nished from the infantry. The men furnished were necessarily unacquainted with the duties and worked to disadvantage, while their services in the positions for which they had been trained were lost.

I respectfully request that attention be called to this subject. It is one affecting all batteries throughout the army, and can only be adequately provided for by some general regulations, rigidly enforced. Batteries, when too much reduced have from necessity been broken up and the officers and men distributed to others. This works manifest injustice, and creates discontent, and the custom of temporarily transferring men from the infantry to the artillery is beset with difficulties of many descriptions. A special recruiting service for the artillery of each State, with one or more depot batteries for their instruction, and to which sick and wounded men can be sent, with perhaps authority to enlist for volunteer batteries in the field, from the regiments of their own State, a limited number of men, as now permitted for regular batteries, would do much to relieve the service of the evils it suffers from this cause.

Inclosed I transmit a sketch* of the field of operations, marked A, and the reports of Brigadier-Generals Hays (B) and Tyler (C), Colonel Tompkins (D) and Captain G. A. De Russy (E), commanding artillery divisions, with the reports of the captains of the batteries under their command.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

HENRY J. HUNT,

Brigadier-General and Chief of Artillery, Army of the Potomac.

Major General J. G. PARKE,

Chief of Staff, Army of the Potomac.

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,

Camp near Falmouth, Va., December 21, 1862.

GENERAL: I have the honor to report that the practice in the recent battle with the 20-pounder Parrott was in some respects very unsatisfactory, from the imperfection of the projectiles, which, notwithstanding the pains which have been taken to procure reliable ones, are nearly as dangerous to our own troops as to the enemy, if the former are in advance of our lines. In addition, the guns themselves are unsafe. At Antietam two of the twenty-two, and on the 13th instant another, were disabled by the bursting of the gun near the muzzle. The gun is too heavy for field purpose, and can be used with advantage only as batteries of position. Fort the last purpose it is inferior to the 4 1/2-inch siege-gun, which requires the same number of horses and only half the number of drivers. I therefore respectfully propose that, as the allowance of artillery in this army is small, the 20-pounders be turned in the the Ordnance Department as soon as they can be replaced by light field guns, and that a portion of the siege train (sixteen guns) be organized to accompany the force in the field for service in such positions as require heavy guns, and, in case of a siege, to form a part of the train. Seven such guns are now here. Twelve were asked for, and it is a misfortune they were not furnished. Two companies of the First Connecticut Artillery are serving with the guns now here. I propose that two other companies

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*See p. 1127.

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