The Atlantic Monthly, page 229 by Various Authors
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e, zeal and efficiency rewarded by promotion.
"Although," says General Barry, "there was much to be improved," yet "many of the volunteer batteries evinced such zeal and intelligence, and availed themselves so industriously of the instructions of the regular officers, their commanders, and of the example of the regular battery, their associate, that they made rapid progress, and finally attained a degree of proficiency highly creditable."
At the siege of Yorktown, as has already been stated, only one of the fifteen batteries was permitted to open fire on the enemy's works. This was armed with one hundred- and two hundred-pounder rifled guns, and it is remarkable that this is the first time the practicability of placing, handling, and serving these guns in siege-operations, and their value at the long range of two and a half to three miles, were fully demonstrated. These guns, as also the thirteen-inch sea-coast mortars, which were placed in position ready for use, were giants when compared with the French and English pigmies which were used at Sebastopol.
General Barry, as well as General Barnard, complains of the want of rank of his officers. With the immense artillery force that accompanied the Army of the Potomac to the Peninsula, consisting of sixty batteries of three hundred and forty-three guns, he had only ten field-officers, "a number obviously insufficient, and which impaired to a great degree the efficiency of the arm, in consequence of the want of rank and official influence of the commanders of corps and divisional artillery. As this faulty organization can only be suitably corrected by legislative action, it is earnestly hoped that the attention of the proper authorities may be at an early day invited to it."
When the report of General McClellan is published, the services of the artillery of the Army of the Potomac will doubtless fill a conspicuous place. These services were rendered to the commanders of divisions and corps, giving them an historic name, and in the