Under ordinary circumstances the army of the enemy should have been destroyed. Its escape was due to the causes already stated. Prominent among these was the want of correct and timely information. This fact, together with the character of the country, enabled General McClellan skillfully to conceal his retreat, and to add much to the obstructions with which nature had beset the way of our pursuing columns. We had, however, effected our main purpose. The siege of Richmond was raised, and the object of a campaign which had been prosecuted after months of preparation, at an enormous expenditure of men and money, was completely frustrated.[42]
More than ten thousand prisoners, including officers of rank, fifty-two pieces of artillery, and upward of thirty-five thousand stand of small-arms were captured. The stores and supplies of every description which fell into our hands were great in amount and value, but small in comparison with those destroyed by the enemy. His losses in battle exceeded our own, as attested by the thousands of dead and wounded left on every field, while his subsequent inaction shows in what condition the survivors reached the protection of the gunboats.
In the archive office of the War Department in Washington there are on file some of the field and monthly returns of the strength of the Army of Northern Virginia. These are the original papers which were taken from Richmond. They furnish an accurate statement of the number of men in that army at the periods named. They were not made public at the time, as I did not think it to be judicious to inform the enemy of the numerical weakness of our forces. The following statements have been taken from those papers by Major Walter H. Taylor, of the staff of General Lee, who supervised for several years the preparation of the original returns.
A statement of the strength of the troops under General Johnston shows that on May 21, 1862, he had present for duty as follows:
Smith's division, consisting of the brigades of Whiting,
Hood, Hampton, Hatton, and Pettigrew . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,592
Longstreet's division, consisting of the brigades of A. P.
Hill, Pickett, R. H. Anderson, Wilson, Colston, and Pryor . . 13,816
Magruder's division, consisting of the brigades of McLaws,
Kershaw, Griffith, Cobb, Toombs, and D. R. Jones . . . . . . 15,680
D. H. Hill's division, consisting of the brigades of Early,
Rodes, Raines, Featherston, and the commands of Colonels Ward
and Crump . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,151
Cavalry brigade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,289
Reserve artillery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,160
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Total effective men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53,688