ARTILLERY HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,

March 26, 1864.

Colonel C. S. WAINWRIGHT:

I have read your letter on the subject of the consolidation of the artillery of New York into a corps and heartily approve it.

The regimental organization, except as a subdivision of a corps for administration or instruction, is, for field artillery, simply absurd, and results in the greatest injury and injustice to the arm and very much injures its efficiency.

The battery is the unit of organization; it corresponds to the battalion of infantry and squadron of cavalry, two, three, or more of which constitute a regiment for administration; but for purposes of combat a brigade, say six or eight batteries, constitute a brigade of artillery, a command fully as important and extended and much more complicated than a brigade of infantry, and requiring from the ground it covers and its distribution a large staff.

Colonel turner, of the British artillery, commanding the field artillery in Canada, spent the day and night with me yesterday. He informs me that the organization of a brigade of artillery in the British army is as follows: One colonel commandant (major-general), 2 regimental colonels, 4 lieutenant-colonels (regimental), 8 batteries, 6 guns each.

Every two batteries are commanded by a lieutenant-colonel, there being no regimental major. The whole of the artillery, consisting of many brigades, constitute the Royal Regiment of Artillery; that is a signel corps for administration and promotion.

I have stated this as an illustration of how artillery is organized in other services. In our service the batteries of the same regiment do not and cannot serve together, but their officers have the advantage of regimental promotion, and the field officers take interest in the batteries.

The independent batteries have no field officers; there is no promotion opened to them; no one of any rank takes special interest in them; they are transferred from division to division, from army corps to army corps; there is no central office to take cognizance of them, to record their services, to attend to their wants, to protect their interests. Their officers, condemned to inferior positions without the hope of rising, except on condition of leaving the artillery, see officers of the regiments, their inferiors in length of service and in rank, promoted over their heads and placed in command of them.

This regards the position, regards the arm itself, mars the harmony of the service, and I am free to say has very much impaired the efficiency of the artillery. Leaving aside other things, look at our two last battles. At Chancellorsville, with over 400 guns in the army, I had but 5 field officers. At Gettysburg, with over 320 guns, I had but 4 field offices. Nor is this all; the absence of all stimulant to officers in the artillery has driven out of service, either into civil life or into other arms, a very large proportion of our best captains and lieutenants.

If your proposition can be adopted it might be made to cure all these evils. Field officers should be given to the corps in the same proportion to the number of batteries as are now given in the regiments. Rigid rules should be prescribed for the appointment of lieutenants and for promotion to all the grades, so as to secure it to