six each, and little Yer
mont closely followed with four.
In the killed and wounded Of the
Union light artillery regiments, Coop
er's Battery, of the First Pennsylvania
Artillery, heads the list, with a loss
of.21 killed and mortally wounded in
action. Ricketts, Pennsylvania Bat
terry is seventh, with a loss Of Is, and
Bigelow's Massachusetts is ninth,
with a loss of Is. The regiment
which had the most killed and wound
ed in action during the entire war, in
proportion to its enrolment, was the
Second Wisconsin, with per centage
loss of 1914 per cent. or the twenty
two regiments whose loss was above
15 per cent; Pennsylvania furnishes
the highest number, 6; Wisconsin
comes next, with 4, and New York
and Massachusetts. give each.
or the 200 regiments in which the
loss in killed and died OF wounds eX.
ceedcd 10 per cent. of the total en-.
rollment, Pennsylvania leads all the
States in numbers, having furnished
80, Ohio 10, and Massachusetts, Is.
The Union infantry regiment with
the highest percentage of killed
wounded and missing in any one ac
uion was the First Minnesota, which
at Gettysburg lost 215 men on July 2
out OF 262 engaged. The One Hun
dred and Forty-First Pennsylvania i.
second, having lost at Gettysburg IA!
men out of 1913 engaged, or 1871 Pc
cent. This volume will give tabl,
showing slxty-twO Union regiment.
which lost in action from 80 to so pc
cent. The light Brigade at Balaklav;
lost 36.7 per cent. The heaviest los
of any German regiment in tn,
Franco-Prussian war was 49.4 pc
| cent.
The private was safer than the off
Ger. At Gettysburg the officers los
u per cent. in killed and wounded
while the enlisted men lost 81 De
cent. At Gettysburg the percentag
of loss among the officers was one-flal
greater than in the Wilderness. Tn
Sixty-First Pennsylvania lost NOR
officers killed than any infantry regi
ment in the Union almy-19, includ
ing three Colonels.
At Waterloo, the French had 80. 90
men and 352 guns; the allies 1900
mon and 183 guns. At Gcttysbar