Major Lartigue, the brigade quartermaster, took special interest
in equipping this corps, and devised very complete slings for
carrying the implements with ease to the men even at a double
quick.
As thus organized, the corps was continued and did good
service until the fall of '64, though, after the brigade was assigned
to Hoke's Division, it was generally (under a lieutenant) a part
of the Division Pioneer Corps. In October, 1864, General Lee, in
an effort to increase the fighting strength of his attenuated army,
ordered all such corps broken up and the men returned to the
ranks. Instead, he directed one man from each company to be
selected and known as "Pioneer," who, as such, was exempted
from guard and picket duty, but in all other respects was considered
a soldier in the ranks. In like manner commissioned and
non-commissioned officers were selected who were to be put in
charge when these pioneers were called together.
The fact was, that this campaign had been so much one continued
siege, and the men were by this time so thoroughly
indoctrinated with notions of the value of breastworks and rifle
pits, that the entrenching tools with which each company had
been supplied, or had supplied itself, were carried as its most
valuable property. Peculations of these cherished implements
were not uncommon, and on the march it was not an unusual sight
to see a company officer carrying a cherished spade or pick, after
it had successively passed through the hands of some half dozen
wearied soldiers of his command, each of whom had borne it in
addition to his arms. A special corps supplied with such implements
was, therefore, no longer important.
In the general organization of the Confederate armies, at first
there were brigade and regimental commissaries—all commissioned.
At the date of which we are now writing, the regimental
commissaries had been discontinued, and their duties assigned to
the regimental assistant quartermasters, aided by regimental
commissary sergeants. At a later day the regimental assistant
quartermasters were discontinued, and the organization was a
commissary and a quartermaster to the brigade, each ranking as
major, and each with an assistant, ranking as captain. There
remained throughout a commissary sergeant and a quartermaster
sergeant to each regiment.
The medical corps consisted, during the whole war, of a surgeon
and an assistant surgeon to each regiment, and when
brigaded, the senior surgeon assumed control and was known as
the brigade surgeon.
These various staff officers in the beginning were all nominated
by the line officer to whose corps they were attached. Afterwards
they were transferred and assigned from corps to corps by the
chief of their respective bureaus at Richmond without consulting
the line officer commanding, and often to his chagrin and disgust.
The same general remarks as to organization, appointment
and assignment apply to the adjutants, inspectors and ordnance
officers. Major-generals, lieutenant-generals and generals had
each their staff officers of each department for their respective
commands, and a bureau chief of each department of the staff was
located at Richmond.
There were also post quartermasters, and post commissaries,
whose duties never led them into the field, and who were too often
corrupt speculators upon the necessities of their suffering country.
It was the shortcomings of this class that brought the very name
of commissary and quartermaster into odium and contempt. Of
those officers of these departments who served with the armies in
the field, the writer deems it but justice to say that there was as
much high tone and devotion to the cause among those whom he
met as among any other class of officers in the service. He
desires here to record his appreciation of the gentlemen who filled
these offices in his command. They yielded to no members of his
staff in patriotism, high honor and personal gallantry. Their
names will not as often occur in these memoirs as others, for the
discharge of their necessary duties oftenest kept them in the rear,
but they were always ready, when these permitted, to come to him
as volunteers in action—and on these occasions did always well.
