Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/102

 92 Southern Historical Society Paper's.

of half a cartridge per day per man would be a safe assumption for protracted warfare.

In examining the returns of ordnance officers after heavy actions, I found that the reduction of ammunition amounted to from about nineteen to twenty-six rounds per man. At Gettysburg the reports of a few days before the battle and a short time after showed a differ- ence of twenty-five or twenty-six rounds on the average. This was the heaviest consumption to which my attention was called. When our troops first took the field commanders were very nervous because they had only fifty to seventy rounds per man instead of the two hun- dred rounds prescribed by the ordnance manual. Later we raised it to about eighty or ninety rounds. The results of battles show that with proper dispositions for transfer from one corps to another there need be no scarcity with sixty rounds on hand, or even fifty.

Our soldiers were, however, in the habit of supplying themselves with ammunition by throwing away their empty cartridge-boxes and taking any well-supplied one that they might espy with the proper cartridges. What splendid fellows they were, taking even better care of their powder and lead than of themselves or of their rations. They were in downright earnest.

Co7isuinption and Supply of Lead.

Allowing for waste, 150,000,000 of cartridges would require

10,000,000 pounds of lead for these alone, to say nothing of other

needs. Where did all this lead come from ? I make the following

rough calculation :

Poiaids.

From trans-Mississippi mines (early in the war). 400,000

From the mines in Virginia (60,000 tt)s. per month; 2,160,000

On hand at arsenals, &c 140,000

Imported (not over) 2,000,000

Picked up through the country and on battle-fields 5,300,000

10,000,000

This leads to the surprising conclusion that we must have picked up throughout the country over 5,300,000 pounds of lead during the four years of the war. I remember that the window-weights and loose lead about houses yielded 200,000 pounds in Charleston alone ; while the disused lead water-pipes in Mobile supplied, if I am not mistaken, as much more. So that these two items alone supplied one-thirteenth of this vast gleaning of the country.