Killed ........................  4,423
Wounded ....................... 22,822
Missing........................  4,442
Aggregate Loss ......... 31,627

In the Southern army, according to the reports of Surgeon Foard (pp. 576, 577, Johnston’s “Narrative “)

Total killed ................  3,044
Total killed and wounded..... 21,996
Prisoners captured by us .... 12,983

Aggregate loss to the
Southern Army .......... 34,979

The foregoing figures are official, and are very nearly correct.  I see no room for error save in the cavalry, which was very much scattered, and whose reports are much less reliable than of the infantry and artillery; but as Surgeon Foard’s tables do not embrace Wheeler’s, Jackson’s, and Martin’s divisions of cavalry, I infer that the comparison, as to cavalry losses, is a “stand-off.”

I have no doubt that the Southern officers flattered themselves that they had filled and crippled of us two and even six to one, as stated by Johnston; but they were simply mistaken, and I herewith submit official tabular statements made up from the archives of the War Department, in proof thereof.

I have also had a careful tabular statement compiled from official records in the adjutant-general’s office, giving the “effective strength” of the army under my command for each of the months of May, June, July, August, and September, 1864, which enumerate every man (infantry, artillery, and cavalry) for duty.  The recapitulation clearly exhibits the actual truth.  We opened the campaign with 98,797 (ninety-eight thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven) men.  Blair’s two divisions joined us early in June, giving 112,819 (one hundred and twelve thousand eight hundred and nineteen), which number gradually became reduced to 106,070 (one hundred and six thousand and seventy men), 91,675 (ninety-one thousand six hundred and seventy-five), and 81,758 (eighty-one thousand seven hundred and fifty-eight) at the end of the campaign.  This gradual reduction was not altogether owing to death and wounds, but to the expiration of service, or by detachments sent to points at the rear.

CHAPTER XX

Atlanta and after—­pursuit of Hood.

September and October, 1864.

By the middle of September, matters and things had settled down in Atlanta, so that we felt perfectly at home.  The telegraph and railroads were repaired, and we had uninterrupted communication to the rear.  The trains arrived with regularity and dispatch, and brought us ample supplies.  General Wheeler had been driven out of Middle Tennessee, escaping south across the Tennessee River at Bainbridge; and things looked as though we were to have a period of repose.