Col. L. C. Easton, chief quartermaster, and Col. A. Beckwith, chief commissary, have also succeeded in a manner surprising to all of us in getting forward supplies. I doubt if ever an army was better supplied than this, and I commend them most highly for it, because I know that more solicitude was felt by the lieutenantgeneral commanding, and by the military world at large, on this than any other one problem involved in the success of the campaign. Capt. T. G. Baylor, chief ordnance officer, has in like manner kept the army supplied at all times with every kind of ammunition. To Capt. O. M. Poe, chief engineer, I am more than ordinarily indebted for keeping me supplied with maps and information of roads and topography, as well as in the more important branch of his duties in selecting lines and military positions.
My own personal staff has been small, but select. Brig. Gen. W. F. Barry, an officer of enlarged capacity and great experience, has filled the office of chief of artillery to perfection, and Lieut. Col. E. D. Kittoe, chief medical inspector, has done everything possible to give proper aid and direction to the operations of that important department. I have never seen the wounded removed from the fields of battle, cared for, and afterward sent to proper hospitals in the rear, with more promptness, system, care, and success than during this whole campaign, covering over 100 days of actual battle and skirmish. My aides-de-camp, Maj. J. C. McCoy, Capt. L. M. Dayton, and Capt. J. C. Audenried, have been ever zealous and most efficient, carrying my orders day and night to distant parts of our extended lines with an intelligence and zeal that insured the proper working of machinery covering from ten to twenty-five miles of ground, when the least error in the delivery and explanation of an order would have produced confusion; whereas, in agreat measure, owing to the intelligence of these officers, orders have been made so clear that these vast armies have moved side by side, sometimes crossing each other's tracks, through a difficult country of over 138 miles in length, without confusion or trouble. Captain Dayton has also filled the duties of my adjutant-general, making all orders and carrying on the official correspondence. Three inspectors-general completed my staff: Brig. Gen. J. M. Corse, who has since been assigned the command of a division of the Sixteenth Corps at the request of General Dodge; Lieut. Col. W. Warner, of the Seventy-sixth Ohio, and Lieut. Col. Charles Ewing, inspector-general of the Fifteenth Corps and captain Thirteenth U. S. Regulars. These officers, of singular energy and intelligence, have been of immense assistance to me in handling these large armies.
My three armies in the field were commanded by able officers, my equals in rank and experience-Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, Maj. Gen. J. M. Schofield, and Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard. With such commanders, I had only to indicate the object desired and they accomplished it. I cannot overestimate their services to the country, and must express my deep and heartfelt thanks that coming together from different fields, with different interests, they have co-operated with a harmony that has been productive of the greatest amount of success and good feeling. A more harmonious army does not exist.
I now inclose their reports and those of the corps, division, and brigade commanders, a perusal of which will fill up the sketch which I have endeavored to make. I also submit tabular statements of our losses in battle by wounds and sickness; also list of prisoners captured,
