Today in History:

157 Series I Volume XXIX-II Serial 49 - Bristoe, Mine Run Part II

Page 157 Chapter XLI. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. -UNION.

The section must be ready to leave in company with the Fifth and Sixth Vermont Volunteers, who are destined for the same place.

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V. Colonel A. Ferguson, One hundred and fifty-second New York Volunteers, will proceed to Washington Park, Brooklyn, with his regiment and establish his headquarters there. He will detail one company for duty at each of the following provost-marshal's offices: First District, Jamaica, Long Island; Second District, Numbers 26 Grand street, Williamsburg; Third District, Numbers 259 Washington street, Brooklyn.

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By order of Brigadier-General Canby:

C. T. CHRISTENSEN,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

ARTILLERY HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,

September 5, 1863.

General S. WILLIAMS,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Army of the Potomac:

GENERAL: I have the honor to forward herewith an application* from Captain F. C. Gibbs, commanding Battery L, First Ohio Volunteer Artillery, for the appointment of an officer to recruit for his battery, made upon the supposition that there will be no draft in Ohio.

I have no reliable information that the draft has been suspended, although it is stated that officers sent to Ohio for drafted men have been ordered to open recruiting offices for volunteers. There is also a prevailing belief that recruits are not to be furnished to the artillery until after the cavalry and infantry regiments are filled.

The batteries have large numbers of men from those two arms. They are reported as "temporarily attached," but are in effect permanently so, and to withdraw them would at once break up the batteries. Besides, many of the men volunteered for the service on the understanding that they were to serve out their terms in the artillery. Many inconveniences, both to the regiments and batteries, result from this, and it is very important that the batteries be filled up, at as early a date as practicable, with men enlisted specially for them.

If the men now serving in the batteries be allowed to re-enlist for them, under Paragraphs VII, General Orders, Numbers 191, War Department, current series, it will obviate many of the evils now existing and free the regimental rolls of so many detached men. The balance required should be furnished as soon as possible. If not furnished soon, large additional drafts on the cavalry and infantry regiments of men for "temporary service" will be required, to enable the batteries to take the field. They will weaken the regiments and not be properly instructed in their artillery duties. The applications for permission to recruit for batteries are getting to be so numerous that I respectfully request that some general provision be made to supply recruits to all.

HENRY J. HUNT,

Brigadier-General, Chief of Artillery.

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*Omitted.

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Page 157 Chapter XLI. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. -UNION.