Publisher's Synopsis
From the PREFACE.
This volume has grown from an essay which was read before the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, February 23,1897. Later research and study have led to changing many of the figures given in that essay. This is notably true of the numbers given for the strength of the armies engaged in the different battles. In the essay the number of those "present for duty" was used, but here, for reasons given in their place, the number of "effectives" is taken. This will explain, and excuse the author for, discrepancies between citations made by others from the former essay and the figures here given.
The articles "Military Training," in the Journal of the Military Service Institution of July, 1893, and "General Thomas in the Record," in volume x. of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, were written before the studies for this volume were begun; and while, for the comparisons made in those articles, their figures do not need much if any amendment, they must give place to those given in this volume as an exact statement of numbers and losses.
The author cannot hope that he has found everything in the 129 volumes of War Records that should be considered in a work like this, and it is hardly probable that he has entirely avoided errors in transcribing so many figures and making so many calculations, but he trusts that the citation of volume and page for every number given will result in the correction of any that exist by those who use this work.
The author earnestly hopes for criticism and amendment of what he has written, wherever they seem to be due, and especially by the survivors of those who were actors, on both sides, in the great events upon which this work touches.
