Numbers 5. Report of Bvt. Brigadier General Orlando, M. Poe, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, Chief Engineer. WASHINGTON, D. C., October 8, 1865.

SIR: *

Third. The campaign from Savannah, Ga., to Goldsborough, N. C., from January 25, 1865, to March 22, 1865.

For this campaign, inaugurated in midwinter, to be made through a country famous for the extent of its swamps, all of which for 500 miles distance were to be crossed at right angles, at that season of the year when they were flooded with water and generally regarded as impassable for troops, the engineer department was organized with great care. The pontoon trains, of which descriptions have already been given, were put in perfect order. Every officer and man belonging to the engineer organization was duly impressed with the importance of the part we were to take in the march, where so much was to depend upon prompt and efficient bridge-building and road-making. The same organization of the department was preserved as that made for the Savannah campaign. To save the trouble of looking for it in the preceding pages it is repeated.

First. Staff: O. M. Poe, captain Engineers, brevet colonel, U. S. Army, chief engineer Military Division of the Mississippi; C. B. Reese, captain Engineers, brevet colonel, U. S. Army, chief engineer Department and Army of the Tennessee (Right Wing); Amos Stickney, first lieutenant Engineers, brevet captain, U. S. Army, assistant to Captain Reese; William Ludlow, first lieutenant Engineers, brevet major, U. S. Army, chief engineer Army of Georgia (Left Wing); William Kossak, captain, aide-de-camp, chief engineer Seventeenth Army Corps; Klostermann, captain, &c., chief engineer Fifteenth Army Corps.

Second. Engineer troops and troops of the line on engineer duty: First Michigan Engineers and Mechanics, Colonel J. B. Yates, unassigned; First Missouri Engineers, Lieutenant Colonel William Tweeddale, Right Wing; Fifty-eighth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, Lieutenant Colonel J. Moore, Left Wing.

Third. Pontoniers and pontoon trains: Right Wing, First Missouri Engineers; Left Wing, Fifty-eighth Indiana Volunteer Infantry.

The pontoon trains remained exactly as before specified. The took trains remained the same, but the number of tools carried along by brigade wagons was greatly increased, particularly, the number of axes.

When the movement actually commenced a portion of the army marched via Sister's Ferry. The pontoon train of the Left Wing accompanied this column. All other engineer troops and trains were transported by water to Beaufort and moved thence by land. Owing to the season and the nature of the country through which we marched the demand for labor of engineer troops was constant. The heavy rains which fell just as the movement commenced greatly impeded the march of the column, which crossed the Savannah at Sister's Ferry. To enable it to progress at all 700 feet of pontoon bridge were built and 1,000 feet of trestle bridge, also some miles of corduroying. The Right Wing met with similar obstacle, s though not so serious. A pontoon

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*For portion of this report (here omitted) relating to the Atlanta Campaign, &c., see Vol. XXXVIII, Part I, p. 127, and for that relating to the Savannah Campaign, see Vol. XLIX, p. 58.

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