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

On the 2d of March, Maj. Gen. Grant having been previously nominated to the grade of lieutenantgeneral, was confirmed in this rank by the Senate, and on tile 10th assigned, by special order of President Lincoln, to the command of all the Armies of the United States; and soon came the tidings that his headquarters were to be with the Army of the Potomac. Then followed a rumor that the army was to be reorganized, and this report soon took the form of reality, for we now learned that the Third Corps was doomed,—dismal news indeed. Next to the attachment men feel for their own company or regiment comes that which they feel for their corps. All the active service we had yet seen had been in the Third Corps, and its earlier history and traditions from the Peninsula to Gettysburg had become a part of our pride, and we did not care to identify ourselves with any other. If such was our feeling in the matter, how much more intense must have been that of the troops longer in its membership, whose very blood and sinew were incorporated with the imperishable name it had won under Gen. Sickles. The authorities paid deference to this feeling by allowing the ‘Diamond’ badge to be retained after the troops were merged in other corps.

The First Corps was consolidated into two divisions and added to the Fifth. The first and second divisions of the Third Corps were added to the Second, and the third division to the Sixth Corps. By this reorganization Major Generals Sykes, French, and Newton, and Brigadier Generals Kenly, Spinola, and Meredith, were relieved and sent elsewhere. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock now resumed command of the Second Corps, having been absent from it since