hard bread, but subsisted on flour and salt meat, and that in reduced quantities,* and yet no murmurs were heard. Their gallant comrades of the Army of the Potomac and the Department of Norfolk, though not so long a time exposed to these sufferings, shared their hardships and dangers with equal firmness and cheerfulness. I have never seen, and I do not believe that there ever has existed, an army (the combined armies of the Potomac, Peninsula, and Norfolk) which has shown itself for so long a time so superior to all hardships and dangers. The best drilled regulars the world has ever seen would have mutinied under a continuous service in the trenches for twenty-nine days, exposed every moment to musketry and shells, in water to their knees, without fire, sugar, or coffee, without stimulants, and with and inadequate supply of uncooked flour and salt meat. I speak of this in honor of these brave men, whose patriotism made them indifferent to suffering, discase, danger, and death. Indeed, the conduct of the officers and men was such as to deserve throughout the highest commendation.

I beg leave to invite the attention of the Department to the reports which accompany this, and to commend the officers and men there named to the most favorable consideration of the Government. I cannot close this report without publicly bearing testimony to the great and devoted services of the cavalry of the Peninsula so long under my command. Always in the presence of superior forces of the enemy, I owe much of the success which attended my efforts to keep them with in the walls of their fortresses to the alacrity, daring, vigilance, and constancy of the Third Virginia Cavalry and the independent companies from James City, Matthews, Cloucester, and King and Queen Counties.

The services rendered by the officers of my staff have been invaluable. To these I owe my acknowledgments. Captains Bryan and Dickinson, of the Adjutant-General's Department; Majors Magruder and Brent, of the Commissary and Ordnance Departments, respectively; Captain White, acting chief quartermaster; Colonel Cabell, chief of artillery; Lieutenant-Colonel Cary, acting inspector-general; Lieutenant Douglas, of the engineers; Lieutenants Eustis and Alston, aides-de-camp; Dr. George W. Millen, acting staff officer, and Messrs. J. R. Bryan H. M. Stanard, D. T. Brashear, and Henry A. Boyce, who as volunteer aides have rendered most important services, and to Private E. P. Turner, of the New Kent Cavalry, on duty sometimes in the field, at others in the assistant adjutant-general's office.

My thanks are due to Lieutenant-Colonel Ball, of the Virginia Cavalry, who for several weeks during the siege acted as a volunteer aide. His conduct on the 5th in my immediate presence, and under a severe fire of the enemy, was very gallant, and worthy of the high reputation which he won at Manassas.

I am also greatly indebted to Major George Wray, of the One hundred and fifteenth Virginia Militia, who has aided me in the administration (civil as well as military) of the affairs of the Peninsula, and to Lieuts. Joseph Phillips and Causey, of the Confederate Army. The local knowledge of these officers has been of great advantage to the service, while their intrepidity and enterprise have been in the highest degree conspicuous on every occasion.

I cannot express too strongly my estimate of the services rendered by my chief quartermaster, Major Bloomfield. Soon after he took charge he introduced order, promptness, and economy in the management of his department. The scarcity of supplies and materials was so great

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*See report following.

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