Today in History:

851 Series I Volume XLII-III Serial 89 - Richmond-Fort Fisher Part III

Page 851 Chapter LIV. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-UNION.

of the inclosed batteries on his front; 350 men for the picket line and 300 men for picket relief and contingencies, all with proper complement of officers.

2. Brigadier General T. Seymour, commanding Third Division, Sixth Corps, will assign 150 enlisted men as a garrison for Fort Keene, 300 enlisted men for pickets, and 300 enlisted men for picket relief and contingencies, all with proper complement of officers.

3. Major-General Gibbon, commanding Second Division, Second Army Corps, will assign 250 enlisted men to garrison Fort Urmston, 75 enlisted men for Fort Conahey, 300 enlisted men for picket, and, as near as may be, 300 enlisted men for picket relief contingencies, with proper complement of officers.

4. Brevet Major-General Miles, commanding First Division, Second Corps, will assign 150 enlisted men for the garrison of Fort Fisher, 175 for garrison of Fort Sampson, 175 for garrison of Fort Cummings, 600 for picket, and 300 for picket relief and contingencies, with proper complement of officers.

5. In making these assignments, regimental and bridge organizations will be preserved as far as practicable. An officer will be assigned to command the force of each division, whose name, rank, and date of commission will be at once reported to these headquarters. The contingent force will be posted near the most important works on each front.

6. The artillery now posted in the forts named will form the artillery garrison, and will have 150 rounds of ammunition per gun.

7. The infantry will have 200 rounds of ammunition placed in the forts.

8. Six days' rations of bread, sugar, and coffee, four days' slat meat, two days' beef on hoof, and two day's salt for all the troops assigned to garrisons, &c., in this order, will be kept on the person and stored in or close to the forts and inclosed batteries.

9. Division commanders will immediately report the organizations assigned as herein directed, with their strength and the names of the commanders of the forts, pickets, &c., as well as the name of the commander of the whole assigned force from each division. Brigadier-General Seymour and Brigadier-General Wheaton will, in addition, report the strength of their divisions, including the above details.

10. Lieutenant-Colonel Hazard, chief of artillery, Second Corps, will report the names of the batteries and of their commanders, with the number of guns assigned to the forts; also the same of the batteries in the rear work and in reserve.

11. The troops and batteries of this command, other than those assigned to hold the intrenchments, will be held ready to move at very brief notice, with four days' bread, sugar, and coffee, and three days' salt and one day's slat meat on the person, three days' beef on hoof, two days' bread and small rations in a supply train, with two days' beef on hoof with the train; sixty rounds of infantry ammunition on the person, forty rounds in wagons; the full supply of artillery ammunition; one-half the ambulances, and all the stretchers; one medicine and one hospital wagon to each brigade; the intrenching tools, the light headquarters wagons and pack-mules, and four days' forage; one wagon for each brigade for commissary supplies to officers, and forage for officers' horses of the brigade. All other trains will be held ready to move within the lines at City Point.

A. A. HUMPHREYS,

Major-General, Commanding.


Page 851 Chapter LIV. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-UNION.