Numbers 4. Report of Brigadier General Rufus Ingalls, U. S. Army, Chief Quartermaster, including operations July 25-December 2, 1863.

OFFICE OF CHIEF QUARTERMASTER, ETC.,

City Point, Va., August 28, 1864.

GENERAL: In compliance with your General Orders, Numbers 29, of the 6th ultimo, calling for an annual report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1864, I have the honor to submit the following:*

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I left the army at Berlin, and went to Washington to make arrangements for supplies over the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Having perfected the arrangements and submitted requisitions, I proceeded by rail to White Plains, on the Manassas Gap Railroad, on the evening of the 25th [July, 1863]. The campaign ended here, and our army shortly took up a line across the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, near the Rappahannock, the right of our infantry resting at the Waterloo Crossing, the left at Ellis' Ford. Cavalry was on both flanks and in rear. Our line of communications was protected by the Department at Washington to the Bull Run bridge, and by the Eleventh Corps from that point to Catlett's.

The headquarters were on the railroad, at Germantown, about 3 1/2 miles south of Warrenton Junction. The depots were established at Warrenton Junction, Warrenton, and Bealeton.

The army remained in this position quietly until near the middle of September.

ORANGE AND ALEXANDRIA RAILROAD.

During Pope's campaign it was thought by many that the Orange and Alexandria Railroad could not supply a column of over 40,000 men at Warrenton, and when General McClellan reached that point in November, 1862, it was regarded as unsafe to rely on it for the supply of his army at a point so distant from his base.

The road had been for some time in an unused and bad condition, and I was very doubtful of its capacity to transport the supplies for so large an army. General Burnside, the successor of General McClellan, did not give it a fair trial. He soon moved the army to Falmouth, where it was supplied as described in the report herewith. It became necessary now, however, to make such arrangements as would sufficiently enlarge the power of this road to carry the necessary quantity of freight. Under the orders of Colonel McCallum, the able Superintendent of Military Railroads, and the immediate charge and direction of Colonel Devereux, the superintendent at Alexandria, the road was soon made one of the most systematically managed and efficient I have seen. By making the proper repairs, and frequent sidings for intermediate telegraph and freight stations, the capacity of the road was greatly increased. From Alexandria to Culpeper is 62 miles. In this distance were at least fourteen stations, with telegraphic communications at each, and sidings for trains to pass each other. This railroad was capable of working sixty engineers and six hundred cars, and could have supplied an army of 300,000 men at Culpeper.

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*Portion here omitted relates to the Gettysburg Campaign, and is printed Series.

I, Vol. XXVII, Part I, p. 221.

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