Numbers 6. Report of Bvt. Major General William F. Barry, U. S. Army, Chief of Artillery.

HDQRS. ARTILLERY, MILITARY DIV. OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
Goldsborough, N. C., March 31, 1865.

GENERAL: I have the honor to report the operations of the artillery of the armies under your command during the Carolina campaign of February and March, 1865.

In consideration of the peculiarities of the campaign, involving long and rapid marches over bad roads and at an inclement season of the year, the same precautions which were so advantageously taken for your Savannah campaign of last autumn were agin observed. The number of guns was reduced to one per 1,000 effective bayonets, and each artillery carriage was provided with eight draught animals.

The whole number of field batteries was sixteen, comprising sixty-eight guns, which were distributed and of calibers as follows:

20-pounder 12- 3-inch Total.

Parrotts. pounders. rifles.

Right

Wing:

Fifteenth 4 10 4 18

Army

Corps. .

Seventeent . . . . . . 4 10 14

h Army . . . . .

Corps. .

Left Wing:

Fourteenth . . . . . . 8 8 16

Army . . . . .

Corps. .

Twentieth . . . . . . 8 8 16

Army . . . . .

Corps. .

Cavalry . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4

Division. . . . . . . . . . .

.

Total. . 4 30 34 68

Including the reserve supply, each gun was furnished with 350 rounds of ammunition.

A careful and critical personal inspection, made a few days preceding our departure from Savannah, satisfied me that in all essentials the artillery was in excellent condition for any kind of work. The results fully justified these expectations. During the whole march the artillery supplied itself, unaided by infantry or cavalry, with provisions for its officers and men, forage for its animals, and to a great extent with fresh horses and mules captured in the country. A tabular statement is appended to this report, showing the extent to which this unusual artillery service was performed.

No gun or artillery carriage of any description was abandoned, disable, or at any time even a temporary impediment to the march of the infantry columns-a fact the more creditable to the artillery, since in many places the roads were of the worst possible description.

Although the nature of your operations did not, except at the battles of Averasborough and Bentonville, call for any general use of artillery, yet in support of skirmish lines, brushing away cavalry, and covering the crossings of several difficult and important rivers, it was advantageously used at the following-named times and places, namely:

January 20, 1865, Pocotaligo, Seventeenth Army Corps.

January 28, 1865, Combahee, Fifteenth Army Corps.

January 29, 1865, Robertsville, Twentieth Army Corps.

February 1, 1865, Hickory Hill, Fifteenth Army Corps.

February 2, 1865, Lawtonville, Twentieth Army Corps.

February 2, 1865, Whippy Swamp, Seventeenth Army Corps.

12 R R-VOL XLVII, PT I