Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 14.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[137]

Reminiscences of field ordnance service with the Army of Northern Virginia—1863-1863.

by Colonel William Allan, formerly Chief of ordnance, Second corps, A. N. V.

A valuable and interesting paper by General Gorgas in Vol. XII, Southern Historical Papers, gives a terse but vivid description of the enormous difficulties which beset the Confederacy in reference to munitions of war. The principal difficulties of the situation, of course, rested upon the department which was charged with obtaining the needed supplies, but it may be interesting and useful to recall some of the experiences of the ordnance officers in the field, whose duty it was to husband and distribute these supplies.

During the campaign of 1862, which, as General Gorgas says, was the hardest year upon his department, the perplexities of ordnance officers in the Army of Northern Virginia were frequently relieved by important captures from the enemy. The stores obtained from Banks, McClellan, Pope, Burnside, and the capture of Harper's Ferry, were of immense assistance in the campaign, and eked out the meagre supplies to be obtained from Richmond. The organization of the ordnance department in the field was at this time imperfect. There were few ordnance officers below divisions and corps, and even in the case of these larger bodies the duty of ordnance officer was often combined with other staff duty. As a result, but little system or order existed in the management and distribution of supplies. Great waste, too, existed, but all serious difficulty was avoided by frequent and valuable captures. During that summer a law was passed by Congress providing for the full organization of the ordnance department in the field; by the assignment of regular ordnance officers to all commands from brigades up, and, at the suggestion of General Gorgas, the Secretary of War determined to secure the officers needed for these appointments by means of a competitive examination. A board of competent officers was commissioned to conduct these examinations throughout the Confederacy. The examinations were held at the leading centres, both east and west of the Mississippi, including the headquarters of all the principal armies. From the list thus obtained it was designed that the appointments should be made in order of merit. Some divergence from this rule was subsequently made, when it was found that far more of the successful [138] candidates were from Virginia than from any other one State, but though the order of merit was thus not strictly followed, the appointments were all made from successful candidates. It is probable that by this method of selection General Gorgas secured a far better body of officers than he could have obtained in any other way.

As soon as the army had fully settled down in their winter quarters, after the battle of Fredericksburg, the work of the organization of the department in the field was begun and carried forward. At the same time the army was being supplied for the coming campaign. Colonel B. G. Baldwin, the chief ordnance officer, Army of Northern Virginia, ordered a thorough inspection and report of the condition of the equipments and ammunition throughout the army. Steps were taken to obtain officers for the brigades from the list of successful candidates. The work of organizing the artillery into battalions was going on at the same time, and it was decided to assign a lieutenant of ordnance to each one of these battalions, and a captain as chief ordnance officer to the artillery of each corps. By February these appointments were pretty much all made, and the chief ordnance officer of the army had his department thoroughly organized. The inspection of ordnance supplies in the hands of the troops, which had been irregular and imperfect, was now made systematic and exact. Reports of the amount and condition of supplies on hand, and the requisitions to fill deficiencies, were now made at regular intervals. Before this, they had often been careless and haphazard.

This result was partly the consequence of the measures adopted to diminish the great waste of ordnance supplies in the hands of the men. When I took charge of the ordnance of the Second corps, Army of Northern Virginia, in January, 1863, it was reported to me that during the preceding three months ammunition, amounting to twenty-five rounds per man, had been wasted or destroyed. This did not include of course that used in the battle of Fredericksburg, but it did include that used on the picket line and perhaps some used in skirmishes. Urgent representations came from Richmond as to the necessity of checking this waste, if the department was to be expected to accumulate an adequate supply for the next summer. From General Gorgas's paper, already referred to, we find that the total capacity of the department for the manufacture of infantry ammunition was about a half a round a day to the man, or in other words forty-five rounds per man in three months. This capacity had [139] probably not been reached in the winter of 1862-1862. Hence the consumption of ammunition in camp, and while the army was doing no serious fighting, appeared to be more than half the capacity of our arsenals to supply. This large waste of ammunition came from the want of care exercised in camp. Many soldiers thought of their cartridge-boxes only when about to go into battle. Little care was taken by many of them in camp to prevent their cartridges from getting wet; indeed cartridge-boxes were often cut up to mend shoes, and the question of ammunition left to be decided when an emergency for its use arose. In some regiments the good discipline of the line officers prevented or checked this waste, as it did the throwing away of bayonets, &c., but in a great number of cases the regimental discipline of officers not trained originally to war was loose in regard to these matters. To correct the evil, a system of reports was prepared, by which the exact condition of the ordnance in the hands of the men was obtained every two weeks, and the difference between the present and the preceding reports had to be accounted for, even down to every round of ammunition. Orders were issued from army headquarters providing for the inspections on which these reports were to be based, and also directing that all damage to ammunition, arms, and equipments, due to carelessness or neglect, should be charged against the men or officers who were to blame; the sum to be deducted on their next pay roll. In this way the soldier was held to a strict responsibility for the property in his possession. If he broke or threw away his bayonet, or cut up his cartridge-box, or fired away his ammunition when not in battle, or allowed it to spoil, he was made to pay for it, and so frequent and exact were the inspections that there was little room for escape from the penalty. It often seemed hard to charge such damages against the poor pittances which the private soldier received in depreciated currency, but in this as in many other cases the exigencies of the situation would not admit of the neglect or mild enforcement of this regulation. This system of reports, first adopted in the Army of Northern Virginia, was extended through the agency of General Gorgas to the other armies. The results were quite marked. The ammunition wasted or lost in the Second corps, Army of Northern Virginia, in the first three months of 1863, fell to five rounds per man, and subsequently became less. A great improvement was also made in regard to the care of equipments and bayonets.

The troops at this time were armed in a heterogeneous fashion. Many of the men had smooth bore muskets, calibre .69. Others had [140] rifled muskets, calibre .54; and others still had Springfield muskets, calibre .58. There were some other arms, as, for instance, some Belgian rifles, calibre .70, but the three kinds I have mentioned were the principal kinds in the hands of the infantry in January, 1863. We were all anxious to replace the smooth bores with rifles, and especially with calibre .58, which was the model the Confederate as well as the Federal Government had adopted. The battlefields of the preceding summer had enabled many commands to exchange their smooth bores for Springfield muskets, but as nine-tenths of the arms in the Confederacy at the beginning of the war had been smooth bore muskets, it required time and patience to effect a complete re-arming. This was finally done in the Second corps at Chancellorsville, but in the winter of 1862-‘63, there was often found in the same brigade the three kinds of arms above enumerated, and the same wagon often carried the three kinds of ammunition required. During this winter it was found difficult to obtain arms as fast as we needed them for the new men, and of course we were very glad to take what the department could furnish. Between the first of January and the first of May, General Jackson's corps grew from about twenty-three thousand muskets to thirty-three thousand. These ten thousand arms we obtained from Richmond in small quantities, and they were of different calibres, but the corps was fully armed when it went to Chancellorsville. After that battle the men all had muskets, calibre .58, and henceforth but one sort of ammunition was needed.

Our artillery armament was even more heterogeneous. Six-pounder guns, howitzers, some Napoleons, three-inch rifles, ten-pounder Parrotts, and a few twenty-pounder Parrotts were in our corps, besides, probably, some other odd pieces. I remember a Blakely gun or two and a Whitworth, the latter used both at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Our batteries had been greatly improved by a number of guns captured from the enemy. We especially valued the three-inch rifles, which became the favorite field piece. During the winter of 1862-‘63, the artillery was first thoroughly organized under General Pendleton as chief. Batteries were detached from brigades, and were organized into battalions, containing four batteries, usually of four guns each. A number of these battalions were assigned to each corps under the chief of artillery of that corps, while a number of others constituted the general reserve, of which General Pendleton took immediate oversight. All that our supplies admitted was done to thoroughly equip these batteries during [141] the winter, and they were ready for action when the campaign opened. A train of wagons was organized to carry the reserve ammunition for the artillery, and this was placed in charge of the artillery ordnance officer of the corps, and, besides this, there was a reserve train for the army under the direct orders of the chief ordnance officer of the army.

There had been with the Second corps no field repair shop, or other means of repairing slight damages to arms. Soon after taking charge, I obtained through Colonel Baldwin, from the field park of the army, four or five gunsmiths and a good harness maker, with a small equipment, including a large tent, and attached this to our corps reserve ordnance train. These men were worthy and excellent mechanics, and they did a great deal of useful work. Several thousand stand of arms in the course of the campaign were rendered serviceable, which, otherwise, would have had to go to Richmond, and a good deal of artillery harness was repaired. When Milroy ran away from Winchester, in 1863, he left over twenty pieces of artillery, all of them spiked. Our workmen rendered them all fit for service within a day. My principal workmen were Mr. Gwaltmey, of Norfolk, Mr. Custard, of Maryland, and Mr. McNulty, of Highland county, Virginia. This repair-shop, as well as the special ordnance reports, I placed under charge of Lieutenant I. T. Walke, of Norfolk, who subsequently fell, October 9, 1864, while gallantly fighting with General Fitz. Lee, whose ordnance officer he then was. My principal assistant, who took charge of all the other ordnance property and kept the accounts, was Lieutenant William M. Archer, of Richmond, one of the most faithful and efficient officers of the department, and indeed of the army.

I recall an instance of the difficulty of obtaining even small supplies. During the winter General Jackson requested me to have the knapsacks of the men marked in white paint. In the active campaign of the preceding summer his men had been compelled to store their knapsacks, I think at Harrisonburg, and it was some months before they saw them again. As they had not been marked in any way, great confusion and loss resulted in re-issuing them. He desired to provide against the recurrence of this. I found it so difficult to get stencil plates for numbers and letters that I went to Richmond myself and had them made, obtained the paint, and then found that only a few brushes could be gotten. With this very limited equipment, men were put to work to mark the knapsacks. In Early's division, where Major G. W. Christy pushed the work without intermission, [142] I think it was completed before the campaign began. Not so, however, in the other divisions.

Gleaning the battlefields was one of the important duties of the field ordnance officers. They were directed to save everything which could be made of use. Of course they took care of the good arms and good ammunition, but they had to preserve no less carefully all damaged arms, gun barrels, wasted ammunition, of which the lead was the valuable consideration, bayonets, cartridge-boxes, &c. After Chancellorsville and the gathering which had been done during the battle, an ordnance officer of the Second corps was sent to the field with power to call upon a neighboring brigade for as large details as he wished, and he spent a week in gathering the debris of the battle and sending it to Guiney's Station or Hamilton's Crossing, whence it was shipped to Richmond. My recollection is that over twenty thousand stand of damaged arms were sent in this way to the arsenal, besides a considerable quantity of lead, &c. After the first day at Gettysburg the battlefield was gleaned, and such material as we had transportation for sent back.

The means of transportation were always limited in the Confederate army, and as the war went on horses and wagons and forage became scarcer, and the difficulty of obtaining transportation greater, but by doing the best with what we had, and by prompt requisitions upon Richmond, deficiencies of ammunition were avoided. Ordnance officers were constantly on the lookout to avail themselves of such supplies as were captured. At Winchester, June, 1863, besides the fine mass of field artillery, which enabled the Second corps to so complete its equipments that almost every gun in its batteries was a captured one, there fell into our hands some ammunition and a large number of wagons and teams. A considerable number of these latter were turned over to the ordnance department, and together with the ammunition wagons, which had been emptied up to this time, were sent back to Staunton to be filled. The supplies were forwarded to that point by railroad, and the large train was loaded and brought back to the army. Meantime, General Lee had crossed the Potomac and marched on towards Gettysburg. The train reached us some days before the battle. This train was in charge of Captain Charles Grattan. The supplies thus brought up were distributed by Colonel Baldwin throughout the army. After the battle of Gettysburg it was found that just about one-half of all the artillery ammunition in the army had been expended, but there was still plenty left for defensive operations, and General Lee offered battle without hesitation at [143] Hagerstown. As it turned out, our supplies were adequate to our needs, and though another battle as protracted as Gettysburg would have exhausted our entire supply of artillery ammunition, no such struggle was possible for the two armies.

One of the cases when promptness was needed in obtaining new supplies was after the battle of Winchester, September 19, 1864. The consumption of ammunition had been considerable before this fight, and the amount of ammunition used during the battle was very large. Next morning (20th) a courier was sent from Strasburg to Staunton to have supplies shipped from Richmond to the latter place and a train of wagons was sent for it. These wagons had to travel seventy miles to reach Staunton. They obtained a relay of horses at Harrisonburg, got to Staunton early on the 21st of September, were loaded and started back to the army on the same day, and changing teams at Harrisonburg, the train was approaching the battlefield on the afternoon of 22d when the disaster of Fisher's Hill was in progress. Meantime some uneasiness had existed on the morning of the 22d lest our infantry ammunition should run short. General Ramseur, whose division was in line of battle at Fisher's Hill, hourly expecting to be attacked, was anxious to know to what extent he might deplete his supply on hand. At midday I was informed of the approach of the train, and General Ramseur was informed that he might safely use up all he had. As it turned out, our position was turned that afternoon, and our army driven from its lines before the men were able to exhaust their cartridge-boxes. One of the last acts of General Early's chief of staff, the gallant Colonel Pendleton, who fell on that field, was to order back this train to prevent the danger of its capture.

So excellent was our cavalry service, that rare indeed was the capture of any of our ordnance by the enemy. We believe no considerable loss of this sort occurred until near the close of the war. Sometimes, however, the enemy's cavalry caused ordnance trains to travel at more than regulation speed. Such was the case one morning at the second battle of Manassas, when Pope dropped some shells among Jackson's train and caused it to change its base with masterly celerity. On our return from the Bristoe campign in the fall of 1863, the ordnance train of the Second corps found themselves in the fork of the Rappahannock and Hazel rivers. The latter stream was past fording and there was no bridge or ferry. Behind us only a small body of scouting cavalry intervened between us and the Federal cavalry, which was supposed to be advancing from Warrenton. The [144] proper thing to do was evidently to cross the Hazel river without delay. Looking about for some means of accomplishing this, we found an old half-rotten skiff, which two North Carolina teamsters declared they could make serviceable. Some rope was stretched across the river, and in two or three hours the little ferry-boat, which would only carry six or eight boxes of ammunition at a time, was repaired as well as we could do it, and put to work. By detailing relays of men for the purpose, the work was kept up continually all night, and early next morning all the ammunition had been safely transported to the south side of the river, except one boat-load which had been wet by the swamping of the boat. It was found possible to get the empty wagons over at the ford, which was done without accident, though the water was nearly as deep as the backs of the mules. By midday everything was dried off, the ammunition re loaded, and the train taken out of the reach of the Federal cavalry.

So difficult was it to obtain supplies, that ordnance officers in the field found it necessary to use all their opportunities for supplementing the meagre stores of the department. When the army moved into Pennsylvania, in 1863, loads of tin and other stores were obtained and sent back by wagons to Richmond. In the same way a considerable quantity of leather, to be used for harness and cartridge boxes, was sent back. In the winter of 1863-‘64, I was informed that at the Richmond arsenal they were in great straits for wood out of which to make artillery carriages, and that without a supply promptly furnished it would be difficult to fill the requisitions from the army. In response to Colonel W. L. Broun's appeal for assistance in this matter, I undertook to have an adequate supply of oak and gum lumber forwarded from Orange Courthouse, where the army was then camped. A fine body of oak timber was selected, and a large detail of men to fell it was obtained. A portable steam saw-mill was gotten in the neighborhood and set up in the midst of the timber. Two relays of men kept the mill going with but little cessation. Half of the ordnance wagons in the corps were unloaded, and the running gear used for hauling the lumber to the railroad station, some three or four miles distant. It was there placed upon the trains, which had brought up commissary supplies from Richmond, and sent down to the arsenal. While the oak lumber was thus being gotten, a body of gum trees, lying near the foot of the neighboring hills, had been cut up and sawed into suitable blocks for hubs. These were sent with the oak. My recollection is, that the lumber was on the cars, and had been shipped in a week [145] from the beginning of the work, and that it was large enough in amount to supply the needs of the arsenal for months. I remember the gentleman, who owned the lumber, was very much opposed to having it cut, and forwarded a paper on the subject to the Secretary of War through army headquarters. Colonel Baldwin, Chief Ordnance Officer, Army of Northern Virginia, authorized me, meantime, to go on with the work. The lumber was in Richmond before the paper came back to us.

In the winter of 1864 it was impossible to obtain an adequate quantity of horseshoes and nails from the ordnance department. The cavalry, which had been with General Early during that fall, had seen severe service, and it was absolutely necessary, in reference to the future, to procure in some way a supply of horseshoes and nails during the winter. We had to depend upon ourselves. I determined to establish, if possible, twenty forges in Waynesboroa, Augusta county, Virginia, and have blacksmiths detailed from the army to make shoes and nails. We sent through the country and got such blacksmith tools as we were able to find. I think I got some, too, from Richmond, from the ordnance department. There was no difficulty in getting good blacksmiths out of the army. A number of men were put to work, and horseshoes and nails began to accumulate. We soon ran out of iron, however, and found that the department at Richmond could not fully supply our wants. There was a fine lot of iron at Columbia furnace, near Mount Jackson, which was at this time in the debatable ground between the two armies. This iron was of fine quality, suitable for casting cannon as well as any other purpose. The commander of the arsenal informed me that if I could manage to get this to Richmond he would give me back in bars as much as I needed for horseshoes and nails. Trains of wagons were sent after it from Staunton, and these trains were protected by cavalry, which General Early sent for the purpose, and they returned in safety with the iron, which was promptly shipped to Richmond. From this time forward our forges were fully supplied, and I think when Sheridan overhauled and dispersed our forces at Waynesboroa, at the beginning of March, 1865, we had manufactured some twenty thousand pounds of horseshoes and nails. They were loaded upon the cars, which were gotten through the tunnel, but were captured by some of Sheridan's people at or near Greenwood depot.

That same winter we carried on the manufacture of currycombs at our field park. There was a dearth of these, and my gunsmiths [146] planned and made a set of hand tools and machines by which they could be manufactured. Iron, in suitable strips, was obtained from Richmond. During January and February my men made between one thousand five hundred and two thousand of these curry combs. Like the horseshoes, they fell into Sheridan's hands.