John D. Billings, The history of the Tenth Massachusetts battery of light artillery in the war of the rebellion

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The Seventh, Fifty-second, and Thirty-ninth N. Y. are largely made up of recruits and substitutes. The first-named regiment, in particular, is entirely new, companies being formed in New York and sent down here, some officers being unable to speak English. The material compares very unfavorably with the veterans absent.

My force at Reams Station consisted of about six thousand arms-bearing men of the infantry, at most, and about two thousand cavalry. . . . The enemy's force is not known to me.

The battery took a total of 58 horses on to the field. Lieut. Granger reports a loss of but 34 of them. This seems, today, inexplicable, for the twenty-four piece-horses and the four horses of chiefs of pieces all went down and with them the bugler's horse a total of 29, about which there is no question. This leaves but five more to be accounted for. It does not seem possible that only five were disabled at the caissons, but as only one caisson escaped, and that with four horses, there are fifteen other caisson horses that must in some way have survived. Just how they got off the field and when, no one has ever informed the historian. Yet it isn't likely that a false report was rendered headquarters and so there the matter must rest.

The official report of this action further shows a loss of two thousand, three hundred sixty-two men of all arms killed, wounded and missing. Of these twenty-two officers and eighty-seven men were killed, sixty officers and four hundred forty-one men were wounded, and ninety-four officers and sixteen hundred fifty-eight men were missing. Had even a thousand of this unusually large percentage of missing, or prisoners, followed Miles' gallant example or stood up in the trenches to repel the assaulting force, as they might easily have done, the story of the fight would have been a more pleasing one.

The figures go to show how large a number ignominiously