Alan J. Pitts
Re: Fun with numbers. ; )
Wed Apr 4 23:48:15 2001


I had not gone through casualty reports on Chickamauga as you have. After doing so, it seems the report of killed for this brigade was surprising consistent. Longstreet's report shows 125 killed, regimental reports totaled show 124, and Deas says 123. The number of wounded shows more variance. Longstreet's report shows 592, regimental totals are 515 and Deas says 578. Deas and Longstreet agree on 28 missing, regimental reports total 24.

There are no statements of men carried into battle from the 50th and the S. S. Battn. Deas reports 1,942 officers and men, so the 40% casualty figure appears to be within reason. Allowing just the numbers reported by four regimental commanders, brigade strength was at least 1,480. The 50th plus the battalion could easily number another 400. Also note that commanders of the 19th and 39th say "muskets" or "guns", which probably mean that officers have been excluded from their counts.

My earlier speculation about men who returned to their commands was probably off target. It stands to reason that just as many men went home on leave as returned from leave; the same for those sick and on detail. I would expect some of those wounded in previous battles to return in the interim (about two months), but not that many. There would have been a small number of new enlistments, and perhaps 15% of those wounded at Chickamuaga would have recovered sufficiently to return to duty.

If the brigade counted 1197 officers and men unhurt when the sun went down on Sept. 20 1863, I'd expect Deas took about 1400 into battle on Missionary Ridge. Of course none of these counts include Dent's Battery, which was attached to the brigade at Chickamauga.

This was indeed fun!