Total of killed and wounded, 867; missing and captured, 112; died in Confederate prison, 20. This regiment left Wisconsin, July 28th, 1861. SECOND VERMONT INFANTRY. Vermont Brigade. Getty's Division. Sixth Corps. Col. Henry Whiting. Col. Newton Stone (killed). Total of killed and wounded, 887; loss by disease includes 22 deaths in Confederate prisons. Second Wisconsin left state, June, 1861. Three years in the service. 157 killed-15.4 per cent. Total of killed and wounded, 578; died in Confederate prisons, 102. Left the state May 10th, 1864. Mustered out July 12th, 1865. One year in the service, from Washington to Washington. Again, for comparison, I take one of the three-year regiments of our own brigade, from Colonel Fox's regimental losses. The Eighty-second New York was recruited, May, 1861. Their term of service expired June 25th, 1865. The Thirty-sixth Wisconsin was in service from May, 1864, to July 12th, 1865. One year and two months. (Century, May, 1888.) THE CHANCES OF BEING HIT IN BATTLE. A Study of Regimental Losses in the Civil War. If a man enlist in time of war, what are the chances of his be ing killed? When a new regiment leaves for the front, how many of its men will probably lose their lives by violent deaths? What are the battle losses of regiments in active service-not in wounded and captured, but in killed and died of wounds? A very good answer to these or similar inquiries is found in the records of the Northern troops in the war of 1861-65. It was a war so great, so long and desperate, it employed so many men, that these records furnish of themselves a fair reply. A soldier of the late Civil war is often questioned as to how many men his regiment lost. His answer is always something like this: "We left our barracks 1,000 strong; when we returned there were only 85 left." Few people have the hardihood to dispute the old veteran, who testily fortifies all of his assertions by the argument that he was there and ought to know. So the story of the 1,000 who went and the 85 who returned is accepted without reply. Now this peculiar form of statement as made by the old soldier is apt to be correct so far as it goes, but the inferences are invariably wrong. So few are aware of the many causes which deplete a regiment, that these missing men are generally thought of as dead. A better way for the veteran to answer the question would be to state that in round numbers his regiment lost 100 men killed; that 200 died of disease; that 400 were discharged for sickness or wounds; that 100 deserted; that 100 were absent in hospital or on furlough; and so only 100 remained as present at the musterout. Of course, there are many regiments whose brilliant records would require a different statement, but as regards three-fourths of the troops in the late war it would fairly approximate the truth. Of the 2,000 regiments or more in the Union army, there were 45* only in which the number of killed and mortally wounded exceeded 200 men. Such statements must not be regarded as derogatory nor belittling; for the simple facts are such as need no exaggeration, and the truth only need be told to furnish records unrivaled in military history. As regards the number killed in regiments, the prevailing ideas are indefinite or incorrect, seldom approaching the truth. Nor are these errors confined to civilians alone; they are prevalent among the officers and men who were there and would be supposed to know. All this is largely due to the reckless and careless statements too often made regarding such losses. The error is a somewhat excusable one, as neither officers nor men have the means of knowing the actual loss in every engagement. They remember, perhaps, some of the official reports of their colonel as rendered at the close of certain battles, but not all of them. These casualty reports, as given in, are divided into killed, wounded, and missing, the latter term generally including the captured. Many of these wounded and missing return; some of them during their abscence die in hospitals or military prisons; nothing is definitely known about them at the time; so the tendency is to consider only the total of these casualties, and in time to think of them as all killed or lost. There is fortunately, however, one reliable source of information as to the number of men in a regiment who were killed in action, and that is the regimental muster-out rolls. Every regiment before disbanding was required to hand in company rolls, made out in triplicate, bearing the names of all who had ever belonged to the company from first to last. Opposite each name were remarks showing what became of the man, such as: "killed," "died of wounds," "died of disease," "transferred," "discharged," "deserted," or "present at muster-out." So these rolls, when prop erly made out, form a reliable basis for ascertaining the number killed in a regiment. Many of the rolls, however, were defective, and some were lost. But the various States, through their respective military bureaus have regained the desired information, and, with few exceptions, have completed their rolls, although this involved in some States years of clerical research and large appropriations of money. Some of these final rolls have been put in print, while the others are on file in the various offices of the States' adjutants-general. In some of the States there are a few rolls missing, but the duplicates are on file in the War Department at Washington. The remark has been made concerning muster Does not include heavy artillery organizations. This was true to a out rolls that they are not always accurate. certain extent at the close of the war, but for twenty years a clerical force has been busy in correcting and perfecting them. Certainly but few errors can remain as regards the killed, for the pension claims soon called attention to nearly all of such omissions. Hence these rolls, together with certain other sources of information, furnish a reliable source for ascertaining the relative losses of every regiment and battery in the Northern army. 102. Killed, 157-15.4 per cent. Total killed and wounded, 578; died in Confederate prisons, BATTLES. North Anna, 7; Jerusalem Road, 2; Totopotomy, 2; Siege of Petersburg, 9; Bethesda Church, 49; Deep Bottom, 12; Cold Harbor, June 3rd, 26; Ream's Station, 9; Cold Harbor Trenches, 6; Boydton Road, 1; Petersburg Assault, 32; Farmville, 1; Chickahominy, 1. Present also at Strawberry Plain, Hatcher Run, Sailor Creek, High Bridge, Appomatox. NOTES-Recruited under call of February 1st, 1864, for 500,000 men. It was organized at Madison, leaving Wisconsin, May 10th. Colonel Haskell was transferred from Sixth Wisconsin, in which he was adjutant. Immediately after arriving in Virginia, the regiment joined the Army of the Potomac, then at Spotsylvania, having been assigned to the First Brigade (Webb's), Second Division (Gibbon's), Second Army Corps. The regiment was under fire for the first time at Spotsylvania, May 19th, 1864 (Fredericksburg Pike), where it was held in reserve. It was engaged a few days later at North Anna, and also at Totopotomy Creek; on June 1st at Bethesda Church, four companies-B, E, F, G-while in the skirmish line made a dashing charge, but with heavy loss: of 240 men engaged in the charge, 128 were killed and wounded, 38 missing. Two days later the regiment was engaged in the storming of Cold Harbor, a desperate fight, in which it sustained a loss of 17 killed, 53 wounded and 5 missing. The brigade commander, Colonel H. B. McKeen of the Eighty-first Pennsylvania, was killed in the assault, whereupon the command devolved upon Colonel Haskell, who fell dead a few minutes later. Colonel Savage succeeded to the command of the regiment, but fell mortally wounded in the assault on Petersburg, June 18th, 1864. In that engagement the regiment lost 16 killed and 107 wounded. It became so reduced by death, wounds and disease, that it carried only 11 officers and 175 men into the fight at Ream's Station, August 25th; it lost in that action 134 men taken prisoners. The total of killed during the whole war was, on the Union side, 110,070, out of about 2,200,000 men. To be exact, there were 2,778,304 enlistments; but, after deducting the re-enlistments and reducing the short-term numbers to a three years' basis, the round numbers would not be very much in excess of the figures stated. This would indicate that the number killed during the war was, on the Northern side, very close to five per cent. of those engaged, and which is, by the way, a greater percentage than that of the Crimean or Franco-Prussian wars. Although the average loss of the whole army was five per cent., it must be borne in mind that the percentage was very unevenly divided among the various regiments, ranging from twenty per cent. down to nothing. In most of the commands, the percentage of killed would naturally be the same as that of the whole army, but there were some in which the rate was not necessarily large to offset that of those whose ranks sustained little or no loss. This increased percentage fell heavily on the Army of the Potomac, and on certain divisions in that army. This subject of percentage is an interesting one, creating heroic records which might otherwise be overlooked, and adding fresh laurels when many would think the whole story had been told. There is something pathetic in the story of the Pennsly |