The Battle of Antietam: A Perspective

Though, of course, there's another source of information - the casualty total Lee suffered in September (a drop in strength of about 17,000-18,000). If he only suffered 12,000 casualties at Antietam (and South Mountain, usually lumped together for casualty purposes), it appears he lost one of his larger divisions behind the sofa...
 
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I’m still waiting for one of the McClellan fans to provide page numbers in the OR so I can find each confederate regiment’s individual casualty count.
 
I’m still waiting for one of the McClellan fans to provide page numbers in the OR so I can find each confederate regiment’s individual casualty count.
Well, that's impossible, because several of them did not provide a casualty count at all and because the casualty counts that were provided and tabulated (skipping the cavalry, which may be listed elsewhere) listed only KIA/WIA. They do not list MIA, which is a separate category but which should be tabulated at the same time. (KIA is those you know to have died, WIA is those who are wounded and in your care, and MIA is everyone missing from the rolls who is not covered under those two categories.)
Additionally one brigade (Rodes) is consolidated and so is one entire division (AP Hill's) so you can't get individual summaries for those 28 regiments, assuming that is that some of those weren't missed out in the tabulation as well.

IOW the official tabulation provides individual breakdowns for 145 regiments, consolidates perhaps as many as 28 more and does not report 18* at all, in addition to missing a whole category.

For this incomplete tabulation (missing some regiments, missing the cavalry, and missing the MIA category) you can find it:
Official Records, Series I, Volume XIX, Part 1, pp. 810–13.

Which I honestly thought you would already have checked since I found it with about twenty seconds on the Wikipedia page for the Maryland Campaign. (It's the footnote attached to the Confederate casualty estimate.)

*and several batteries.
I should also note for clarity that some of the missed organizations I have described as "regiments" are very small, however others are not and some provably did suffer significant casualties.
 
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Well, that's impossible, because several of them did not provide a casualty count at all and because the casualty counts that were provided and tabulated (skipping the cavalry, which may be listed elsewhere) listed only KIA/WIA. They do not list MIA, which is a separate category but which should be tabulated at the same time. (KIA is those you know to have died, WIA is those who are wounded and in your care, and MIA is everyone missing from the rolls who is not covered under those two categories.)
Additionally one brigade (Rodes) is consolidated and so is one entire division (AP Hill's) so you can't get individual summaries for those 28 regiments, assuming that is that some of those weren't missed out in the tabulation as well.

IOW the official tabulation provides individual breakdowns for 145 regiments, consolidates perhaps as many as 28 more and does not report 18* at all, in addition to missing a whole category.

For this incomplete tabulation (missing some regiments, missing the cavalry, and missing the MIA category) you can find it:
Official Records, Series I, Volume XIX, Part 1, pp. 810–13.

Which I honestly thought you would already have checked since I found it with about twenty seconds on the Wikipedia page for the Maryland Campaign. (It's the footnote attached to the Confederate casualty estimate.)

*and several batteries.
I should also note for clarity that some of the missed organizations I have described as "regiments" are very small, however others are not and some provably did suffer significant casualties.

Unless I missed them, it looks like the 3rd SC Battalion, Philips’ Legion, and the 5th FL are not recorded in the OR (Official Records, Series I, Volume XIX, Part 1, pp. 803-10) as having been part of the AoNV during the Maryland Campaign.

The OR has the total confederate dead/wounded in the Maryland Campaign at 10,291. As I suspected, that number is significantly lower than the commonly accepted total of 11,730 confederate dead/wounded. It’s a difference of 1,439. That’s where the missing casualties are, of course.
 
Unless I missed them, it looks like the 3rd SC Battalion,

http://antietam.aotw.org/officers.php?unit_id=662

132 casualties at South Mountain alone....

Philips’ Legion,

http://www.angelfire.com/ga2/PhillipsLegion/lostlegion.html

113 casualties at South Mountain alone

and the 5th FL

http://antietam.aotw.org/officers.php?unit_id=699

Lost both their Colonel and Lieutanant Colonel at Antietam...

are not recorded in the OR (Official Records, Series I, Volume XIX, Part 1, pp. 803-10) as having been part of the AoNV during the Maryland Campaign.

Yep, it's not perfect is it? In fact the orbat doesn't even get the army structure right - the two wing structure was adopted during the retreat from Maryland.
 
Unless I missed them, it looks like the 3rd SC Battalion, Philips’ Legion, and the 5th FL are not recorded in the OR (Official Records, Series I, Volume XIX, Part 1, pp. 803-10) as having been part of the AoNV during the Maryland Campaign.
Interesting. Doubly interesting because the 5th Florida had two commanding officers (Col John C. Hately and Ltc Thomas B. Lamar) wounded at Antietam, and because they were part of Pryor's brigade, joining Anderson's division from Wilcox's division during September. Also because they're recorded as fighting in the cornfield.
The 3d SC Battalion was part of Drayton's brigade as far back as Second Manassas, and lost 132 men of 250 engaged at South Mountain, losing LtC James (KIA), Major Rice (WIA) and Captain Daniel Miller (MIA) at that battle, before fighting at Antietam.
Philips' Legion was also part of Drayton's Brigade and fought at Fox's Gap, losing 31 KIA, 39 WIA and 41 MIA. It also lost LtC Cook, Captains Daniel and Hamilton, Lt. Bowie and the chaplain WIA, Major Barclay MWIA and Captain Johnson MWIA, as well as three lieutenants killed and two captured; the senior officer at that point was Lieutenant Price of E company.


Those formations lost pretty heavily during the Maryland campaign. (Information from the Civil War in the East site.)


The OR has the total confederate dead/wounded in the Maryland Campaign at 10,291.
Does that include the cavalry, out of interest? I believe the cavalry filed separate returns, as they're not listed at all in the entire set.

As I suspected, that number is significantly lower than the commonly accepted total of 11,730 confederate dead/wounded. It’s a difference of 1,439. That’s where the missing casualties are, of course.
So that 1,439 includes the cavalry casualties, all the MIA and the casualties from the eighteen missing regiments? Or does it not include the MIA?



Regardless, here is a source for captured Confedederate wounded:
OR S1 V19 P1 Pg 111:
"In addition to our own wounded, we had upon our hands from the battles of South Mountain, Crampton's Gap, and Antietam in all about 2,500 Confederate wounded".

That's MWIA. It is greater by itself than the normal statements of captured Confederate troops.

Thus if we assume that all the missing regiments and all the cavalry casualties, but not the MIA, are accounted for in the 11,730 number, our lower bound for Confederate losses in the campaign is 14,230. Any captured unwounded are in addition to that, as are any KIA who were "MIA" in that their death was not properly recorded by the Confederates as KIA.

Since there were definitely several thousand (unwounded) Confederate prisoners at Fort Delaware in late September, and since there was definitely a big exchange where about 5,100 troops were able to "be made immediately available for the field" as of the 15th September, then it seems that there were indeed a few thousand captured unwounded... or, if not, the Union held onto those prisoners for months despite having means, motive and clear opportunity to exchange them. (No significant captures of Confederate troops took place in August, or in July aside from possibly Malvern Hill, while two big captures of Union troops had taken place at Richmond KY and Harpers Ferry in quick succession. It beggars belief that the Union would have a pool of well over 2,000 prisoners retained at Fort Delaware for months and yet fail to use them to regain the service of the Harpers Ferry troops ASAP... especially because only 60 Confederate soldiers were there on the 9th.)

It's also worth noting of course that having only MWIA is basically impossible in any large engagement. It's the stuff of tiny holdouts against overwhelming odds or of fanatics. (Or both, both can work too.)



How does this stack up against McClellan's estimates?

McClellan's estimate of enemy wounded is high compared to Confederate records and is probably high period - but it's the thing he could only estimate.

His KIA estimate for the Confederates is 2,700, and there were 2,468 Confederates buried at Hagerstown (died on the field, later interred there) plus another 112 at Frederick (died of wounds); this comes to 2,580 KIA or died of wounds, which is pretty good, especially when one considers that reportedly some of the troops which captured Harpers Ferry wore blue at Antietam and so would have been buried as Union troops - and that the Hagerstown cemetery is believed to be incomplete, with not all Confederate bodies located and reburied there.
His Captured estimate is not too far off - 2,500 MWIA in the hospitals, 3,000 at Fort Delaware and ca. 225 at Fort McHenry comes to 5,725. (5,613 to avoid double counting of the died-of-wounds.)

As per

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-sr...g/civilwar/mcclellan-graphic/index.html?tab=1

this suggests total casualties on the order of 17,000. McClellan's estimate is high but it's not high in unrecoverable casualties.

Interestingly, taking Lee's October 10 state and adding back even our lower bound for Confederate casualties produces a force of nearly 80,000...
 
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Does that include the cavalry, out of interest? I believe the cavalry filed separate returns, as they're not listed at all in the entire set.

So that 1,439 includes the cavalry casualties, all the MIA and the casualties from the eighteen missing regiments? Or does it not include the MIA?

The 1,439 should include all cavalry casualties, the infantry/artillery from the missing casualty reports, but no MIA.

Regardless, here is a source for captured Confedederate wounded:
OR S1 V19 P1 Pg 111:
"In addition to our own wounded, we had upon our hands from the battles of South Mountain, Crampton's Gap, and Antietam in all about 2,500 Confederate wounded".

That's MWIA. It is greater by itself than the normal statements of captured Confederate troops.

Thus if we assume that all the missing regiments and all the cavalry casualties, but not the MIA, are accounted for in the 11,730 number, our lower bound for Confederate losses in the campaign is 14,230. Any captured unwounded are in addition to that, as are any KIA who were "MIA" in that their death was not properly recorded by the Confederates as KIA.

Since there were definitely several thousand (unwounded) Confederate prisoners at Fort Delaware in late September, and since there was definitely a big exchange where about 5,100 troops were able to "be made immediately available for the field" as of the 15th September, then it seems that there were indeed a few thousand captured unwounded... or, if not, the Union held onto those prisoners for months despite having means, motive and clear opportunity to exchange them. (No significant captures of Confederate troops took place in August, or in July aside from possibly Malvern Hill, while two big captures of Union troops had taken place at Richmond KY and Harpers Ferry in quick succession. It beggars belief that the Union would have a pool of well over 2,000 prisoners retained at Fort Delaware for months and yet fail to use them to regain the service of the Harpers Ferry troops ASAP... especially because only 60 Confederate soldiers were there on the 9th.)

Did anyone ever actually count their prisoners?

This isn’t really about exact numbers of prisoners, anyway. It’s about your claim that the confederates suffered more casualties than the federals. I’m guessing you think the Union casualty figures are all accurate, even the 753 MIA at Antietam?
 
The 1,439 should include all cavalry casualties, the infantry/artillery from the missing casualty reports, but no MIA.
I see, thank you for clarifying.

Did anyone ever actually count their prisoners?
Well, McClellan estimated 6,000. The Union didn't hold onto the (unwounded) Antietam prisoners for very long because they needed to get the massive captures at Richmond KY and Harpers Ferry back in service as soon as possible, and they recorded the exchanges (which are in OR S2 V4 IIRC). I suspect they considered getting the HF Garrison back into service more important than an exact headcount by battle.

This isn’t really about exact numbers of prisoners, anyway. It’s about your claim that the confederates suffered more casualties than the federals.
Well, yes. It's not impossible for a defending force to suffer more casualties than their attackers, after all... quite apart from South Mountain having it be the case, you also have the Battle of Richmond, Stones River, Chancellorsville, Champion Hill...
The distinction here is more that it was a Union commander against Lee than anything else, but this kind of outperformance is actually fairly statistically consistent with McClellan's overall record against Lee.

I’m guessing you think the Union casualty figures are all accurate, even the 753 MIA at Antietam?
I think that if you consider the Union breakdown by unit inconsistent, we can instead look at the strength of the units in question before and after the Maryland campaign. Since the Union's records weren't partially destroyed by fire (while the Confederate ones were) we can probably trace through much more nicely.

Do you consider this worth doing? If so I can look into it.
 
I think that if you consider the Union breakdown by unit inconsistent, we can instead look at the strength of the units in question before and after the Maryland campaign. Since the Union's records weren't partially destroyed by fire (while the Confederate ones were) we can probably trace through much more nicely.

If the Union army captured over 5,000 confederates at Antietam, then the 753 Union MIA’s that were recorded seem incredibly low. How did the 9th Corps only have 113 MIA’s after they were surprised by A.P. Hill? How did the 1st Corps only have 122 MIA’s after they were shoved across the Cornfield by Hood? How did Sedgwick’s division only have 241 MIA’s after they were surprised in the West Woods and then shoved across the Cornfield?

Do you consider this worth doing? If so I can look into it.

Not really. Troop strength is unreliable.
 
How did the 9th Corps only have 113 MIA’s after they were surprised by A.P. Hill?
Presumably because they were hit in the flank and routed.

How did the 1st Corps only have 122 MIA’s after they were shoved across the Cornfield by Hood? How did Sedgwick’s division only have 241 MIA’s after they were surprised in the West Woods and then shoved across the Cornfield?

My assumption is that there's a difference in reaction between troops whose defensive position is overrun and those who are pushed back while on the offensive - people are more willing to break cleanly on the offensive.

A comparison is Shiloh, where the Confederates had less than 1,000 MIA when they were forced off the field while the Union had about 3,000 MIA but almost identical casualties in other categories.


That said it's possible that some official KIAs are MIAs instead.
(Though it's actually 962 MIA for the whole campaign, excluding Harpers Ferry but including South Mountain and Shepherdstown.)


Not really. Troop strength is unreliable.
True to some extent, but a major drop in strength is an indicator of either a real drop in force size, a temporary disorganization (leading to underreporting) or a change in the means of reporting. Troop strength reports are what was used at the time for things like paying troops or provision of food (both of which used Present as their determinant) so a trimonthly report should be accurate in showing what it claims to show as it was understood at the time.

There was no change in Confederate reporting methods through the months of September and October 1862, and the same is true for the Union. So it should be possible to trace the Antietam casualties for both sides.
 
That said it's possible that some official KIAs are MIAs instead.
(Though it's actually 962 MIA for the whole campaign, excluding Harpers Ferry but including South Mountain and Shepherdstown.)

Or troop strengths were underestimated. I always thought that it was odd that Hooker and Mansfield supposedly had 16,000 troops at Antietam even though McClellan records in his battle report that they had 25,000. I know McClellan liked to overestimate, but 9,000 is a bit much.
 
Or troop strengths were underestimated. I always thought that it was odd that Hooker and Mansfield supposedly had 16,000 troops at Antietam even though McClellan records in his battle report that they had 25,000. I know McClellan liked to overestimate, but 9,000 is a bit much.
In this case it's actually possible to tell roughly what's going on. McClellan is giving the strength of the force without straggling, in both cases (and he also does the same for his opponents), while the strength actually on the field is lower.

This happens in most cases, but at Antietam it's particularly notable because the armies had just force-marched quite a long way and been badly disrupted. The same happened to Lee's force, which is why Jackson's division is reported as having about 1,800 infantry (which was the strength when it arrived on the 16th after a hard march) but Starke's Brigade alone (one of four in Jackon's division) had - per the acting commander - about 1,400 infantry in it when it actually went into battle. The stragglers had closed back up.

It's also possible that McClellan was doing what he often did and reporting Present (again, both for him and his opponent). The trouble almost always comes in when a strength estimate in one category is matched to a strength estimate in a different category - I always like to point out that Hood's army on December 10 the Franklin-Nashville campaign outnumbered itself about 3:2 just comparing Present to Effective...
 
Everything prior to Antietam (except Fredericksburg/Mud March coupled with Galveston and Chickasaw Bluff) was the high point of the Confederacy:
Eastern Theatre:
* Drove Nathaniel P Banks army out of Shenandoah Valley.
* McClellan proves he cannot capture Richmond and so is beaten back.
* A major victory against John Pope at Bull Run/Manassass II.
* Union Army of the Potomac could have been split in two at Glendale but is stopped due to Huger’s corps getting into bad weather and Jackson falling asleep.
* Invaded Maryland.

Western Theatre:
* Vicksburg, Mississippi and Chattanooga, Tennessee secure, Union attempts to take them end in failure.
* CSS Arkansas drives away the Union fleet under David Farragut by surprising them.
* Union soldiers getting harassed by cavalry raids under John Hunt Morgan cutting supply lines and tearing it up due to being in enemy territory as well as being scattered.
* Kentucky has two Confederate victories (Richmond and Munfordville) as well as the capture of Lexington and the state capital of Frankfort, a pro-Confederate government was about to be installed and as Don Carlos Buell noted they had possession of the state outside Louisville and Covington. Buell's control of Middle Tennessee (which included the industrial city of Nashville) was threatened not only by Kentucky invasion but also the area itself.
* Panic in Louisville and Cincinnati the former city’s residents are fleeing to Indiana and the latter city is put under a state of emergency.

Non-military:
* Post-Seven Days, a panic on Wall Street ensues with the greenback dollar and stock going into a temporary free fall and the Treasury finds itself $10 million in debt.
* Britain and France both are prepared to give mediation in the Civil War because of the cotton famine as well as the suffering of mill workers (before Egyptian and Indian cotton was used)
* Demoralization prevalent amongst civilians, soldiers, and enthusiastic supporters of the war from post-Seven Days to post-Bull Run/Manassass II early September.


If you want to know more about this I recommend reading Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam, Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year, The Long Road to Antietam, The Confederacy at Flood Tide, To Antietam Creek, and the Unpopular Mr Lincoln, additionally the alternate history book How Few Remain (Southern Victory) should also be read since it focuses on the implications of there being no Lost Order 191.
 
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In this case it's actually possible to tell roughly what's going on. McClellan is giving the strength of the force without straggling, in both cases (and he also does the same for his opponents), while the strength actually on the field is lower.

This happens in most cases, but at Antietam it's particularly notable because the armies had just force-marched quite a long way and been badly disrupted. The same happened to Lee's force, which is why Jackson's division is reported as having about 1,800 infantry (which was the strength when it arrived on the 16th after a hard march) but Starke's Brigade alone (one of four in Jackon's division) had - per the acting commander - about 1,400 infantry in it when it actually went into battle. The stragglers had closed back up.

It's also possible that McClellan was doing what he often did and reporting Present (again, both for him and his opponent). The trouble almost always comes in when a strength estimate in one category is matched to a strength estimate in a different category - I always like to point out that Hood's army on December 10 the Franklin-Nashville campaign outnumbered itself about 3:2 just comparing Present to Effective...

Yes, lots of stragglers, making troop strength very unreliable.
 
Yes, lots of stragglers, making troop strength very unreliable.
It makes troop strength during battle unreliable. It doesn't affect troop strength in a camp once everyone has closed back up - straggling only happens on marches and in battles.
That's why the Maryland Campaign casualties for the Confederates are worked out comparing September 2 with October 10, not September 2 with September 22 (or 18).

The main source of difficulty comparing Union strength with Confederate is actually the effectives definition versus PFD - effectives strips out a sizeable chunk of men PFD counts, and customarily Union formations (especially early in the war, i.e. under McClellan) reported PFD as their lowest strength category while Confederates reported Effectives as their headline strength.

At Antietam however Confederate strengths are reported as "effective on the field" (after straggling) while Union strengths tend to be baseline PFD before straggling. Comparing the two armies by similar metrics such as campaign strength shows a relatively small Union advantage (campaign strength) or a somewhat larger one (estimated effective force actually on the field) but in neither case is the advantage as great as sometimes intimated (that is, it's not 2:1).


Campaign strength estimates from just about all sources (summarized here under "Rebel strength" tab) put Confederate strength between 60,000 and 80,000 all told. This is less than McClellan's estimate, but McClellan's estimate essentially assumed that the entire Rebel disposable force was in the army - he wasn't aware of the few brigades of the field army that had been left to defend Richmond - and is not excessive.
 
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It makes troop strength during battle unreliable. It doesn't affect troop strength in a camp once everyone has closed back up - straggling only happens on marches and in battles.
That's why the Maryland Campaign casualties for the Confederates are worked out comparing September 2 with October 10, not September 2 with September 22 (or 18).

The main source of difficulty comparing Union strength with Confederate is actually the effectives definition versus PFD - effectives strips out a sizeable chunk of men PFD counts, and customarily Union formations (especially early in the war, i.e. under McClellan) reported PFD as their lowest strength category while Confederates reported Effectives as their headline strength.

At Antietam however Confederate strengths are reported as "effective on the field" (after straggling) while Union strengths tend to be baseline PFD before straggling. Comparing the two armies by similar metrics such as campaign strength shows a relatively small Union advantage (campaign strength) or a somewhat larger one (estimated effective force actually on the field) but in neither case is the advantage as great as sometimes intimated (that is, it's not 2:1).


Campaign strength estimates from just about all sources (summarized here under "Rebel strength" tab) put Confederate strength between 60,000 and 80,000 all told. This is less than McClellan's estimate, but McClellan's estimate essentially assumed that the entire Rebel disposable force was in the army - he wasn't aware of the few brigades of the field army that had been left to defend Richmond - and is not excessive.

Forgive me if this has already been explained, but why is the “official” number of confederate MIA’s at Antietam only 1,018? Inaccurately reported troop strength due to straggling, right?
 
Forgive me if this has already been explained, but why is the “official” number of confederate MIA’s at Antietam only 1,018? Inaccurately reported troop strength due to straggling, right?
It seems to be from Sears, but it's sourced further to Carman.
Carman's source is a list of casualties in Longstreet's formations September 14-17 inclusive (which lists 1262 men and 48 officers missing) and reports of individual formations below that. Interestingly Lawton/Early (leading Ewell's division) claims his entire 22-regiment division suffered only forty missing at Sharpsburg, for example.

Essentially the problem with the Confederate claims is that the difference between the September 2 and October 10 states is several thousand greater than can account for claimed casualties, and while this might be the result of straggling the problem is that straggling troops in the Maryland campaign who didn't show up again would, well... have been captured by McClellan! (They would have been lagging behind the main force as it moved from Frederick MD to the Sharpsburg area, and would thus have been captured.)*

It might be interesting to try and take the strength of smaller individual units from the September 2 state and compare to the October 10 state, and see if we can identify which formations took "more casualties than can be accounted for".


* this is actually Carman's theory, and while it would indeed mean they weren't "battle casualties" they are certainly captures McClellan justly earned if so, as it would mean that far from being dilatory and letting the Confederates react he pressured them so extensively as to capture thousands of prisoners who could not keep up with the marching pace.
 
It seems to be from Sears, but it's sourced further to Carman.
Carman's source is a list of casualties in Longstreet's formations September 14-17 inclusive (which lists 1262 men and 48 officers missing) and reports of individual formations below that. Interestingly Lawton/Early (leading Ewell's division) claims his entire 22-regiment division suffered only forty missing at Sharpsburg, for example.

Essentially the problem with the Confederate claims is that the difference between the September 2 and October 10 states is several thousand greater than can account for claimed casualties, and while this might be the result of straggling the problem is that straggling troops in the Maryland campaign who didn't show up again would, well... have been captured by McClellan! (They would have been lagging behind the main force as it moved from Frederick MD to the Sharpsburg area, and would thus have been captured.)*

It might be interesting to try and take the strength of smaller individual units from the September 2 state and compare to the October 10 state, and see if we can identify which formations took "more casualties than can be accounted for".


* this is actually Carman's theory, and while it would indeed mean they weren't "battle casualties" they are certainly captures McClellan justly earned if so, as it would mean that far from being dilatory and letting the Confederates react he pressured them so extensively as to capture thousands of prisoners who could not keep up with the marching pace.

If many/most confederate stragglers were picked up by the union army before they could rejoin their units, wouldn’t that make the confederate troop counts more reliable than the union troop counts?
 
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If many/most confederate stragglers were picked up by the union army before they could rejoin their units, wouldn’t that make the confederate troop counts more reliable than the union troop counts?

No, because we verifiably know that a large chunk of Confederate stragglers did return to their units, such as in the case of Jackson's division (which was measured on the 16th just after it had straggled very badly, but roughly tripled in strength before it was actually committed to battle on the 17th).

The thing we can know for sure is that the strength of the Confederate army (exc. cavalry) dropped by about 18,600 after the Maryland campaign (once all stragglers were back in) compared to before crossing the Potomac. The overwhelming majority of this drop can be attributed to McClellan one way or another.

We can also compare the campaign strength of the two formations (which shows a moderate Union advantage), or we can estimate PFD or effectives (which shows a larger Union advantage) but those numbers are imperfect and harder to glean the truth of than around some other battles. (By comparison the Seven Days are easy - McClellan's force has a correctly dated return and a graduate student calculated all the comparable PFD strengths for Lee's entire force.)

Though I have to admit I'm not even sure how you'd count it if the reason for Lee being outnumbered at Antietam to the extent he was was because McClellan had pushed his troops hard enough to chase down thousands of Confederate stragglers...
 
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No, because we verifiably know that a large chunk of Confederate stragglers did return to their units, such as in the case of Jackson's division (which was measured on the 16th just after it had straggled very badly, but roughly tripled in strength before it was actually committed to battle on the 17th).

The thing we can know for sure is that the strength of the Confederate army (exc. cavalry) dropped by about 18,600 after the Maryland campaign (once all stragglers were back in) compared to before crossing the Potomac. The overwhelming majority of this drop can be attributed to McClellan one way or another.

We can also compare the campaign strength of the two formations (which shows a moderate Union advantage), or we can estimate PFD or effectives (which shows a larger Union advantage) but those numbers are imperfect and harder to glean the truth of than around some other battles. (By comparison the Seven Days are easy - McClellan's force has a correctly dated return and a graduate student calculated all the comparable PFD strengths for Lee's entire force.)

Though I have to admit I'm not even sure how you'd count it if the reason for Lee being outnumbered at Antietam to the extent he was was because McClellan had pushed his troops hard enough to chase down thousands of Confederate stragglers...

If a substantial number of confederates weren’t counted because they straggled into their regiments after the count was done, it only makes sense that even more federals were missed.
 
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