Editor’s Note: Below you will find Bryce Suderow’s original article on Confederate casualties at the Crater on July 30, 1864 during the Siege of Petersburg. This article originally appeared in Kepi Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 3 (June-July 1985) and appears here with the express written consent of the author. For now, I have simply reproduced images of the pages. In the future, I hope to find time to transcribe this article, or find someone else who is willing to do so. The advantage is that the entire article will then be searchable. Until then, read on below…
Suderow’s casualty studies are indispensable starting points. With the additional aid of diaries, letters and memoirs, as well as newspapers, I have been able to determine that the 12th Virginia of Weisiger’s Brigade in Mahone’s Division had a strength of 150 (10 officers, 140 men) at The Crater, and lost 23 killed or mortally wounded and 23 otherwise wounded, for a percentage loss of 30.6%. If Weisiger’s Brigade took “scarcely 800 muskets” into action at The Crater, it also brought along about 50 officers, judging by the 12th Virginia’s complement.
My sources for my comment above are: “Battle of the Crater: Roster of the Members of the 12th Virginia Infantry, Mahone’s Brigade, Who Were Engaged,” SHSP 31 (1903, 271-274; “Paroles of the Army of Northern Virginia,” SHSP 15 (1886), 350; Anne Banister Pryor, “A Child’s Recollections Of War,” Confederate Veteran, 39 (1931), 55; Henderson, 12th Virginia Infantry, 106-167; Statement of Robert George Thompson; Mamie Yeary, comp., Reminiscences of the Boys in Gray, 1861-1865 (Dallas, 1912), 634; Todd Reminiscences; James E. Whitehorne Diary, April 3, 1865, James E. Whitehorne Papers, Southern Historical Collection; “List of names at the Crater Petersburg,” James Eldred Phillips Papers, Virginia Historical Society; Rolls 514-534, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations From the State of Virginia, M324; Bernard, “The Battle Of The Crater,” War Talks, 192; Bernard, Appendix, War Talks, 316.