Editor’s Note: An original copy of the following letter was found in the Barry papers (Gratz Collection), Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by The Artilleryman Bookshelf Editor Peter A. Frandsen. Some abbreviated words have been fully spelled out here, but the letter is otherwise an exact copy.
Artillery Headquarters,
Military Division of the Mississippi,
Savannah, Ga. Jan. 7 1865.
Dear Sir,
I write to say that General [Thomas] Sherman has written, and sends by the mail which carries this, to the Secretary of War another letter recommending me for promotion.
I sincerely hope that this second letter may enable you to present my name to the President and Secretary in such manner as will procure for me the advancement so many my junior have received, and which you have so kindly consented to assist me to obtain.
The brevet recently announced as having been conferred by the President upon Brig. General H.[enry] J. Hunt my successor in the Army of the Potomac, and who is now performing duties precisely similar to my own with this Army, may possibly be of service to you as a precedent.
It is not violating a official confidence to say that this Army will in a few days be again on the move, and that every heart in it bounds with joy at the prospect of making the birth-place of the rebellion suffer severely the penalties of its rash and wicked acts.
I am, dear Sir, respectfully, and truly yours,
William F. Barry
Honorable Ira Harris U.S. Senate
[Republican from New York]
Frandsen Note: Promotion in the artillery was always a sore point within the Civil War-era Army. Because the artillery was called forth by battery and not by higher unit, there was no need for higher officers, according to the regulations and conventional thinking of the time.
Those who could jumped to the infantry or cavalry or to state units with much better chance of promotion. (William Birkhimer, Historical Sketch of the Artillery, pages 84 and 85.)
General Hunt complained about this bitterly, but to little avail. Despite years of meritorious and gallant service, Barry suffered the same fate as General Hunt for devoting himself to the artillery at a time of the greatest need.
William F. Barry (1818-1879) was made a Brigadier General of U.S. Volunteers in 1861, and breveted to Major General of Volunteers in September 1864. On March 13, 1865, he was made Brevet Brigadier General, U.S. Army (as was Henry Hunt) for the war only. He died in office as a regular Army colonel.
See Lt. Col. Stephen Williams, “William Farquahar Barry: The Real Man Behind the Guns” (unpublished paper for U.S. Army War College 1991)(AD-A234-035).