Ken,

Maybe this will help.

In Wiliam Marvel’s book, Lee’s Last Retreat- The Flight to Appomattox, on page 65 he states that Richard Ewell had added not only sailors to his rag-tag corps, but “Major Frank Smith’s battalion of five light artillery batteries, all of which had been deprived of their guns. His gunners then drew rifles and took up the line of march.”

It was about this time that Smith was killed at Burkeville.

I guess the question is who deprived them and why? He specifically mentions light field batteries, and not the heavy artillery he commanded at Drewry’s Bluff.