Today in History: 9 April 1865

Today in 1865, General Lee surrendered his troops at Appomattox, marking the end of the Civil War. I’ve often been curious as to how many men Lee had under his command at the end of the war. Here’s a passage from William Marvel’s Lee’s Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox (Civil War America) (2002) 205-206:

The returns in the Official Records imply that three weeks before the attack on Fort Stedman Lee’s army numbered around 71,400 men “present” – or as many as 77,400, considering the correspondence about returned prisoners. That represents an aggregate figure, including thousands of sick and support personnel (but still not the hundreds of sailors and marines who joined the army at Amelia Court House). That grand total is therefore the correct equivalent from which to start deducting losses that are also aggregate numbers. Given estimated total casualties of about 26,000 from March 25 until April 9 (most of those sailors and marines among them), the 3,000 acknowledged deserters in March, and the surrender of some 28,000 men at Appomattox (including support personnel, sick, wounded, and thousands of other noncombatants), at least 14,400, and perhaps as many as 20,400, of Lee’s soldiers disappeared without an honorable explanation in the month beginning March 10. A couple of thousand may have eluded the cordon at Appomattox in an effort to carry on the struggle, refusing to abide by their general’s surrender, but most of those men simply deserted their flag. Many of them may not have been counted as “effectives” when the campaign began, but the odds are that a majority of them were.

State-by-state analysis of Lee’s losses during the final forty days of fighting in Virginia supports the implication that most of those who disappeared were deserters: in general terms, the farther away Lee’s soldiers lived from the campaign theater, the less likely were they to leave the ranks. Calculating the aggregate losses only among the infantry (since large and uncertain numbers of cavalry and artillery escaped the surrender), one finds that the Virginia regiments suffered the greatest average attrition. Virginia units lost an average of 75-4 percent of their aggregate number present from March 1 until the last volley at Appomattox. The eight Virginia brigades for which statistics are available counted 12,865 men at the outset and surrendered only 3,163 at the end. Virginia’s overall ratio is driven in part by the 87.4 percent attrition in Pickett’s division, barely half of which is attributable to casualties on the battlefield; in the latter half of March, for instance, Pickett lost 512 deserters in a single bloodless march from one position to another outside Richmond. The brigades of no other Confederate state suffered such proportionate depletions during that period, and just two days before the surrender one Louisiana artilleryman remarked particularly on the frequency of desertion among the Virginians…¹

William Marvel, who also authored A Place Called Appomattox (this link leads to the 2008 reprint), is not well loved among Appomattox residents. That book outlined several secrets that many folks who live in Appomattox would rather keep under wraps. But, records being what they are – which is “public” – means that all that information is fair game for any historian. Marvel treats Lee’s Retreat in much the same way. The information shown above would make any Virginian cringe, especially the parts about desertion.

Marvel doesn’t live in Appomattox, but he has access to many of the same records that any historian can tap. He merely reports the facts in a way that is easy for anyone to read. For those who doubt his facts, remember that Civil War resources are many, and many of those resources are not accurate for the reasons that Marvel states – many assumptions are made, especially about numbers. It may take centuries to fully understand what General Lee had at his disposal on April 9, 1865.

Marvel does cite his work. From his citations, he stated that he gathered his figures noted above from the book, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (128 vols on CD), 128 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901). The above citations are to Series I, the link is to a compilation of those records on CD.

Marvel also used Brock’s THE APPOMATTOX ROSTER: A List of the Paroles of the Army of Northern Virginia Issued At Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865., 68-440 (a rare book, usually best for small budgets to find this book via library). His analysis “was confined to the infantry of the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Corps because accurate beginning returns were available for them and because relatively few infantry escaped from Appomattox. A small Virginia infantry brigade belonging to Seth Barton is not included because, as part of Custis Lee’s division, its March returns were apparently lost during the retreat; since all but a fragment of that brigade was captured at Sailor’s Creek, its inclusion would only drive Virginia’s proportion of loss even higher.”

Marvel did not use the compilation from William G. Nine’s and Ronald G. Wilson’s book, Appomattox Paroles April 9-15, 1865 (Virginia Civil War Battles and Leaders Series). The numbers in that book, however, are fairly consistent with what Marvel presents above.

Image: The old Appomattox Courthouse, April 1865.