of soldiers cutting box-cars to pieces, with a commissioned officer near by looking on and not saying a word, has its counterpart again in the report of a conductor, handed in to me five minutes ago, and which, as a sample of our daily annoyance, I beg to inclose. *

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. H. DEVEREUX,

Superintendent.

HEADQUARTERS SECOND ARMY CORPS,
January 15, 1864.

Brigadier General WILLIAMS,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Army of the Potomac:

GENERAL: I have the honor to return the report of the ambulance officer of this corps, made October 31 to the medical director of this corps, by him referred to Doctor Letterman, by him indorsed in the manner of a complaint, and by you referred to me for information as to why I have not made the details prescribed in General Orders, Numbers 85. +

This papers reached me at the moment we were preparing for the movement across the Rapidan, and I was unable fully to answer the question in writing in the way I deemed its importance deserved. I, however, explained my action verbally to the commanding general to about the same extent as follows:

General Orders, Numbers 85, makes details by regiments without regard to their strength, and would not be different if all the regiments were of the full strength of 1,000 men. I presume, therefore, it was deemed sufficient for full regiments. The exposure and service that diminishes the number or the ranks leaves those remaining more able to endure fatigues, so that it may safely be assumed that if the rates of three ambulances to 1,000 men in a regiment is sufficient, one ambulance to a regiment of 333 veterans would certainly be so.

The lack of any provision in General Orders, Numbers 85, graduating the ambulance corps to the wants of the service, in the case where a necessity for it can be so mathematically demonstrated as I have done above, indicated to me either that an oversight had been committed in drawing up the order, or that like many other things provided by orders and regulations, the provision was meant that we should not exceed that amount, not that it was compulsory upon us to have it. Acting thus upon my understanding of the spirit of the order, and with a fair knowledge of the wants of the service, derived from experience in battle as a commander of a regiment, of a brigade, of a corps, and as a member of the commanding general's staff, and by virtue of my position as a corps commander, which requires me to make my command most efficient as a whole, and not inordinate in its subordinate parts, I decided not to make the increased details and retained the applications for them.

I inclose these applications with a report of the ambulance officer of the strength of the ambulance force at the time.

The aggregate of all the officers and men at the time with the Second Army Corps, in every capacity, was about 12,500. This, at the rate allowed for a full regiment of 1,000 men, would give us thirty-eight ambulances and 114 men for an ambulance corps.

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*Not found.

+See Vol. XXIX, Part II, p. 95.

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