Hey everyone, welcome to episode 182 of our Civil War podcast.

My name is Rich.

Army of Northern Virginia started to cross the Potomac on Thursday, September 4th, and

the movement continued through the weekend.

We'd like to be able to tell you how many men Robert E. Lee took into Maryland, but it's

actually rather difficult, if not impossible, to pin down the number of troops that Lee had

with him at the beginning of the Antietam Campaign.

Historians have estimated Lee's initial force that anywhere from 50,000 to 75,000.

In his book The Long Road to Antietam, Richard Slotkin points out that at the time Confederate

record-keeping and reporting of troop strength was notoriously incomplete and inaccurate,

so Robert E. Lee himself likely didn't have a clear idea of his army's true strength

when he invaded Maryland.

The report Lee made after the Battle of Antietam asserted that he had fewer than 40,000 men

present on the battlefield.

Many about 3,000 men were lost in the battles and skirmishes leading up to Antietam, but

Lee himself would later remark that the extreme straggling that had plagued the army had

reduced by a third the force he was able to field at Antietam.

If that estimate is correct, then his army probably mustered around 65,000 at the start

of the campaign.

Whatever the actual numbers as the campaign went forward, it became apparent that while

Lee rightly regarded his soldiers as superb combat troops, he had overestimated their

physical endurance and failed to properly anticipate the consequences of their lack of food,

...