Lee's Army during the Overland Campaign: A Numerical Study

Chapter 2. Reinforcements to the Army of Northern Virginia during the Overland Campaign

14 chapter 2 Reinforcements to the Army of Northern Virginia during the Overland Campaign The Army of Northern Virginia was considerably reinforced with many new units during the Overland Campaign. Many of these were drawn from General Beauregard’s forces facing Butler’s Army of the James. Some originally belonged to Lee’s army, others were drawn from the military departments and commands along the Atlantic Seaboard. Breckinridge’s Division was temporarily loaned from the Department of Western Virginia. The identities and strengths of these units (as they joined the Army of Northern Virginia) are listed in Table 5, Appendix A. The total strength of these units was 25,495 men. In addition to these new units, Lee’s army continued after May 5 to receive personnel to units in the original table of organization. As discussed above, the strength of the Army of Northern Virginia was increased during the immediate period preceding the commencement of the campaign by the addition both of recruits and of personnel returning from furlough and prisoner exchange. A study of the individual personnel records reveals that this process did not simply end with the start of active hostilities but continued throughout the entire year of 1864. For the cavalry arm, most of these men consisted of returnees with a new mount. For the original six brigades comprising this corps, the increases in personnel between May 5 and midJune (after Cold Harbor/Trevilian Station) were about 120 per brigade. For Butler’s South Carolina brigade, the increase (during June only) was about 40 men. For the artillery, the increase during this period averaged about 3 to 4 men per battery. For the infantry arm, the number of new recruits and returning men varied considerably. The average increase per brigade between May 5 and mid-June (after Cold Harbor) for each infantry division is shown in Table 6, Appendix A. Reinforcements during the Overland Campaign 15 Regarding the figures in Table 6, it is not surprising that the largest increases occurred in the divisions of Kershaw and Field in the First Corps. As mentioned above, these divisions left a trail of men in the wake of their movement from East Tennessee. They also had a substantial number of men returning from wounded furlough. Hoke’s Division (from Beauregard’s forces) similarly had men come in late from earlier assignments along the Atlantic Seaboard. The other larger figures are associated with commands that overall had large enrollments, sustained heavy casualties in 1863 (principally at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg), or, as with Wilcox’s and part of Heth’s Divisions, received large numbers of recruits in late May or early June 1864. There were other minor increases to the infantry not covered above. Hays’s Louisiana Brigade (of Early’s Division in the Second Corps) had, for the most part, been captured at Rappahannock Station the previous fall (on November 7). Most of the captured enlisted men in this brigade were exchanged in March 1864 and represent one of the significant increases to the strength of this division between April 20 and May 5. Judging by the CSRs, it appears that about 100 more men of this description or category returned to the brigade in May after the start of the campaign. In addition, the 1st Confederate Infantry Battalion and the 26th Mississippi Infantry Regiment had been transferred from the Department of Alabama , Mississippi, and East Louisiana to Davis’s Brigade (of Heth’s Division in the Third Corps) in the early spring. According to inspection reports filed for these units and held in the National Archives, the main body of these units left Demopolis, Alabama, on March 28 and joined Lee’s army on April 12–13. An examination of the individual CSRs reveals that about 130 men followed later and rejoined these two commands in May and June. Summarizing the above, the additions to Lee’s army from these other various categories were about as follows: artillery, 180; cavalry, 760; and infantry, 4,845. The total of these figures is 5,785 troops, yielding an estimated grand total of 31,280 men reinforcing Lee during the campaign. These figures represent the maximum number of men available to Lee during the Overland Campaign. During this five- to six-week period, the cavalry experienced significant losses in mounts. No specific numbers are available for the men who became dismounted, but judging by the muster rolls in the CSRs and available diaries, this figure may have been as much as...