Union brigades remain fairly constant at around 1,000 effectives for most of the war (with constant reinforcement by new units).
Some numbers I’ve found are:
Average regiment size
Shiloh 560
Fair Oaks 650
Chancellorsville 530
Fredericksburg 400
Gettysburg 375
Chickamauga 440
Wilderness 440
Since there were 5 regiments in a brigade, even if we assume heavy straggling that leaves total effectives of far more than your regimental average of 180 men.
However, remember there is no service corps, that 33% (or 50% in the AoT pre-Sherman) of the army needed to drive wagons etc. are carried on regimental rolls.
Actually, the US Quartermaster Corps significantly predates the ACW. The first US Quartermaster General, Thomas Mifflin was appointed in 1775. Montgomery Meigs, who became the 14th Quartermaster General in 1861, replacing Joseph Johnston.
Just one supply depot, City Point, employed 10,000 men and for about a year “provided all supplies necessary to support the 125,000 men and 65,000 animals of General Ulysses S. Grant's Union Armies”
Also, for the March to the Sea, Sherman limited each regiment to one wagon and one ambulance. If your 33% number were correct, that means the average Union regiment under Sherman had 6 men.
Speaking of regimental rolls, in his autobiography Sherman includes transcripts that detailed information on the Army of the Cumberland, Army of the Tennessee, and the Army of the Ohio. They do not match your numbers.
I was actually referring to taking the depot at Manassas Junction a few weeks earlier.
Okay, how does taking the Manassas Junction a few weeks earlier lead to Lee being better equipped than McClellan at Antietam?
If you look at the length of their OODA loops, they're actually not dissimilar.
Actually as already shown by the actual battle, McClellan is significantly slower. McClellan had about 18 hours from getting Order 191 to actually putting his troops in motion. Lee had less than half that time.
The idea that McClellan can suddenly redirect his army on a whim is rather silly. In fact, his change in direction of march is rather rapid.
Nice straw man. No one ever suggested ‘McClellan can suddenly redirect his army on a whim’.
Again, he needs a day to reorder his army, and to get it all on the field. Or risk being defeated in detail.
McClellan’s army was already on the field of battle on the evening of the 15th. He finally attacked on the morning of the 17th, after giving Lee a day-and-a-half to assemble his army.
The only one in danger of being defeated in detail was Lee, but McClellan did his best to avoid that possibility. When he finally did attack after giving Lee a huge present of time, McClellan’s attacks were “ill-coordinated and were executed poorly”
You're confusing Antietam and the Seven Days.
No, I’m not. Catton, Forschen, Foote, Johnson, McPherson, Sears, and Waugh generally agree that McClellan thought Lee had about 115,000 to 120,000 men at Antietam; while all of those sources plus Anderson and Anderson, Buell, Fair, Hattaway and Jones, and Nolan agree Lee had about 45,000 and would have had half that or less if McClellan had attacked on the morning of the 16th.
Antietam is interesting, as Lee has 75,000 (PFD) a couple of days before, 70,000 a couple of days later, but only "45,000" on that day.
I’ve named my sources, what are yours?
Of course, the same is not true for McClellan. The 90,000 figure includes all his baggage. It will take at least 30,000 men to man his baggage train.
One thing Wikipedia has right, it says extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources. You continue to make extraordinary claims, yet fail to provide any sources.
And being detailed to guard the baggage train did not mean troops were completely out of combat. Special Order No. 191 clearly puts Longstreet’s command guarding the supply and baggage trains, yet that did not prevent them from being fully involved in the Battle of Antietam.
At least, Sherman complained that fully half the Army of the Tennessee was non-combatants when he took it over.
I can’t seem to find that in Sherman’s autobiography. Could you please tell me what page it’s on?
Gettysburg? The data seems to show that most regiments that force marched arrived on the field with less than half their strength from that morning state, but most seem to have caught up. Maybe 5-6,000 used the march as an opportunity to desert.
Total Union rolls show about 5,500 missing after the battle. Your numbers only make sense if the CSA was taking no prisoners in that battle.
I was talking about infantry, the cavalry are actually worse, tending towards 50% non-combatants. The logic should be obvious considering how maintenance and logistics intensive cavalry is. However, not as bad as:
Again, I was talking about infantry.
You specifically started by talking about combat effectives and during that discussion started removing cavalry and artillery from the list (see post #42 by you).
So why when you were talking about combat effectives did you remove the cavalry and artillery from the Union numbers?
And if you were just talking about infantry, why didn’t you remove the Confederate cavalry and artillery numbers from their totals?
It takes 250 men to run a 6 gun battery, and most Union gun batteries had 110-130 men. They had the difference up by detaching infantrymen.
Further research shows you are wrong again. While Union gun batteries did average have about 20 men per gun, they typically used only 8 to actually fire it and could still fire at a reduced rate with even less. For comparison, Napoleon’s army had averaged about 20 men per gun, and guns had become easier to handle in the intervening half-century.
I hate to break it to you but I don’t know of any historian that agrees with any of your claims. For example, Busey and Martin say USA "Engaged strength" at the battle was 93,921, while CSA "Engaged strength" was 71,699.
The numbers simply being the number carried on rolls.
No. There is a difference between ‘engaged strength’ and ‘total strength’. Perhaps you’re unfamiliar with the terms?
The Iron Brigade is generally listed as including even the detached 7th Indiana - EDIT: 1st and 2nd Brigade Confusion Here. I have seen some adding an extra "437 casualties" by simply comparing the pre-Gettysburg nominal roll with the post-Gettysburg morning states.
The Iron Brigade was composed of the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin, the19th Indiana, and the 24th Michigan. Veterans and recruits of the 7th Indiana weren’t merged into the 19th Indiana until September 1864, over a year after Gettysburg.
However, you are correct that there was a detached Brigade Guard. It numbered 102 out of the 1883 men, which is 5% of the total strength, nowhere near the 30+% you keep insisting on. That leaves the Iron Brigade with 1781 men, almost twice the average you claim for the whole Union Army.
The 1st Minnesota, that's the regiment which committed suicide by rather spectacularly by putting a volley into itself.
From an actual account of the battle –
"When the Confederates were only about thirty yards away, Colvill ordered his men to fire a volley into their faces, causing much confusion. Wilcox's second line returned the fire through the remnants of their own first line, and, according to Colvill, 'felling more of their own men then ours.'
The 1st Minnesota did not put a volley into itself. Their Confederate opposition put a volley into itself.
The 1st Minnesota had detached 4 Coys (out of 12, including 2 attached SS Coys) to the baggage train. So while 358 were with the army, less than 2/3rds were with the Regiment. The 8 Coys with the regiment and RHQ numbered 262. RHQ included non-combatants (probably 20-30), so the loss of 215 men probably understates just how massacred they were,
Shelby Foote covers the detached Companies, though only Company C was detached as provost-guard for the division, the others were skirmishers. Standard Regimental staff was 8 men, not 20 to 30, and such men frequently saw action in the ACW. Regardless, Foote and others make it clear that 262 men from the remaining 8 companies of the 1st Minnesota (well over your estimated average of 180) charged under Hancock’s orders.
although the decisive moment was when the second line put a volley into the backs of the first line at 5 yards, essentially destroying it.
Between your misreading the Union shooting their own men when sources show it was the Confederates and your previous misreading Hattway and Jones’ conclusion that Lee suffered average casualties to mean Lee was an average commander, I recommend you spend a bit longer looking at your sources.
And if the Union artillery was largely crewed by amateurs how did they outshoot the Confederate artillery?
Well, they didn't.
I take it you’re unfamiliar with Pickett’s charge then? Lee's artillery chief, William N. Pendleton, obstructed the effective placement of artillery from the other two corps and withdrew much of the vitally needed ammunition train. Edward Porter Alexander’s artillery inflicted relatively little damage on immediate opponents as they largely overshot their targets. Union counterfire inflicted significant casualties on the Confederate infantry before the charge even began. In addition to the Confederates taking heavy casualties from the Union artillery in front of them, they also took heavy fire flanking fire from Union batteries on Cemetery Hill