Third Battery of Maryland Artillery, C. S. A. Its history in brief, and its commanders.
Baltimore, October 6, 1894.
Since the establishment of a National Military Park at Chattanooga, Tenn., by the Government of the United States, frequent mention has been made of the Maryland commands which took part in the battles of Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.
A misapprehension seems to prevail in the mind of every person who writes upon the subject, as regards the commanders of the Third Battery of Maryland Artillery, C. S. A., and the part that battery took in the late war.
I would like to give, through the medium of your paper, a correct version of the matter in a few words.
The Third Maryland Battery was mustered into the Confederate States service January 14, 1862, at Richmond, Va., and was ordered to Knoxville, East Tennessee, February 4, 1862.
Under General E. Kirby Smith it went into Kentucky, August, 1862.
After the return of General Smith to Tennessee the battery was sent to Vicksburg, Miss., arriving there January 3, 1863.
Shortly afterward one gun was sent to General Ferguson, on Deer Creek, Miss., and two guns
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to Fort DeRussa on Red river, which were put aboard the Queen of the West, after the capture of that vessel.
Three guns, with the main body of the battery, were in the siege of Vicksburg, and at the capitulation, July 4, 1863, were surrendered.
The battery was reorganized at Decatur, Ga., in October, 1863, and ordered to Sweet Water, Tenn., afterwards to Lookout Mountain, near Chattanooga.
Was in the battle of Missionary Ridge and in the retreat to Dalton, Ga., November, 1863.
Served under Generals Johnston and Hood in the Georgia campaign of 1864.
Was with General Hood in his march to Nashville, Tenn., and his disastrous retreat to Columbus, Miss. February, 1865, ordered to Mobile, Ala., and afterwards to Meridian, Miss., where, under General R. Taylor, May 4, 1865, the battery was surrendered and the men paroled.
The commanders during the war were: Captain Henry B. Latrobe, left service March 1, 1863; Captain Fred. O. Claiborne, killed at Vicksburg, June 24, 1863; Captain John B. Rowan, killed at Nashville, December 16, 1864; Captain William L. Ritter. William L. Ritter, Surviving Captain Third-Maryland Artillery, afterwards Stephens's Light Artillery.
[From the Richmond, Va., Dispatch, August 5, 1894.]
