The Atlanta (Georgia) Campaign: May 1 - September 8, 1864., Part I: General Report.
Maj. George B. Davis, Mr. Leslie J. Perry, Mr. Joseph W. Kirkley, Ed.

[121] time on hand a less amount of ammunition than 400 rounds per gun. Great credit is due to Capt. T. G. Baylor, the chief ordnance officer of the military division, for the promptness and energy with which he kept well at the front, even under the occasionally adverse circumstances of interrupted communications and unexpectedly large expenditures, an abundant supply of serviceable ammunition and ordnance stores.

A reserve artillery force was organized for each of the three armies. This consisted of twelve batteries for the Army of the Cumberland, four batteries for the Army of the Tennessee, and two batteries for the Army of the Ohio.

As it was not your wish that the reserve artillery should either accompany or follow the field movements of your active forces, I directed the reserve batteries of the Armies of the Cumberland and Tennessee to be posted at Nashville, and those of the Army of the Ohio at Chattanooga. Instructions were given that all of these batteries should be kept always ready to take the field at a moment's notice. Drafts of officers, enlisted men, guns, horses, and in several instances entire batteries, were from time to time made upon this reserve, and the means of effectively making good the losses in the field of the active batteries were thus always at hand, and were promptly brought to the front.

For special reasons no horse artillery was organized, but suitable mounted batteries, equipped as lightly as possible, were selected for service with the cavalry, and were assigned to, and served through the campaign with, the divisions of Stoneman, Kilpatrick, Garrard, and McCook. The cavalry commanders, and the army chiefs of artillery give these batteries, in their several reports, a high reputation for endurance and dash, praise which entitles them to the more credit since their organization and equipment was not altogether favorable to distinction with the cavalry arm.

No siege train, specially organized as such, was deemed requisite, either with the active armies or with the reserve artillery, the field batteries of 20-pounder Parrotts being considered sufficiently heavy for such work as the operations of the campaign would be likely to render necessary. The result fully justified this expectation, with the single exception of some special service during the operations before Atlanta, for which eight 4 1/2-inch rifled siege guns were brought by rail from Chattanooga, and returned thither in the same manner when their mission was accomplished.

The 10 and 20 pounder Parrotts and the 3-inch wrought-iron guns have fully maintained their reputations for endurance and for the superior accuracy and range expected from rifled guns. The light i 2-pounder has more than ever proved itself to be the gun for the line of battle, where facility of service and effectiveness of solid 31hot, spherical case, and canister is most required. Circumstances enabled the endurance of the 4 1/2-inch rifled siege guns to be more severely tested than ever before in the face of the enemy. Four of them were found to stand, without any apparent deterioration except an enlargement of the vent, more than 1,000 discharges each fired continuously at an average of twenty minutes interval, and at an elevation varying from eight to ten degrees. In accuracy, range, and certainty of flight and explosion, this gun, when served with Schenkl projectiles (especially his percussion-shell) really leaves nothing to be desired.