George:

Thanks a lot. Your term "elusive fellow" neatly sums up what I had run into, but you I am sure are spot on. I had specualted that Wood's battalion was in a reserve category, but I had run into a total wall, and did not consider that the unit could ahve been a local defense one.

I had been trying to make heads or tails of a mass of sources concerning primarily Gary's brigade on the North Side during the winter of 1864-65, and ran into that one mention of Wood's Battalion. So many of the Confederate records from this period of the war are just missing.

As I have tried to sort out those sources, it has become readily apparent to me that much of the permanent Confederate defense on the North Side, and perhaps on the Bermuda Hundred front as well, was in the hands of the Virginia reserves, militia, and the local defense troops. Some of the reserve units appear to have been there all fall and winter.

Except for the possible exceptiopn of the reserve, militia, and State Troops of Georgia, the Virginia militia and reserves played as active and prominent a part as any in the Confederacy, and for a lengthy period of time.

Thank you again for your diligence.
Lee