Elennsar, I have addressed your comments line-by-line below:
ELENNSAR:
Your first link (in your post above) asserting that we can determine Lee's starting strength by adding the campaign's causalities to the October return risks double counting anyone noted as a causality at some point during the campaign but who had returned to the ranks as of the October 10, or any men who had not been present at the start of the campaign returning to the ranks in time for the October 10 count being accidentally included as part of the campaign start count.
THORP:
I certainly hope you will read my first link because in it I have already addressed the potential issue of double counting.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/artsandliving/civilwar/mcclellan-graphic/?tab=2
ELENNSAR:
This is less troubling than reporting Lee's "infantry PFD" based on a return that includes two artillery battalions as well as divisional artillery (certainly it is not listed as missing, and is usually given when divisional totals are), but it is not any better than anyone else's guesstimate.
THORP:
"Infantry" present for duty should be "troops" present for duty.
The statement about Lee's Sept. 22 return in my article should read [changes in caps]:
Lee filed his first return five days after the battle, noting the count is "very imperfect" and does not include cavalry or RESERVE artillery. It states that on Sept. 22, he had at least 36,418 TROOPS present for duty.
I am unclear as to why you are so deeply troubled by this minor error. The fact that I wrote INFANTRY instead of TROOPS does not change my stated total for Lee's army of "about 41,000" on Sept. 22. Is it correct for you to encourage others to discount everything else I have written because of it?
ELENNSAR:
And your use of eyewitness head counts to justify claims of Lee's numbers does not address that even were those headcounts 100% accurate that they would be counting the total men marching by - a poor basis for determining Lee's present for duty as distinct from his aggregate present, and yet used as if these totals were both certainly reliable and certainly of present for duty only.
THORP:
If historians cannot consider eye witness accounts, first hand scout reports, Confederate tri-monthly reports and sworn statements made immediately afterwards by Union officers, then what are we supposed to use? The accounts I published are copied verbatim from these sources. You will note that most first-hand accounts are larger than the present for duty numbers that I used. Does that not reinforce the notion that these witnesses were seeing aggregate present? Where are your better sources to contradict mine? And where in my text do I claim that my totals are "certainly reliable and certainly of present for duty only?" My actual words were, "If more than 75,000 men were with Lee during the Antietam campaign, sightings of the different parts of Lee's army should generally match the estimated number of troops from the chart above. In the map below, two-dozen accounts, taken from newspapers, civilians, intelligence reports and the sworn statements of officers, are located on the march routes. The correlation is surprisingly close."
Expired Image Removed
It should be noted that additional eye witness accounts which I did not publish from Sept. 2 to Sept. 9, also correlate with Lee's estimated troop strengths. What is your superior method to calculate the size of Lee's army during that time period?
ELENNSAR:
I have no doubt about your interest in documenting Lee's numbers, but the soundness of your writing I find doubtful based on that being offered as supporting your conclusion.
THORP:
Again, what is your better method? Should we just not question Taylor's and Sears' numbers?
ELENNSAR:
As for the issue of Lee having lost more men than he is generally acknowledged as losing, that is not an area I have investigated myself to any extent, and given that it's a pretty recognizable fact that both sides undercounted their own losses it would not surprise me to see that happen here as well.
THORP:
So is it incorrect to add back in the extra losses to Lee's army? They had to have been present in Maryland during the time period from Sept. 13 to Sept. 18, did they not? Regarding Union troop losses during the Antietam Campaign, what evidence do you have that specifically shows the Union undercounted their losses anywhere close to the extent of the Confederates? A conservative estimate shows the rebels had at least 3,500 additional casualties and that is only including killed and prisoners of war. I do not even attempt to consider additional wounded, of which there certainly many .
ELENNSAR:
But it does not address the issue of the strength of his army being too much for McClellan's own forces, which is my main concern in regards to McClellan's actions, and thus is not one I find particularly convincing as relates to the defense of McClellan's actions.
THORP:
On Sept. 7 or there about, McClellan only had about 60,000 men. (I don't have the exact number at hand, but I can produce it.) If Lee had 75,000 present for duty in the Frederick area, then McClellan's caution at that time is more than justifiable. (Not withstanding Halleck's bickering that McClellan was moving too fast!) For the record, I do not advocate that McClellan could not have beaten Lee more soundly. However, judging by how harshly Lee handled Burnside, Hooker, and Grant in later conflicts, when the odds were much better for the Union, I think it is unrealistic to believe that Lee could easily have been destroyed at Antietam. What I am tired of is arm-chair historians constantly writing that throughout the campaign, McClellan outnumbered Lee 2 to 1 when Lee's own reported numbers do not support that conclusion.
ELENNSAR:
Frankly, I feel that neither this or Sears are convincing, and look to find better information in other sources when they're available.
THORP:
What new sources do you expect to become available? Again, what numbers are we supposed to use in the meantime and why?
This was all written in haste, but I would like to address your post of Aug. 29, 2014 next.
Bringing the