It might be noted that the same soldier could appear as a casualty several times, if they returned to service after a non-fatal/non-crippling wound or were captured and later exchanged (as happened early in the war).
Another ancestor of mine was captured in his unit’s first engagement with the enemy and sent to a prison camp where he contracted tuberculosis. He was exchanged six months later but was invalided out of service due to “shortness of breath.” If he hadn’t been he might have continued to serve and been at risk of being a casualty a second time.
I’ve read arguments (perhaps Keegan?) that bayonet casualties have been undercounted.
The theory goes roughly like this: cause of death on the battlefield (as opposed to simple enumeration of the dead) is typically tracked through doctor’s reports from aid stations and hospitals. Bayonet combat takes place inside “critical distance” where humans respond with greater savagery, and a significant amount of what Keegan calls “re-wounding” takes place – stabbing someone multiple times, even after they are no longer combat effective. Think of it this way: you shoot a man in the distance, he falls…you no longer shoot at him and if he survived the initial wound he will likely wind up in a field hospital. But you bayonet someone right the hell in front of you and you make damned sure he’s not going to get you. You make sure he’s not moving.
Thus there are relatively fewer survivors of of bayonet wounds making it back to aid stations (the theory goes). And thus bayonet wounds are undercounted.
I don’t know how true this is, but it does seem that I read about bayonet action much more often than the statistics of “almost no bayonet wounds” would support.
He was in the 2nd NY Heavy Artillery, captured at Jerusalem Plank Road on June 22, 1864, along with more than 1,700 other troops. He didn’t last long in Andersonville, dying on October 9.
His regiment was called up to the front on May 19, in order to replace the enormous losses Grant had during the Overland Campaign. Originally about 1,500 strong, they lost 733 casualties, almost half their number, in just over a month by the time my g-g- grandfather was captured.
He was in II Corps, not VI Corps, the one visited by Lincoln. However, he was based in the forts around Washington for most of the war until then, and might very well have seen Lincoln at some point at some review of the troops.
The Heavy Artillery Regiments had pretty plush service during most of the war. They manned the heavy guns in the forts that defended Washington. But since Washington was rarely threatened they saw little action. They were “band-box” soldiers who spent most of their time drilling and parading. Before being called to the front, my g-g-grandfather was only involved in a skirmish in the lead-up to the Second Battle of Bull Run.
Grant had lost about 35,000 men at the Battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, and so called up several Heavy Regiments from Washington to fight as infantry to make up the losses, since they had mostly been untouched. At that point, Grant was basically running a meat-grinder.
1 in 64 Union soldiers was killed in action, and 1 in 56 died of wounds. 1 in 10 was wounded in action. This is for the whole war.
So if there were roughly 100,000 Union soldiers at Gettysburg, we’d expect 1562 KIA and 1785 died of wounds, the total of which (3347) tracks pretty closely with the 3155 that officially were killed.
It looks like potentially the intensity of combat at Gettysburg was such that all those entire war numbers were doubled for the battle. For example, 1 in 10 wounded = 10,000 wounded. The official numbers were nearly twice that. And 2x the 1 in 64 KIA rate gives us 3124, which is very close to the official 3155. And interestingly enough, if you double the died of wounds number and add it to the 2x wounded number, you get 23570, which is surprisingly close to the 23049 official wounded total.
It could be BS or coincidence, but I think it’s interesting and possibly enlightening.
Mrs. Geek’s great-great-great grandfather (I think that’s the right number of greats) was a sergeant in the 11th Connecticut Infantry, Company D. According to NPS records (available on nps.gov) he was captured on June 18th, 1864 at Petersburg, VA. The records state that he was “Held at Andersonville and survived”.
So it looks like Mrs. Geek’s relative and your relative were captured a few days apart during the siege of Petersburg. It looks like 11th Connecticut Infantry was part of XVIII corps which were involved in Meade’s assaults from June 15 to 18. Your relative was a bit further south when they attacked the rail lines a few days later.
Looks like they were about 2 to 3 miles apart from each other on this map:
I find it fascinating that so many of you have known ancestors who were involved in the US Civil War.
I’ve commented before that this type of family history strikes me as a big difference between Canadians and Americans. Other than aunts and uncles who served in WWII, I don’t have any known family members or ancestors who were involved in major military action, because that’s not a major part of Canada’s foundational history, the way it is for the US. And that probably has a subtle effect on our respective politics, even today.
As a Civil War buff, you are probably aware of these already, but I can recommend Noah Andre Trudeau’s books Bloody Roads South: The Wilderness to Cold Harbor on the Overland Campaign and The Last Citadel on the Siege of Petersburg. Gordon C. Rhea also has a series on the individual battles. I have the volumes on Cold Harbor and North Anna River but haven’t read them yet.
