There's a saying that an army marches on its stomach. But everyone knows that it fights with its weapons. An army must have weapons that work and work well. Victory depends upon it. It is the job of the Ordnance Corps to make sure that happens. An army without an ordnance corps is a spear without a blade.

During the American Civil War, the U.S. Army's Ordnance Corps was called the Ordnance Department. Weapons large and small, ammunition, primers, fuses, artillery harness, battery forges, individual cartridge boxes, gun carriages and limbers, all fell under the care of the Ordnance Department, all on a scale before unknown to warfare: 16,968,745 pounds of cannon and mortar powder purchased during the war: 8,670,639 rounds for cannon purchased or manufactured for the war effort. For the decisive Battle of Gettysburg, the Ordnance Department made sure the soldiers carried into battle at least 4,320,000 rounds of small arms ammunition and had extra ammunition in wagons amounting to another 6,480,000 rounds.

But their duties went far beyond supply. There was salvage to be done and done quickly. Since men on the march carry their own weapons and the nearest arsenal may be scores of miles away, during a battle damaged weapons must be rendered serviceable. At Gettysburg, the Ordnance Department collected from the gory, corpse-strewn battlefield nearly 25,000 muskets and thousands of other accouterments. During the battle they set up shop right behind the battle-lines to keep weapons in the hands of the soldiers, and they did it while the battle raged just a few dozen yards away.

Service to the Line depicts the Union Army's First Corps ordnancemen just to the rear of the newly-formed lines on Culp's Hill and Cemetery Ridge on July 1, 1863, living up to their proud motto, "Service to the Line, On the Line, On Time."

Service on Time: Ordnance Mule Train Charge by Don Stivers

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1, 1863.

During the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War, fighting first broke out on the morning of July 1, 1863 northwest of the town. By mid-afternoon, Union troops from the Army of the Potomac's I Corps, to include Brigadier General Solomon Meredith's famous Iron Brigade with it's distinctive black hats, was conducting a fighting retreat from McPherson's Ridge to Seminary Ridge, being driven back by Major General Henry Heth's Confederate division from General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

The Union troops had almost expended their 60 rounds of ammunition when a column of ten wagons from the First Division, I Corps, summoned by the division commander, suddenly galloped over Seminary Ridge and turned north, moving up the small valley behind the Union line on east McPherson's Ridge. Soldiers tossed out ammunition boxes while the train commander, Ordnance Sergeant Jerome A. Watrous, smashed off the lids with an axe. The timely delivery of 75,000 rounds kept the I Corps in the fight, allowing the Union to hold the key ground of Cemetery Hill south of the town at day's end, where the North would anchor its defense during the next two days of battle.

Images are used by permission of Don Stivers.