April 30.- Reached Union Springs. Found in the place rebel wagon train, which was taken possession of by me [and] held to await the disposition of Major-General Smith, commanding at Montgomery.

My command has been for the past tow months almost continually on the march. this, with the short supply of forage we at times were able to obtain, has greatly reduced the condition of my animals.

Numbers 5. Report of Bvt. Major Miles D. McAlester, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, Chief Engineer.

OFFICE OF CHIEF ENGINEER,

ARMY AND DIVISION OF WEST MISSISSIPPI,

New Orleans, June 1, 1865.

COLONEL: The maps and plans herewith furnished for the information of the major-general commanding indicate in sufficient detail, perhaps, the engineer operations in the late campaign of the Army of West Mississippi in Souther Alabama. The principal of these took place before Spanish fort. Those before Blakely had been barely initiated when the place fell by assault. Formal siege operations not having been ordered or contemplated at Spanish Fort, the attention of engineer officers was exclusively directed to the location and construction of batteries for the reception of the field guns with the troops and the siege guns as rapidly as they could be delivered on the grounds, and the construction of such trenches as were needed simply to communicate with the batteries.

On the 30th of March, however, by special authority of the major-general commanding, I directed the advance rifle-trenches and pits to be connected and widened to six feet, together with a sufficient number of approaches thereto, for the convenience of troops posted to resist sorties of the garrison. These were completed by the 4th of April. Subsequently this advanced parallel trench became a second parallel by the uniting and widening in like manner the rifle-trenches and breast-works constructed on the advance crest of the ravines first occupied, forming, for some purposes, a first parallel. the investment of Spanish Fort by land took place on the 27th of March.

On the 29th of March I located a battery of eight 30-pounder Parrotts on the southeast of Minette Bay, against Batteries Huger and Tracy and the rebel gun-boats, all of which enfiladed the ravine occupied by our right and the Spanish Fort communications by Blakely River. This battery accomplished all its proposed objects quite satisfactorily at ranges varying from 2,400 to 3,300 yards. Fire was opened from this battery on the 31st of March, as also from eighteen siege guns, including six 20-pounder rifles and eight mortars and forty-one field guns, all in position on that date, against Spanish Fort itself. No enfilading batteries yet complete.

On the 4th of April there were in position against Spanish Fort thirty-eight siege guns, including six 20-pounder rifles and sixteen mortars and thirty-seven field guns, all of which, with the Minette Bay battery against Batteries Huger and Tracy, opened fire at 5 p. m. and continued till 7 p. m. The enfilading batteries not quite ready.

On the 8th of April there where in position against Spanish Fort fifty-three siege guns, including nine 20-pounder rifles and sixteen mortars