Forum Host- Joined
- Nov 8, 2018
- Location
- Palm Coast, Florida
If you know me by now, I am knee deep in a collabrative project with Alfred Young covering the Army of Tennessee in the Atlanta Campaign. We have been trying to do what he did with Lee's Army during the Overland Campaign, and try and reconstruct rebel strengths & losses over the campaign. Right now, we've focused on one brigade, one division at a time. While Al is currently working on finishing up Mercer's Brigade, I'm looking ahead to find stuff for Bate's Division. In doing so, I pulled up Jonathan C. Sheppard's "By the Noble Daring of Her Sons": The Florida Brigade of the Army of Tennessee (note: I am using his 2008 FSU dissertation, rather than the published book released back in 2024).
While I often do feel some optimism going into books on Confederate units in the AoT expecting to find new details on their experiences in the Atlanta Campaign, I often tell myself not to get my hopes up, as more often than not, these works will be rather barren in terms of numbers and losses, as more often than not books will rely on the O.R.s for those details. However that wasn't the case with Sheppard's work on Finley's Brigade. Not only does he provide casualty figures for the major engagements Finley's Floridians were involved in, he even dug up the August Inspection Reports for their numbers. Up until this point, I was under the impression (thanks to the Perdue biography on Cleburne, which is how I discovered them) that the August Inspection Reports were the only ones that survived; I knew from the O.R.s that another was done for September but I just presumed the originals for it were lost.
That was, until I read on page 331, Sheppard noted: "When Lieutenant Harris inspected the brigade on September 18, only 657 soldiers were fit for combat. This number represented a significant decrease from the 721 troops capable of bearing arms only twenty eight days earlier."
I looked in the citations, and found to my shock, this:
I was shocked when I saw this. I've known experts on the Atlanta Campaign who were unaware of any inspection reports. Not only did J. C. Sheppard know about the August inspection reports, but apparently was able to find MORE inspection reports for Finley's Brigade at least...and presumably the rest of the Army of Tennessee.
I need to get in contact with Mr. Sheppard, as I need to know more about this. I had inspected the very roll her cited here, and didn't find it. Maybe I forgot to check past the end of the August inspection reprots and assumed I had hit the end of the roll? Idk, but I need more information from him before I go looking again.
I have not been able to find his contact info anywhere online. Is anyone here willing and able to get me in touch?
While I often do feel some optimism going into books on Confederate units in the AoT expecting to find new details on their experiences in the Atlanta Campaign, I often tell myself not to get my hopes up, as more often than not, these works will be rather barren in terms of numbers and losses, as more often than not books will rely on the O.R.s for those details. However that wasn't the case with Sheppard's work on Finley's Brigade. Not only does he provide casualty figures for the major engagements Finley's Floridians were involved in, he even dug up the August Inspection Reports for their numbers. Up until this point, I was under the impression (thanks to the Perdue biography on Cleburne, which is how I discovered them) that the August Inspection Reports were the only ones that survived; I knew from the O.R.s that another was done for September but I just presumed the originals for it were lost.
That was, until I read on page 331, Sheppard noted: "When Lieutenant Harris inspected the brigade on September 18, only 657 soldiers were fit for combat. This number represented a significant decrease from the 721 troops capable of bearing arms only twenty eight days earlier."
I looked in the citations, and found to my shock, this:
I was shocked when I saw this. I've known experts on the Atlanta Campaign who were unaware of any inspection reports. Not only did J. C. Sheppard know about the August inspection reports, but apparently was able to find MORE inspection reports for Finley's Brigade at least...and presumably the rest of the Army of Tennessee.
I need to get in contact with Mr. Sheppard, as I need to know more about this. I had inspected the very roll her cited here, and didn't find it. Maybe I forgot to check past the end of the August inspection reprots and assumed I had hit the end of the roll? Idk, but I need more information from him before I go looking again.
I have not been able to find his contact info anywhere online. Is anyone here willing and able to get me in touch?
Bringing the