Captain Prime, of the Engineer Corps, was the chief, and the work at the beginning was mainly directed by him.
His health soon gave out, when he was succeeded by Captain Comstock, also of the Engineer Corps.

To provide assistants on such a long line I directed that all officers who had graduated at West Point, where they had necessarily to study military engineering, should in addition to their other duties assist in the work.
The chief quartermaster and the chief commissary were graduates.

The chief commissary, now the Commissary-General of the Army, begged off, however, saying that there was nothing in engineering that he was good for unless he would do for a sap-roller.

As soldiers require rations while working in the ditches as well as when marching and fighting, and as we would be sure to lose him if he was used as a sap-roller, I let him off.

The general is a large man; weighs two hundred and twenty pounds, and is not tall.
We had no siege guns except six thirty-two pounders, and there were none at the West to draw from.