"To enter upon the completion of these records after more than three years of active military service, involving loss of company books and muster-rolls, seemed indeed a hopeless, endless task.
The great portion of the troops from Mississippi were in the Tennessee army, and that army, at the time of my appointment and until its final surrender, was either in line of battle or on the march, rendering it impracticable to accomplish anything in the premises." Colonel Power proceeded to Virginia in December, 1864, to complete the records of the Mississippi brigades in that army, but had not been able to do so when the order was given for the evacuation of Richmond. "The records of Humphreys' brigade and of thirty companies in Davis' brigade, present the following as the strength and losses of the seventy companies: Whole number on rolls 9,407 Total loss from all causes 6,661 "Of the 2,746 men on the rolls as present and absent accounted for, about one- third were under arms when General Lee surrendered--the remainder being absent on furlough, in prison, on detail, and for other causes "From this and other data in my possession, I have thought it might be interesting to deduce something like an approximate estimate of the total strength and losses of the troops furnished by the State of Mississippi. Whole number in service 78,000 Total loss from all causes 59,250 Balance accounted for 18,750 "And of this number about thirty per cent were absent for various causes at the general surrender of the armies."
From Fox's Regimental Losses, the military population of Mississippi in 1860 was 70,925. He also lists the following casualties:
|
|
||
|---|---|---|
| Officers killed in battle | 122 | |
| Enlisted Men killed in battle | 5,685 | |
| Aggregate | 5,807 | |
| Officers died of wounds | 75 | |
| Enlisted men died of wounds | 2,576 | |
| Aggregate | 2,651 | |
| Officers died of disease | 103 | |
| Enlisted men died of disease | 6,704 | |
| Aggregate | 6,807 |
The following chart, also extracted from Fox's Regimental Losses shows several Mississippi units which suffered severely at particular battles.
| Losses in a single battle | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| present | killed | wounded | missing | percent | |||
| 6th Mississippi | Shiloh | Hardee's | 425 | 61 | 239 | -- | 70.5 |
| 16th Mississippi | Antietam | Anderson's | 228 | 27 | 117 | -- | 63.1 |
| 29th Mississippi | Chickamauga | Liddell's | 368 | 38 | 156 | -- | 52.7 |
| 8th Mississippi | Stone's River | Breckenridge's | 282 | 20 | 113 | -- | 47.1 |
| 18th Mississippi | Antietam | McLaws's | 186 | 10 | 73 | -- | 44.6 |
As to the morale of the army and the causes from which it suffered, Colonel Power says: "Our reverses for the last two years of the war, the despondency, speculation and extortion of many of our people at home, the inability of the government to pay the troops promptly or to furnish them with anything like adequate supplies of food or clothing, the absolute destitution of many families of soldiers and, toward the last, the seeming hopelessness of the struggle, all conspired to depress the soldier's heart."
This web site and The Civil War In Mississippi CD-ROM are dedicated to telling the stories of these men and their families.
The records show that there were in the Confederate armies from Mississippi the following commands:
These Federal Units were formed in Mississippi. All with the A.D. designation were black.
There are three National Cemeteries in Mississippi. The following chart extracted from Foxe's Regimental Losses shows (assumed Federal) the numbers interred there.
| National Cemeteries in Mississippi | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Known | Unknown | Total | |
| Corinth | 1,782 | 3,937 | 5,719 |
| Natchez | 308 | 2,780 | 3,088 |
| Vicksburg | 3,899 | 12,716 | 16,615 |
REF: Confederate Military History - Vol. 6
Dyer's Compendium of the War of the Rebellion
Foxe's Regimental Losses