Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/186

 178 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Copy of ordnance report of Grimes' s Division, Second Corps, A. N. V., made at Appomattox C. H., Va., April loth, 1865, to the Chief of Ordnance, A. N. Va. From the duplicate original re- tained by the ordnance officer of the division.

To understand aright the foregoing report, it should be stated that Grimes's division (formerly Rodes's), consisted of four brigades, Battle's Alabama, Cook's Georgia, Cox's North Carolina, and Grimes's North Carolina, the last commanded by Colonel D. G. Coward.

Battle's brigade comprised the 3d, 5th, 6th, i2th and 6ist Alabama regiments; Cook's brigade, the 4th, i2th, 2ist and 44th Georgia; Cox's brigade, the ist, 2d, 3d, 4th, i4th and 3Oth North Carolina; Grimes's brigade, the 32d, 43d, 45th and 53d North Carolina regi- ments and the 2d North Carolina battalion, as large as some of the regiments. There were thus twenty regiments with 722 muskets in their hands, an average of thirty-six to the regiment, not four to the company. There were, however, about thirty-two rounds of ammu- nition per musket in the cartridge-boxes, forty in the brigade ordi- nance wagons, and fifteen in the division train, or eighty-seven, say, all together, enough to put up a pretty stiff fight, as it was the usual custom to have at least a hundred rounds (better a hundred and twenty), per musket with the troops. This division was the largest of the three in the corps, so the 2d corps (Gordon's) had but about 2,000 muskets at the surrender the day before (April gth).

If now we examine Volume XV (1887), of the Southern Historical Society Papers, containing the paroles of the army of Northern Vir- ginia (pp. 237-271), we shall find that there were paroled in Battle's Alabama brigade, officers, 33; rank and file, 330; in Cook's Georgia brigade, officers, 28; rank and file, 320; in Cox's North Carolina brigade, officers, 51; rank and file, 517; in Grimes's North Carolina brigade, officers, 34; rank and file, 492; total in division, officers, 146; rank and file, 1,659; a good illustration of the quality of the " Tarheels " for sticking it out, as over 1,000 of their men were from the "Old North State;" but as I have not the brigade reports, it cannot be determined how many muskets were in each brigade.

The discrepancy between the number of men with muskets (722), and the number paroled (1,659), is great, but it should be remem bered that the latter figure includes musicians, teamsters, and detailed men of all kinds in the commissary, quartermaster, medical and ordnance departments of the four brigades and the division. It is