Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 2.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

I now have the honor to submit the following statement of the means and resources for carrying on the service confided to this bureau, impediments thereto, and what is desired to promote greater and necessary efficiency.

To this end I propose to lay before you--

1st. A statement in regard to officers of engineers and engineer troops — their number, assignments and the necessary increase demanded by the interests of the service.

2d. Engineer workshops.

3d. Railroad repairs, including the collection of railroad iron by a special commission.

4th. Labor required for all the service confided to the engineer corps, whether military or civil, including its organization.

First, then, in regard to officers, there are--

The officers of the regular and provisional corps are distributed to the different armies and departments, in such manner as to meet the most urgent calls of the engineer service, and the companies of engineer troops are serving, as a general rule, with the armies and in the departments in which the divisions are, from which they are taken as follows:

Of these companies, three with the army of Tennessee, and three in the Trans-Mississippi Department have not as yet, however, been fully organized. It is proposed to create one more in the Trans-Mississippi, thus making a full regiment, and one more in