The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1897-03-04

Inc single exception OF Gritilu'5 Brigade, out
We know it was in existence all through tue
Winter and Spring OF 1865 If We add 81 per
cent. to Gen. Lees 81 900 men, aggregate present
Tor duty OH the 18th of February, 1860, we have
In ronnd numbers 72.e00 r1cE aggregate pres
ont on that day, and as this was tho Union
method Of reporting the strength OF the army.
Gen. Mead was almost absolutely correct in his
estimate OF the strength of the army defending
the lines OF Richmond and Petersburg, and his
secret service must have been nearly perfect.
In newspaper article a few years ago Gen.
Longstreet stated that Lee held the lines about
Richmond and Petersburg with fl 900 muskeis.
against Grants IL 900 men. If LoDgsireet had
been fair in the matter and have included
every body serving in tho rebel army as he did
in Grants. it would have brought tho numbers
of Lees army up to 10000 men. The reports
of the strength of their army were made by
rebel army officers for the of the rebel
authorities, and they were undoubtedly accu-
rate; there is not the least probability that they
lied to themselves.
Now, as to Gen. Lees losses after the 18th of
February. After that date there was nothing
more than the usual operations of the siege
until tho 25th of March, when Gen. Gordon
made his celebrated night attack on Fort Stead
man, where Gen. Grant says the rebels lost
1000 men. Then came tho battles which lei
10 the evacuation Of the lines about Petersburg
and Richmond, the retreat, and the surrender
at Appomattox Courthouse.
Gen. Grant gives the rebel loss in prisoners
from March 20 to April as 10, 1872 men. but
there is no account of the number of men killed
and wounded in the desperate combats which
took place during that time, nor is it known
how many deserted from Lees army between
the 23th Of February and the 9th of April. II
Pollard, the rebel historian, is correct. the
number Of deser:ers must Lave run up into the
thousands. Speaking of the number of deser-
e.
Of 1865. Pollard. in his book, Z" The Lost Cause"
says: For every man who deserted to the
front. 10 deserted to the rear"
Every person conversant with affairs at the
Headquarters of the Army at City Point in
March, 1865, knows that the number OF DESERT
ers averaged more than 100 men daily during
that month. which would make over B. 900 men.
letter from Gen. Lee To Gov. Vance. OF North
Carolina, dated Feb. "a. 1865 says: "Desertions
are becoming very frequent In the
last two weeks several hundred have deserted
from Hills Corps"
The rebel statement of their losses during
the Appomattox campaign are very conflicting.
For instance, Gen. Ewell, i'm his official report,
says his two divisions numbered 5000 men
when he left Richmond that 150 were killed
and wounded and 1900 were captured az Sail
or's Creek; it then, in ambiguous terms, leaves
the reader TO infer that the remainder OF his
command, numbering over 1900, were stray
giers.
Most of the Union accounts of the battle of
Sailors Creek state that Ewell lost 5000 men
ut that battle. Gen. Grant says that 1000
rebels were captured there, but does not locate
the commands to which they belonged. Gen.
Long. in his Memoirs of Robert L. Lee" page
Ala, speaking of the battle, says: las conse-
qnence. his (EwelPs) corps was surrounded and
captured with but little opposition. About the
same time the divisions of Pickett and Bsshrod
Johnson were almost broken up, about 10000
men in all being captured"
johnson, lin his report OF the battle, says:
My losses were quite SMALL" Pickett made
no report of the App0mattox campaign.
If Longs statement and Eweli's and John
sons reports are correct, the greater portion
of the 1900 men, in excess of those killed,
wounded, and captured of Eweli's command.
must have come from Pickett's Division. This,
together with his losses at Dinwiddie Court
house and Five Forks. his share of the strag.
glers and his men paroled at Appomattox would
exceed the number he began the campaign with
by over 1900 men, which is an impossibility,
as there were no rcinforcements for Lees Di-
visions after the Appomattox campaign opened.
There were 49, 3l men paroled at Appomat-
tox Courthouse. Six battalions of artillery
borne return for Jan. 81. 1865, are not
counted for by the paroles. If the six bat
talions were in existence at Appomattox. TAX
ing the II battalions accounted for as a basis,
whose average was Isl men to the battalion,
the six battalions would have 900 men.
Fitz Hugh, with the mounted men. 2400 in
number, rode off as soon as the flag of truce WAS
raised, and were not borne on the parole rolls
of the surrender at Appomattox. They were
paroled in the vicinity Of their respective
homes, if paroled at all. According to the above
figures Lee had an aggregate present Of 81, 537
men on April O. 1865. These, plus the 10, 1872
captured during the campaign previous to the
surrender, would account for "a. 669 of his ag-
gregate present on Feb. 90, leaving Is sol 10
be accounted for as killed and wounded mot
including the Fort Steadman affair and de-
serters between that date aud April 8. The
probability is Lee had at least 900 more men
at AppOmattox Courthouse on the morning of
April 9 than above stated. After hostilities
ceased the command to which the writer be-
longed bivouacked between the wagon and rail-
road to Lynchburs, and the rebels began to
pass our bivouac on their way toward that
place in considerable numbers that afternoon,
and kept it up until we left on the morning of
the 18th, and in all probability good many
more went away on other roads during that
time. ParOling began sometime during the
10th.
All Southern writer's and historians are very
CAREFUL in their accounts of Lees surrender, to
give their readers the impression that less than
10000 men were surrendered at Appomattox.
Gen. Long in his biography of Gen. Lee
seems however, to deem it necessary to explain,
and says on pages 1916: cit will be noticed
that large seeming discrepancy exists be-
tween the 10, 600 men here mentioned as effect
i've and the 1921 men and officers paroed.
The remainder of the paroled men
were composed of unarmed stragglerS who had
come up since the halt of the army, and of
extra-duty and detailed men of every descrip-
ton; the sum of whom vary greatly swelled
the present while adding nothing to the fight
ing capacity OF the army" Nevertheless, those
extra.d duty and detailed men of every descrip-
ton were Just as essential to the existence of
their army as were their fighting men.
The reader will see that the Southern writers
and speakers ignore their own statistics, and
give the assertions of their Generals smarting
from the sting of defeat, for good history, and
the Southern people, together with their
Northern aud foreign sympathizers, accept the
story as true, and tell of the gallant stand
made by the rebel army, which only gave up
when overpowered by Overwhelming numbers
Apropos of the rebels beittling their numbers,
a Union soldier recently said: "A few more
years, a few more books, and it will appear that
Lee and Longstreet and One-armed orderly,
and a casual with q shotgun, fought all the
battles of the rebellion and killed all the
Union soldiers except those who ran away
STEPHEN TRIP, Captain 11th Pa. Cav, Otta-
wa, Kan.
Cuban Complication.
Something OF a sensation was caused last week
by the announcement through Cuban de-
spatches that Consul. Gen. Lee had asked the