Overland The Strength of the Federal Army in the Overland Campaign

(Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor)
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I am not sure where Young was getting the 16,000 for Eighteenth Corps from, but assuming that that is accurate, that is approximately 196,384 officers and men PFD.

I don’t understand the relevance of the men mustering out? They served in the campaign. He did the same with Confederate units, I presume, no?
No Confederate units had their enlistments expire during the campaign, to my knowledge, so there were none to deduct. I agree that deducting the units with expired enlistments is dubious, because they certainly fought in several battles - you can sort of make the argument that if 5,000 men left before Cold Harbor it's "like" only 11,000 men joined with 18th Corps instead of 16,000, but it's a bit questionable.

Young didn't reference 18th Corps' strength and there is no really accurate assessment. The best we have is a communication by Smith to Halleck:
Where he says:

My command consisted very nearly of 16,000 infantry, sixteen pieces of artillery, and one squadron of cavalry of about 100 men.

It does Young little credit to take this number and assume it's PFD without further assessment. It's quite possible Smith was quoting effectives!
 
Really? I think the March 30 strength was 14,750 because of Pendleton's artillery, Magruder's cavalry, and the 3rd VA and 14th NC. It's amazing how much it helps in working all this out to have a sorted spreadsheet of individual strengths.
That would be about right if the 3rd Virginia, 14th North Carolina and 19th Mississippi had arrived by then. Had they?

I know that the 9th, 10th and 11th Alabama all arrived around April 1st, or so.
 
I didn't say historians necessarily have to have a history degree.
I'm mostly curious what does make someone a historian, since at this point it rather appears that the principal requirement is "agrees with the views of Dan".

Regardless, since you agree with Sears about the 13,600 figure, for March 30, then I believe I can show that it's not correct for April 5th.
 
That would be about right if the 3rd Virginia, 14th North Carolina and 19th Mississippi had arrived by then. Had they?
19th MS is part of Wilcox's Bde, and here at least Sears and I are in agreement on that specific regiment having arrived by the 30th.

14th NC is weird because they arrived in late March, crossed the James in early April and then crossed back and were in the line on the 4th April.
A memoir of Coy C, 14th NC

3rd VA is basically the same story.
 
I'm mostly curious what does make someone a historian, since at this point it rather appears that the principal requirement is "agrees with the views of Dan".

Regardless, since you agree with Sears about the 13,600 figure, for March 30, then I believe I can show that it's not correct for April 5th.
Is that how you judge a historian? That they agree with your views? Or that they have certain degrees or qualifications of which you approve?

I look at the integrity of the writing, and whether their writing receives respect from other historians, and receives respect from the history-reading public.

I have zero respect for blatant fan-boy bias in a book that claims to be history.
 
Is that how you judge a historian? That they agree with your views? Or that they have certain degrees or qualifications of which you approve?

I look at the integrity of the writing, and whether their writing receives respect from other historians, and receives respect from the history-reading public.

I have zero respect for blatant fan-boy bias in a book that claims to be history.
Personally, I look at the argument they're making to see if it's solid. Someone gains respect from their qualifications and reputation, but that respect is never unquestioned because everybody can make mistakes or miss out on information - some extremely distinguished historians wrote magisterial books on the Second World War before we knew about ULTRA, for example.
 
Personally, I look at the argument they're making to see if it's solid. Someone gains respect from their qualifications and reputation, but that respect is never unquestioned because everybody can make mistakes or miss out on information...
I agree, and that's why you, or 67, or Nathan, will never be able to "show" me anything. All three of you have made assertions that turned out to be false, so I don't trust the information you selectively choose to make a case. And I'm not interested in the nerdy-statistics-boardgame approach to studying history.

So if you want to convince me of your case, just recommend a reputable historian that agrees with you.
 
All three of you have made assertions that turned out to be false, so I don't trust the information you selectively choose to make a case. And I'm not interested in the nerdy-statistics-boardgame approach to studying history.
...I'm sorry? You're saying that you don't trust literally a Confederate report of per-regiment strengths of every unit in the Yorktown line at the end of the siege?

Or are you saying instead that the difficulty is that you don't believe the information presented about when regiments arrived?

Because, in all honesty, both of us are looking at numerical ratios. You're just getting yours from Stephen Sears (current to March 30 for the Confederates, at that), and I'm getting mine from actually tabulating the individual units.
 
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