June 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 21

BY T H E N U MB E R S

Numbering the Battles
Parks and the Civil War Sesquicentennial

22: The number of Confederate cannon whose

wheels were wrapped in blankets for silent moving
and positioning prior to the Battle of Prairie Grove in
Arkansas (Prairie Grove State Park, considered one
of the most intact Civil War battlefields). Despite the
fact that the Union had exactly twice as many cannon,
Confederates managed, with their forest-hidden
firepower, to surround Union troops on three sides and
force a retreat. The battle ended in a draw.

1: The number of times Robert E. Lee's horse,

Traveller, got spooked and reared up while on the
battlefield at Spotsylvania. (Fredericksburg and
Spotsylvania National Military Park)

bloodiest battle in American history up to that point.

200:

The approximate number of Union
soldiers killed or wounded at Balls Bluff in Virginia
(Balls Bluff National Battlefield Park). Among those
who did survive (captured by Confederates) were
the grandson of Paul Revere and the son of Oliver
Wendell Holmes.

48: The number of days Vicksburg was under

siege before Confederate General John C. Pemberton
surrendered the city, on July 4, 1863, to the Union
general Ulysses S. Grant (Vicksburg National Military
Park).

1: The number of cannonballs that passed under 81: The number of years that would elapse before
Lee's horse at the exact moment it reared.

Vicksburg once again celebrated the Fourth of July.

18:

145: The weight of the average soldier fighting

The age of a Confederate soldier named
Arthur MacArthur, who fought at Missionary Ridge in
Tennessee (Chickamauga and Chattanooga National
Military Park) and earned a Congressional Medal of
Honor for inspiring his fellow soldiers in that battle.
He would survive the Civil War to raise a son named
Douglas MacArthur.

3: The number of months for which 75,000 Union
soldiers enlisted in 1861 to meet the Confederacy
for the first major land battle of the Civil War at
Manassas/Bull Run in Virginia. (Manassas National
Battlefield Park) (The war would last 16 times longer
than that and would claim 33 times as many lives.)

Several hundred:

The number of
Washington's elite who brought picnic lunches and
spread blankets near the Bull Run battlefield on July
21, 1861, to watch the conflict.

on any battlefield of the Civil War. The low weight
was a result of poor diet, exhausting marches, and
dysentery and other diseases.

269: The number of words spoken by Lincoln

while at the Union Cemetery in Gettysburg
(Gettysburg National Battlefield Park). Contrasting
the brevity of the Gettysburg Address was the twohour-long speech given by a celebrated orator from
Massachusetts.

52,264: The number of Confederate soldiers

imprisoned at Point Lookout in Maryland between
1863 and 1865 (Point Lookout State Park).

4,000: The approximate number of soldiers

who died of disease, starvation, and exposure while
imprisoned at Point Lookout.

The approximate number of soldiers
460: The number of Union soldiers killed at Bull Run 8,000:
(out of that 52,264) who would likely have died
that day. Confederate casualties numbered 367. The
heavy casualties convinced the picnickers that there
would be no easy Union victory. It was the largest and

if they had not been imprisoned (given casualty
percentages from that time period).

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