142 Southern Historical Society Papers.
mission, I think it was completed before the campaign began. Not so, however, in the other divisions.
Gleaning the battlefields was one of the important duties of the field ordnance officers. They were direct&d to save everything which could be made of use. Of course they took care of the good arms and good ammunition, but they had to preserve no less care- fully all damaged arms, gun barrels, wasted ammunition, of which the lead was the valuable consideration, bayonets, cartridge-boxes, &c. After Chancellorsville and the gathering which had been done during the battle, an ordnance officer of the Second corps was sent to the field with power to call upon a neighboring brigade for as large details as he wished, and he spent a week in gathering the debris of the battle and sending it to Guiney's Station or Hamilton's Crossing, whence it was shipped to Richmond. My recollection is that over twenty thousand stand of damaged arms were sent in this way to the arsenal, besides a considerable quantity of lead, &c. After the first day at Gettysburg the battlefield was gleaned, and such material as we had transportation for sent back.
The means of transportation were always limited in the Confed- erate army, and as the war went on horses and wagons and forage became scarcer, and the difficulty of obtaining transportation greater, but by doing the best with what we had, and by prompt requisitions upon Richmond, deficiencies of ammunition were avoided. Ord- nance officers were constantly on the lookout to avail themselves of such supplies as were captured. At Winchester, June, 1863, besides the fine mass of field artillery, which enabled the Second corps to so complete its equipments that almost every gun in its batteries was a captured one, there fell into our hands some ammunition and a large number of wagons and teams. A considerable number of these latter were turned over to the ordnance department, and together with the ammunition wagons, which had been emptied up to this time, were sent back to Staunton to be filled. The supplies were forwarded to that point by railroad, and the large train was loaded and brought back to the army. Meantime, General Lee had crossed the Potomac and marched on towards Gettysburg. The train reached us some days before the battle. This train was in charge of Captain Charles Grattan. The supplies thus brought up were distributed by Colonel Baldwin throughout the army. After the battle of Gettysburg it was found that just about one-half of all the artillery ammunition in the army had been expended, but there was still plenty left for defen- sive operations, and General Lee offered battle without hesitation at
