TROOPS IN THE WEST

[The National Tombstone Epitaph. May, 1990]

When William Tecumseh Sherman undertook his March Through Georgia, he commanded three armies which totaled approximately 100,000 men. The Union Army had approximately 1,000,000 men under arms at the time of Appomattox, according to Samuel Eliot Morison.

In February of 1882, the same William Tecumseh Sherman reported the following to the Secretary of War.

The Army to-day consists of 23,785 enlisted men and about 2,000 commissioned officers. Of these (the following) are posted west of the Mississippi River--

MEN

All of the cavalry--ten regiments 6,627

All the Indian scouts 300

Twenty-four out of twenty-five regiments of infantry 10,916

First Regiment of Artillery 525

Batteries E and F, Second Artillery, and C, Third Artillery 161

_____

Total west of the Mississippi 18,529

East of the Mississippi River--

The Tenth Regiment of Infantry 350

Four regiments of artillery, less the three companies 1,885

Permanent recruiting parties 1,316

Engineer Battalion, Ordnance Department, and non-combatants 1,705

______

Total east of the Mississippi 5,256

One further point of interest, the Secretary of War to whom General Sherman reported these figures was the Honorable R.T. Lincoln-Robert Tod Lincoln, the son of the late president under whom Sherman had also served.