180 
MINUTES OF PKOCEEDINGS OF 
English 
sleighs con¬ 
demned. 
Theirfaults. 
Thirty-six 
country 
sleds hired 
for the con¬ 
veyance of 
the battery. 
Two of 
these sleds 
packed by 
<£ G ” Bat¬ 
tery for 
approval. 
Landing 
and for¬ 
warding of 
“ E ” Bat¬ 
tery, 4th 
Brigade. 
Soon after landing, a board of officers assembled by order of Major- 
General Burnley, commanding at St John, to examine and report on 
the sleighs which had been sent from England, for the transport of the 
battery. These sleighs had been turned out at very short notice, by 
the Carriage Department of the Eoyal Arsenal. The board proceeded 
to examine them, and took the opinions of several persons well 
acquainted with the transport in the province, and came to the con¬ 
clusion that the sleighs were not only of no use, but that to employ 
them w 7 ould be to destroy any road on which they were used. The 
principal objections against them were,— 
The shortness of bearing, and thickness of the "runners;” their height; 
the bad position of the draught; and the fact that the "runners ” were 
constructed of a single piece, leaving no escape for the snow which 
might be forced up between them. 
The experience acquired on the march proved that these objections 
were very well founded; for in the first place, no team of horses could 
have dragged them, with their clumsy "runners” shod with rough 
unpolished iron, for any distance without soon becoming knocked up; 
and had they been, with great difficulty taken any distance into the 
interior of New Brunswick, they must have capsized continually, from 
the nature of the roads over which they had to travel. 
These sleighs having been condemned, it was proposed by the 
Quarter-Master-GeneraFs department at St John, to call for tenders 
for the construction of new sleighs for the transport of the battery, 
but this plan was abandoned. 
The next plan proposed was to issue advertisements for transport of 
the battery from one station to another along the line of march, it 
being intended that the guns and equipment should be transhipped 
from one set of sleighs to the other; but Lieut.-Colonel Turner, C.B., 
commanding 4th Brigade, wrote a letter (dated January 30th), inti¬ 
mating that he considered such a plan would be highly injurious to the 
guns, carriages, and equipment, so this plan was also abandoned. 
Einally an arrangement was made with three contractors- to convey 
the whole battery from St John to the Biviere-du-loup, on thirty-six of 
the common farm sleds of the country; and in two days the whole 
number required were ready. 
These sleds were for the guns and equipment alone, the men being 
conveyed by separate contractors. 
As soon as the plan was decided on, two of the sleds were packed 
by " G ” Battery, one with a gun, pair of wheels, and pair of shafts ; 
the other with limber, boxes, &c., and submitted for inspection to 
Major-General Burnley, who approved of the plan of packing pro¬ 
posed. 
" E ” Battery of the 4th Brigade, B.A., commanded by Captain 
G. H. Vesey, having landed at St John on the 26th January, was put 
in order to proceed up country before "G” Battery. Thirty-six sleds 
for the conveyance of this battery were ready on the 1st of February. 
The right and left half-batteries were packed on the 2nd and 3rd 
February, respectively, on the plan proposed by " G ” Battery, and 
started for Biviere-du-loup on the 3rd and 4th February, 1862. 
