Numbers 61. Report of Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Moore, Fifty-eighth Indiana Infantry, commanding Pontoon Train, of operations January 20-March 25.

HEADQUARTERS PONTOON TRAIN, LEFT WING,
Goldsborough, N. C., March 27, 1865.

SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report of the amount of pontoon biding and other work done by my command during the late campaign from Savannah, Ga., to this point:

My command consisted of the Fifty-eighth Indiana Volunteers, as pontoniers, with an aggregate strength of 650 men, including teamsters and all other men detailed from their respective companies, leaving an average of 500 men for duty during the campaign. I also had in charge a train of eighty-five wagons, and hauled of pontoon bridge, boat and canvas 1,000 feet, and of other material 860 feet.

January 20, in accordance with orders I marched out of Savannah, Ga., on the Springfield road and reported to Major-General Davis. It rained incessantly all day and the roads became very bad. Marched eight miles and camped, when I received orders from General Davis that the march was postponed in consequence of the rain.

January 25, resumed the march and had nothing of importance to transact except corduroying some swamps, until the night of the 27th, we built a low wooden bridge 450 feet across a swampy creek, two miles northeast of Springfield, on the Sister's Ferry road.

January 28, arrived at Sister's Ferry, and during the night of the 29th laid a bridge across the Savannah River. On the South Carolina shore the road runs immediately up the River and on this road, over deep sluices and water too deep to ford, we threw 250 feet of pontoon bridge, and also built 750 feet of wooden bridges. This road, for a distance of two miles and a half, was over very low, wet bottom till you reached the upland, and at the time of our arrival at the River the country from the ferry to the mainland was entirely overflowed, ranging in depth from one to six feet. This road was full of heavy timber which had been fallen by the enemy, and in consequence of high water it became a very laborious and tedious job for the men to make much progress. Besides obstacles just enumerated in impeding the clearing of the road, working parties were greatly annoyed by torpedoes secreted under the fallen timber, one of which being exploded wounded two men severely, after which fifty others were carefully dislocated without further damage. In clearing this road I had heavy details from the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps.

The road was completed on the 3rd day of February, and troops were crossing soon afterward same day. This road could have been completed sooner, only on account of high water. February 6 we took up the bridge and on the 7th moved on the Brighton road, and nothing of importance was done till we reached the Saluda River, on the 16th, some seven miles above Columbia, and during the night threw a bridge across, spanning 400 feet. February 17, 1 a.m. I received orders and sent two companies with 200 feet of bridge to the Army of the Tennessee, near Columbia, to splice bridges in order to span Broad River at that point. At 7 a.m. I started Major Downey, with all the bridging not then in use, with the Fourteenth Army Corps, to bridge Broad River at a place some sixteen miles above. The major reached the River at 11 p.m. and commenced the bridge, but as he only had twenty-one boats, and it required thirty-one to span the