Today in History:

370 Series I Volume XIX-I Serial 27 - Antietam Part I

Page 370 OPERATIONS IN N.VA., W.VA., MD., AND PA. Chapter XXXI.

With this resume of the regiment, I submit that paper, and have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

A. A. HUMPHREYS,

Brigadier-General, Commanding Division.

Hon. E. M. STATNON,

Secretary of War.

[Inclosure.]


HEADQUARTERS THIRD DIVISION, FIFTH CORPS, March 28, 1863.

Hon. E. M. STANTON,
Secretary, of War:

Mr. SECRETARY: I beg leave to submit the following statement in connection with my request for a court of inquiry to investigate the subject to which the statement refers. I will endeavor to be as brief as a complete representation of the facts will admit.

On Friday, the 12th of September, 1862, being in Washington, I was sent for at 11.30 o'clock a.m. by Major-General Halleck, and asked by him if I was ready to take command of a division in the field (of new troops) to pass through Washington that day. I expressed my readiness gladly to do so, and march within an hour. I was referred to the commander of the corps of which the division was to form a part, General Porter, with whom I had two or three minutes' conversation in the street, being informed in that time that I should take command of the division as it passed through Washington that day, which it would do about 3 o'clock p.m.,entering the city by the Long Bridge; that staff officers of the brigade commanders would report to me as the brigades (two in number, eight regiments, about 7,000 men) entered the city; that I should march on the road to Rockville, and would receive further orders on the march; that I must see that my command was provided with rations, forage, and requisite ammunition, and something was said about defective arms of part of the command. It was enjoined on me to keep my troops fresh on the march, and this point was dwelt upon in almost every order I received on the route. The position of our army and that of the enemy I was not informed of,nor of the degree of probability of a battle. I had no staff officers, but assumed the authority to take with me Lieutenant C. McClellan, New York Volunteers, and took also my son, Mr. H. H. Humphreys, as an aide. I made application for staff officers, but could obtain none. At 3 o'clock p.m. I was ready to move, but the troops did not begin to reach the city until 7 o'clock p.m., and the First Brigade was not bivouacked near Columbia College, where I ordered them, until near midnight. The Second Brigade was not bivouacked until between midnight and morning, the last regiment reaching the ground at daybreak. Upon learning from the staff from the staff officer sent to report to me from the First Brigade, Captain Quay, assistant adjutant-general, that it had an insufficient supply of rations, I ordered that they should be obtained at daylight, that knapsacks and overcoats and surplus officers' baggage should be stored, and the brigade be prepared to march at sunrise. Colonel Allabach, commanding Second Brigade (who had no brigade staff), reported to me in person near 9 o'clock p.m., and from him I learned that this brigade had no rations whatever; that at least two regiments had arms utterly unserviceable; that there were 900 stand of arms in the brigade with nipples or hammers broken, and that they were breaking every day, and were in other respects defective. Part of this I had learned already by telegraphic dispatch from General Whipple,


Page 370 OPERATIONS IN N.VA., W.VA., MD., AND PA. Chapter XXXI.