Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/441

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Gettysburg.
429

ciently supplied throughout the march with provender) for the rant of shoes. On the first day I was placed in command of this corps, I applied to the Ordnance Department for horse shoes and nails. I repeated this application, and on leaving Fredericksburg I telegraphed, urging a supply to be sent to meet me at Culpeper.

I am satisfied that most of the horses lost on the march were lost in consequence of their lameness in traveling over turnpikes, and especially over the road from Hagerstown to Gettysburg without shoes.

The value of horses abandoned from this cause during the march was, I am persuaded, $75,000, and the injury to others amounted the same sum.

I append a list of the casualties in this command, and of the expenditure of ammunition. I herewith transmit the reports of battalion commanders, to which I refer for the more particular account of the part borne by each in the campaign to Pennsylvania and back.

Respectfully, &c., your obedient servant,

R. L. Walker.
Colonel and Chief of Artillery, Third Corps.

Report of Major W. T. Poague.

Headquarters Poague's Battalion Artillery,
Culpeper County, Va.
, July 30th, 1863.

Colonel R. L. Walker, Chief of Artillery, Third Corps:

Colonel—I have the honor to submit the following account of the operations of the battalion under my command from the time of leaving Fredericksburg, Virginia, to the present date. Without referring in detail to each day's marching, which made up by far the largest part of its operations, it may suffice to state that the battallion, consisting of three batteries, leaving Fredericksburg on the 15th June, 1863, and reaching Culpeper Courthouse on the 17th, was assigned to duty with Major-General Pender's division. On the 21st the command halted near Berryville, Virginia, where Captain Graham's North Carolina battery reported to me for duty. My battalion continued with General Pender's division until the morning of the 1st July, when it was detached and directed to remain at Cashtown until further orders. About 11 o'clock I was ordered to the front, but the battalion took no part in the engagements of the 1st and 2d July, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Late in the evening of the 2d, by your order, I reported to Major-General Anderson for duty, and at last succeeded in getting ten of my guns in position. The balance—six howitzers—