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Apparently he's not the only one who could have benefited from Reagan's advice.
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Forgotten Leaders
- Thread starter Elennsar
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Apparently he's not the only one who could have benefited from Reagan's advice.
diane
Retired User
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Speaking of Mallory, Thomas Haines Dudley comes to mind rather forcefully. He and his Liverpool network were masterful at espionage and counter-espionage against Confederate heavy weights like James Bulloch and his more than able network. Dudley was Lincoln's consul in Liverpool and was greatly instrumental in thwarting Confederate efforts to obtain a navy through British shipyards. Later he put together the successful case against the British which resulted in a sizable payment for the activities of the Alabama in particular. The whole story reads better than anything starring James Bond!
I'd highly recommend a small, tight book called "Lincoln's Spymaster: Thomas Haines Dudley and the Liverpool Network" by David Hepburn Milton. Milton uses primary sources and has done an excellent job of accurate research.
I'd highly recommend a small, tight book called "Lincoln's Spymaster: Thomas Haines Dudley and the Liverpool Network" by David Hepburn Milton. Milton uses primary sources and has done an excellent job of accurate research.
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME 5 [S# 5]
NOVEMBER 14-22, 1861.--Expedition through Accomac and Northampton Counties, Virginia.
No. 1. -- Instructions to Brig. Gen. Henry H. Lockwood, U. S. Army.
HEADQUARTERS,
Baltimore, November 14, 1861.
GENERAL: I send you 500 of the Seventeenth Massachusetts Volunteers, under Colonel Amory, which will make your command a very formidable one. I will send some ammunition for 6-pounders immediately. You will want a few days to organize, and nothing will be lost, as the people will be considering the subject of my proclamation. Thinking it very desirable to get it out, that no time might be lost, I authorized Colonel Warren, in case you should not have reached Newtown, to distribute it. You are at a distance, and if some deviation from certain details of my instructions becomes necessary, you will exercise a reasonable discretion. If you do not want the bridge over the Swan's Gut Creek, you need not replace it unless you choose, though I think it will do us no discredit with the people of Accomac if we repair the damage of their own madcaps. Let me know what you want, and it shall be promptly furnished. I have the peaceful settlement of this difficulty with the Eastern Shore of Virginia much at heart, and know you will spare no effort to accomplish it. I intend all your troops shall have 100 rounds of ammunition. Let me know of any deficiency.
I am, very respectfully, yours,
JOHN A. DIX,
Major-General, Commanding.
-----
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME 5 [S# 5]
NOVEMBER 14-22, 1861.--Expedition through Accomac and Northampton Counties, Virginia.
No. 2. -- Reports of Maj. Gen. John A. Dix, U. S. Army.
HEADQUARTERS, Baltimore, November 15, 1861.
DEAR GENERAL: I inclose a copy of a proclamation I sent down to General Lockwood.(*) It was sent into Virginia to-day. I have given him instructions to make prisoners of all persons taken with arms in their hands, and I have instructed him also to withhold from all who disregard the friendly overtures contained in the proclamation and persist in acts of hostility the promised immunity from punishment. The tone of the proclamation is intended to effect the object set forth in my letter of the 8th, to General Marcy.
General Lockwood will have 4,500 men to-morrow. He has the flower of my command. The detachments of 500 men from four of my regiments are each organized into six companies, and two are commanded by their colonels, who are regular officers, Amory and Warren. No effort has been spared to make the movement effective.
I am, dear General, truly, yours,
JOHN A. DIX,
Major-General
Major-General MCCLELLAN.
-----
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME 9 [S# 9]
MAY 15-16, 1862.--Skirmishes near Trenton Bridge, at Young's Cross-Roads, and Pollocksville, N. C.
No. 1.
Report of Col. Thomas J. C. Amory, Seventeenth Massachusetts Infantry.
HDQRS. FIRST BRIGADE, FIRST DIVISION,
New Berne, N. C., May 15, 1862.
CAPTAIN: I have the honor to report that in accordance with the instructions of General Foster I proceeded this morning at 2.30 o'clock on a reconnaissance in the direction of Trenton. My command, consisting of the Third New York Cavalry, the Seventeenth and Twenty-fifth Regiments Massachusetts Volunteers, and two pieces of artillery, was attacked 5 miles this side of Trenton. Not having as yet received the official reports of regimental commanders, I can state generally from my personal knowledge that our loss consists in the wounding of 3 privates and 1 officer (Major Fitzsimmons), of the Third New York Cavalry, Lieutenant Mayes and 1 man, of the same regiment, missing. Six of the enemy found dead on the field and 2 prisoners--1 mortally wounded. I consider the original plan and purpose of this movement frustrated by the late arrival of the cavalry last night, owing to the storm.
To surprise the enemy at Trenton being under those circumstances impossible, and having but limited transportation for my wounded, with only twenty-four hours' rations, I deemed it advisable to return.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
THOS. J. C. AMORY,
Colonel Mass. Vols., Comdg. First Brig., First Div.
Captain HOFFMAN,
Asst. Adjt. Gen., First Div., Dept. North Carolina.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#1
Abstract from Monthly Return of the Department of North Carolina, Maj. Gen. John G. Foster commanding, for the month of August, 1862.
O Officers. A Aggregate present.
M Men. B Aggregate present and absent
P Present for duty. C Aggregate present and absent last monthly return.
-------P------
Command. O M A B C
First Brigade.
Col. T. J. C. AMORY.
17th Massachusetts Volunteers, Lieutenant-Colonel Fellows }
23d Massachusetts Volunteers, Col. John Kurtz } 92 2,545 3,477 3,836 3,638
25th Massachusetts Volunteers, Maj. Josiah Pickett }
27th Massachusetts Volunteers, Col. H. C. Lee }
Second Brigade.
Col. T. G. STEVENSON.
10th Connecticut Volunteers, Lieut. Col. B. S. Pardee }
24th Massachusetts Volunteers, Lieut. Col. F. A. Osborn } 40 1,186 1,555 1,792 1,785
9th New Jersey Volunteers, Col. C. A. Heckman .... .... .... .... ....
5th Rhode Island Volunteers, Capt. Job Arnold .... .... .... .... ....
Grand total 132 3,731 5,032 5,628 5,423
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#2
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N.C., September 24, 1862.
Maj. Gen. H. W. HALLECK,
General-in-Chief U.S. Army, Washington, D.C.:
GENERAL: have the honor to say that some time since I made a formal application to the honorable Secretary of War for more troops for this department. This application was made previous to the great answer made by the loyal States to the President's call for troops.
I learn now that large numbers of new regiments are pouring into Washington, and beg your attention, therefore, to my request for more troops, and in this connection I beg leave to say that, seeing the turn affairs are taking in Virginia and Maryland, the occupation in force of this department may be most advantageous to the campaign. The advantages of this post for drilling and perfecting new regiments are very great. The place is healthy now, wood is in great abundance, water sufficient, and subsistence and quartermaster's supplies are easily obtained from New York, both to this point and to Beaufort, from which point the railroad is in good order and running.
I have some eight regiments of infantry here of old troops, divided into two brigades, commanded by most excellent officers (acting brigadier-generals), Colonels Amory and Stevenson, and with other excellent colonels could readily drill any number of new regiments you might send. My artillery force (Third New York Artillery) is good. They number five light batteries, with twenty-eight pieces; Rhode Island Battery, with six pieces; Rocket Battalion, with eight pieces. My siege train ready for transportation, though at present on shipboard, with supply of ammunition, consists of four 30
ounder Parrott guns; in addition to which I can land for the investment of any sea-coast place ten 32's (long), on ship-carriages. My cavalry force is one good and efficient regiment, Third New York Cavalry.My knowledge of the country in this region, derived from being stationed here as engineer officer in charge and more lately in command of this department, enables me to use the small force at my disposal to advantage, which advantages would of course be greatly increased by having a much larger force at my disposal.
Hoping you will see fit to send me additional troops, I am, with great respect, your obedient servant,
J. G. FOSTER,
Major-General.
-----
Continued
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#2
Abstract from Return of the Department of North Carolina, Maj. Gen. John G. Foster commanding, for September 30, 1862.
O Officers. A Aggregate present
M Men. B Aggregate present and absent
P Present for duty
------P----
Command. O M A B Remarks
First Brigade (Col. T. J. C. Amory). 81 2,591 3,594 3,929 At New Berne with detachment at Newport Barracks.
Second Brigade (Col. T. G. Stevenson). 81 2,059 2,745 3,263 At New Berne, with detachment at Beaufort,
Cavalry (Lieut. Col. John Mix). 32 666 838 917 At New Berne.
Artillery (Col. J. H Ledlie) 40 819 1,122 1,700 At New Berne.
Detachments 5 266 303 343 At Fort Macon, Morehead City, Newport Barracks, and Plymouth.
Total 239 6,401 8,602 10,152
-----
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#4
Organization of troops in the Department of North Carolina, Maj. Gen. John G. Foster, U. S. Army, commanding, November 30, 1862.
First Brigade.
Col. T. J. C. AMORY.
17th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. J. F. Fellows.
23d Massachusetts, Maj. J. G. Chambers.
43d Massachusetts, Col. Charles L. Holbrook.
45th Massachusetts, Col. Charles R. Codman.
51st Massachusetts, Col. A. B. R. Sprague.
Second Brigade.
Col. T. G. STEVENSON.
10th Connecticut, Maj. Robert Leggett.
8th Massachusetts Militia, Col. F. J. Coffin.
24th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. F. A. Osborn.
44th Massachusetts Militia, Col. F. L. Lee.
5th Rhode Island, Maj. George W. Tew.
hird Brigade.
Col. HORACE C. LEE.
3d Massachusetts, Col. S. P. Richmond.
5th Masshusetts, Col. G. H. Peirson.
27th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. Luke Lyman.
46th Massachusetts, Col. George Bowler.
9th New Jersey, Col. C. A. Heckman.
Unassigned.
25th Massachusetts, Maj. Josiah Pickett.
3d New York Cavalry, Col. S. H. Mix.
3d New York Artillery, Col. J. H. Ledlie.
23d New York Battery, Capt. A. Ransom
24th New York Battery, Capt. J. E. Lee
1st Rhode Island Artillery, Battery F, Capt. James Belger.
1st U.S. Artillery, Battery C, Lieut. C. Hook.
-----
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#5
Organization of troops in the Department of North Carolina (Eighteenth Army Corps), Maj. Gen. J. G. Foster, U.S. Army, commanding, December 31, 1862.(*)
FIRST DIVISION.
Brig. Gen. HENRY W. WESSELLS.
First Brigade.
Brig. Gen. LEWIS C. HUNT.
85th New York, Lieut. Col. A. J. Wellman.
92d New York, Lieut. Col. Hiram Anderson,jr.
96th New York, Capt. George W. Hinds.
85th Pennsylvania, Col. J.B. Howell.
101st Pennsylvania, Lieut. Col. D. M. Armor.
103d Pennsylvania, Lieut. Col. W. C. Maxwell.
Second Brigade.
Col. THOMAS G. STEVENSON.
10th Connecticut, Lieut. Col. Robert Leggett.
24th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. F. A. Osborn.
44th Massachusetts, Col. F. L. Lee.
5th Rhode Island, Maj. George W. Tew.
UNATTACHED.
Amory's Brigade.
Col. T. J. C. AMORY.
17th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. J. F. Fellows.
43d Massachusetts, Col. C. L. Holbrook.
45th Massachusetts, Col. C. R. Codman.
51st Massachusetts, Col. A. B. R. Sprague.
Lee's Brigade.
Col. H. C. LEE.
5th Massachusetts, Col. George H. Peirson.
25th Massachusetts, Maj. Josiah Pickett.
27th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. Luke Lyman.
46th Massachusetts, Col. George Bowler.
Heckman's Brigade.
Brig. Gen. CHARLES A. HECKMAN.
3d Massachusetts, Col. Silas P. Richmond.
8th Massachusetts, Col. Fred. J. Coffin.
23d Massachusetts, MaJ. John G. Chambers.
9th New Jersey, Maj. Abram Zabriskie.
Artillery.
Brig. Gen. JAMES H. LEDLIE.
3d New York (eleven companies),Maj. H.M. Stone.
23d New York Battery, Capt. A. Ransom.
24th New York Battery, Capt. J. E. Lee.
1st Rhode Island, Battery F, Capt. J. Belger.
1st U. S.,Battery C, Lieut. C. Hook.
CAVALRY.
Third New York, Col. S. H. MIX.
DETACHMENT FOURTH ARMY CORPS.
Naglee's Brigade.(*)
Brig. Gen. HENRY M. NAGLEE.
11th Maine, Col. H. M. Plaisted.
56th New York, Lieut. Col. J. J. Wheeler.
81st New York, Col. J. J. De Forest.
98th New York, Col. Charles Durkee.
100th New York, Col. George B. Dandy.
Independent New York Battalion, Lieut. Col. Felix Comfort.
52d Pennsylvania, Col. John C. Dodge.
104th Pennsylvania, Lieut. Col. T. D. Hart.
-----------------------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#7
HDQRS. FIRST BRIG., FIRST DIV., EIGHTEENTH A. C.,
New Berne, N.C., January 21, 1863.
Lieut. Col. SOUTHARD HOFFMAN,
A. A. G., Eighteenth Army Corps, New Berne, N.C.:
COLONEL: I have the honor to report that in accordance with orders received from the general commanding I marched with three regiments of my brigade and a battery under Captain Ransom, Twenty-third New York Independent Artillery, on the morning of the 17th instant for Pollocksville, reaching that place the same evening, after rebuilding the bridge over Mill Creek, which had been destroyed by the enemy.
The road leading from Pollocksville to Trenton we found blockaded with felled trees at Pollocksville for some 500 yards. This was speedily cut away by Mr. Wilson, chief of the civil pioneer corps.
The Third New York Cavalry, under Colonel Mix, remained with my command at Pollocksville and preceded it next morning to Trenton, previous to which movement we effectually destroyed the bridge over the Trent at Pollocksville. Leaving at this place five companies of the Fifty-first Massachusetts, with the remainder of my command and the cavalry I occupied Trenton on the night of the 18th, burning the bridge over Trent River at this place and also the mill and all the timber and planks available for its speedy reconstruction. Colonel Mix, with his regiment, proceeded to the bridge 5 miles above for the purpose of destroying it, but found the bridge already on fire, the enemy having anticipated us after crossing on the road to Kinston. On his return Colonel Mix reported the route to Onslow via Comfort heavily blockaded with felled trees; so abandoning that route proceeded directly to Young's Cross-Roads, which place as well as Pollocksville I also occupied with my infantry, remaining at the former place with the larger part of my infantry and all the artillery during the day and the night following the 20th instant, while Colonel Mix proceeded to scout the road to Onslow. Colonel Mix's own report will doubtless detail the result of this scout. I returned with my command to this place on the 21st instant. Our advance on the southern route in force seems to have been anticipated by the enemy. The plantations were generally deserted and frequent obstructions placed in the roads, bridges destroyed, &c.
The energy, activity, and general efficiency of Mr. Wilson deserve especial mention. I beg leave respectfully to call the attention of the general commanding to the valuable assistance he afforded us during the entire march.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
THOS. J. C. AMORY,
Colonel Seventeenth Mass. Vols., Acting Brigadier-General.
-----------------------------------
continued
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#2
Abstract from Return of the Department of North Carolina, Maj. Gen. John G. Foster commanding, for September 30, 1862.
O Officers. A Aggregate present
M Men. B Aggregate present and absent
P Present for duty
------P----
Command. O M A B Remarks
First Brigade (Col. T. J. C. Amory). 81 2,591 3,594 3,929 At New Berne with detachment at Newport Barracks.
Second Brigade (Col. T. G. Stevenson). 81 2,059 2,745 3,263 At New Berne, with detachment at Beaufort,
Cavalry (Lieut. Col. John Mix). 32 666 838 917 At New Berne.
Artillery (Col. J. H Ledlie) 40 819 1,122 1,700 At New Berne.
Detachments 5 266 303 343 At Fort Macon, Morehead City, Newport Barracks, and Plymouth.
Total 239 6,401 8,602 10,152
-----
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#4
Organization of troops in the Department of North Carolina, Maj. Gen. John G. Foster, U. S. Army, commanding, November 30, 1862.
First Brigade.
Col. T. J. C. AMORY.
17th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. J. F. Fellows.
23d Massachusetts, Maj. J. G. Chambers.
43d Massachusetts, Col. Charles L. Holbrook.
45th Massachusetts, Col. Charles R. Codman.
51st Massachusetts, Col. A. B. R. Sprague.
Second Brigade.
Col. T. G. STEVENSON.
10th Connecticut, Maj. Robert Leggett.
8th Massachusetts Militia, Col. F. J. Coffin.
24th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. F. A. Osborn.
44th Massachusetts Militia, Col. F. L. Lee.
5th Rhode Island, Maj. George W. Tew.
hird Brigade.
Col. HORACE C. LEE.
3d Massachusetts, Col. S. P. Richmond.
5th Masshusetts, Col. G. H. Peirson.
27th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. Luke Lyman.
46th Massachusetts, Col. George Bowler.
9th New Jersey, Col. C. A. Heckman.
Unassigned.
25th Massachusetts, Maj. Josiah Pickett.
3d New York Cavalry, Col. S. H. Mix.
3d New York Artillery, Col. J. H. Ledlie.
23d New York Battery, Capt. A. Ransom
24th New York Battery, Capt. J. E. Lee
1st Rhode Island Artillery, Battery F, Capt. James Belger.
1st U.S. Artillery, Battery C, Lieut. C. Hook.
-----
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#5
Organization of troops in the Department of North Carolina (Eighteenth Army Corps), Maj. Gen. J. G. Foster, U.S. Army, commanding, December 31, 1862.(*)
FIRST DIVISION.
Brig. Gen. HENRY W. WESSELLS.
First Brigade.
Brig. Gen. LEWIS C. HUNT.
85th New York, Lieut. Col. A. J. Wellman.
92d New York, Lieut. Col. Hiram Anderson,jr.
96th New York, Capt. George W. Hinds.
85th Pennsylvania, Col. J.B. Howell.
101st Pennsylvania, Lieut. Col. D. M. Armor.
103d Pennsylvania, Lieut. Col. W. C. Maxwell.
Second Brigade.
Col. THOMAS G. STEVENSON.
10th Connecticut, Lieut. Col. Robert Leggett.
24th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. F. A. Osborn.
44th Massachusetts, Col. F. L. Lee.
5th Rhode Island, Maj. George W. Tew.
UNATTACHED.
Amory's Brigade.
Col. T. J. C. AMORY.
17th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. J. F. Fellows.
43d Massachusetts, Col. C. L. Holbrook.
45th Massachusetts, Col. C. R. Codman.
51st Massachusetts, Col. A. B. R. Sprague.
Lee's Brigade.
Col. H. C. LEE.
5th Massachusetts, Col. George H. Peirson.
25th Massachusetts, Maj. Josiah Pickett.
27th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. Luke Lyman.
46th Massachusetts, Col. George Bowler.
Heckman's Brigade.
Brig. Gen. CHARLES A. HECKMAN.
3d Massachusetts, Col. Silas P. Richmond.
8th Massachusetts, Col. Fred. J. Coffin.
23d Massachusetts, MaJ. John G. Chambers.
9th New Jersey, Maj. Abram Zabriskie.
Artillery.
Brig. Gen. JAMES H. LEDLIE.
3d New York (eleven companies),Maj. H.M. Stone.
23d New York Battery, Capt. A. Ransom.
24th New York Battery, Capt. J. E. Lee.
1st Rhode Island, Battery F, Capt. J. Belger.
1st U. S.,Battery C, Lieut. C. Hook.
CAVALRY.
Third New York, Col. S. H. MIX.
DETACHMENT FOURTH ARMY CORPS.
Naglee's Brigade.(*)
Brig. Gen. HENRY M. NAGLEE.
11th Maine, Col. H. M. Plaisted.
56th New York, Lieut. Col. J. J. Wheeler.
81st New York, Col. J. J. De Forest.
98th New York, Col. Charles Durkee.
100th New York, Col. George B. Dandy.
Independent New York Battalion, Lieut. Col. Felix Comfort.
52d Pennsylvania, Col. John C. Dodge.
104th Pennsylvania, Lieut. Col. T. D. Hart.
-----------------------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#7
HDQRS. FIRST BRIG., FIRST DIV., EIGHTEENTH A. C.,
New Berne, N.C., January 21, 1863.
Lieut. Col. SOUTHARD HOFFMAN,
A. A. G., Eighteenth Army Corps, New Berne, N.C.:
COLONEL: I have the honor to report that in accordance with orders received from the general commanding I marched with three regiments of my brigade and a battery under Captain Ransom, Twenty-third New York Independent Artillery, on the morning of the 17th instant for Pollocksville, reaching that place the same evening, after rebuilding the bridge over Mill Creek, which had been destroyed by the enemy.
The road leading from Pollocksville to Trenton we found blockaded with felled trees at Pollocksville for some 500 yards. This was speedily cut away by Mr. Wilson, chief of the civil pioneer corps.
The Third New York Cavalry, under Colonel Mix, remained with my command at Pollocksville and preceded it next morning to Trenton, previous to which movement we effectually destroyed the bridge over the Trent at Pollocksville. Leaving at this place five companies of the Fifty-first Massachusetts, with the remainder of my command and the cavalry I occupied Trenton on the night of the 18th, burning the bridge over Trent River at this place and also the mill and all the timber and planks available for its speedy reconstruction. Colonel Mix, with his regiment, proceeded to the bridge 5 miles above for the purpose of destroying it, but found the bridge already on fire, the enemy having anticipated us after crossing on the road to Kinston. On his return Colonel Mix reported the route to Onslow via Comfort heavily blockaded with felled trees; so abandoning that route proceeded directly to Young's Cross-Roads, which place as well as Pollocksville I also occupied with my infantry, remaining at the former place with the larger part of my infantry and all the artillery during the day and the night following the 20th instant, while Colonel Mix proceeded to scout the road to Onslow. Colonel Mix's own report will doubtless detail the result of this scout. I returned with my command to this place on the 21st instant. Our advance on the southern route in force seems to have been anticipated by the enemy. The plantations were generally deserted and frequent obstructions placed in the roads, bridges destroyed, &c.
The energy, activity, and general efficiency of Mr. Wilson deserve especial mention. I beg leave respectfully to call the attention of the general commanding to the valuable assistance he afforded us during the entire march.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
THOS. J. C. AMORY,
Colonel Seventeenth Mass. Vols., Acting Brigadier-General.
-----------------------------------
continued
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#7
Organization of the Eighteenth Army Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. JohnG. Foster (headquarters New Berne, N.C.), February, 1863.
FIRST DIVISION.
Brig. Gen. I. N. PALMER commanding.
First Brigade.
Col. T. J. C. AMORY commanding.
17th Massachusetts.
43d Massachusetts.
45th Massachusetts.
51st Massachusetts.
Second Brigade.
Col. H. C. LEE commanding.
5th Massachusetts.
25th Massachusetts.
27th Massachusetts.
46th Massachusetts.
ECOND DIVISION.
Brig. Gen. HENRY M. NAGLEE commanding.
First Brigade.
Brig. Gen. C. A. HECKMAN commanding.
23d Massachusetts.
9th New Jersey.
81st New York.
98th New York.
econd Brigade.
Col. W. W. H. DAVIS commanding.
11th Maine.
100th New York.
52d Pennsylvania.
104th Pennsylvania.
Independent New York Battalion.
THIRD DIVISION.
Brig. Gen. O. S. FERRY commanding.
First Brigade.
Col. FRANCIS A. OSBORN commanding.
39th Illinois.
62d Ohio.
67th Ohio.
176th Pennsylvania.
Second Brigade.
Col. J. B. HOWELL commanding,
56th New York.
58th Pennsylvania.
85th Pennsylvania.
174th Pennsylvania.
[end of excerpt]
------------------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#13
Organization of the Eighteenth Army Corps, Department of North Carolina, Maj. Gen. John G. Foster, U.S. Army, commanding, April 30, 1863.
FIRST DIVISION.
Brig. Gen. INNIS N. PALMER.
First Brigade.
Col. T. J. C. AMORY.
17th Massachusetts.
43d Massachusetts.
45th Massachusetts.
51st Massachusetts.
Second Brigade.
Col. H. C. LEE.
5th Massachusetts.
25th Massachusetts.
27th Massachusetts.
46th Massachusetts.
[ excerpt]
--------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
DECEMBER 11-20,1862.--Expedition from New Berne to Goldsborough, N.C.
.
No. 12.--Col. Thomas J. C. Amory, Seventeenth Massachusetts Infantry, commanding First Brigade, First Division, of engagements at Kinston, White Hall, and Goldsborough Bridge, December 14, 16, and 17.
---------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
APRIL 27-MAY 1, 1863.--Expedition from New Berne toward Kinston,
N.C., and skirmish (28th) at Wise's Cross-Roads.
No. 1.--Reports of Brig. Gen. Innis N. Palmer, U. S. Army, commanding Expedition.
HDQRS. FIRST DIVISION, EIGHTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
New Berne, N.C., May 2, 1863.
COLONEL: In accordance with instructions from department headquarters of April 26, 1863, on the morning of the 27th instant I embarked my division upon the cars, and at 3 p.m. all the command were at Batch-elder's Creek. The First Brigade, Colonel Amory commanding, was sent forward on the railroad to Core Creek. In accordance with my orders he took possession of the bridge at that point and sent a force immediately across the creek to the switch but found nothing. His command bivouacked on the railroad immediately behind the creek, while the remainder of the command, consisting of the brigade of Colonel Lee, the Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers, Colonel Jones, one section of Riggs' battery, and a company of the Third New York Cavalry, moved up a cross-road to the Neuse road, and from thence to the Dover-road Crossing of Core Creek, behind which we encamped. Thus was the command posted on two different roads, some 2½ miles apart, with a good cross-road connecting.
[excerpt]
Colonel Amory, with two regiments (the Seventeenth Massachusetts Volunteers and the Forty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia), was ordered to march up the railroad as rapidly as possible to the point where the railroad and Dover road cross. I will here say that Colonel Amory, who has been ill for some time, was not able to go with the Brigade, inasmuch as it was impossible to march horses on the railroad. He therefore returned to the bivouac, leaving Colonel Codman, of the Forty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, in command.
[excerpt]
he whole command behaved very well. The commanding officers of regiments, &c., showed themselves energetic in the discharge of their duties. To Colonel Jones, of the Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania, I am indebted for much valuable information regarding the country, its inhabitants, &c. Energetic, untiring, and zealous, he has shown himself the man for his place as commandant of the outposts in front of New Berne.
I have the honor to be, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
I. N. PALMER,
Brigadier-General
Lieut. Col. SOUTHARD HOFFMAN,
Assistant Adjutant-General, Eighteenth Army Corps.
------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXVII/3 [S# 45]
Correspondence, Orders, And Returns Relating To Operations In North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, And Department Of The East, From June 3 To August 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#19
Troops in the Department of North Carolina, Maj. Gen. John G. Foster, U. S. Army, commanding, June 30, 1863.
NEW BERNE.
FIRST DIVISION, EIGHTEENTH ARMY CORPS.(+)
Col. THOMAS J. C. AMORY.
First Brigade.
Capt. LUTHER DAY.
17th Massachusetts. Capt. Luther Day.
Second Brigade.
Col. HORACE C. LEE.
25th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. Orson Moulton.
27th Massachusetts, Maj. Walter G. Bartholomew.
Jourdan's Brigade.
Col. JAMES JOURDAN.
9th New Jersey, Col. Abram Zabriskie.
158th New York, Lieut. Col. William H. McNary.
Infantry not Brigaded.
1st North Carolina (colored), Col. James C. Beecher.
92d New York, Lieut. Col. Hiram Anderson, jr.
132d New York, Col. Peter J. Claassen.
5th Rhode Island, Lieut. Col. George W. Tew.
Cavalry Brigade.
Lieut. Col. GEORGE W. LEWIS.
3d New York Cavalry, Lieut. Col. George W. Lewis.
12th New York Cavalry, Lieut. Col. Philip G. Vought.
23d New York Cavalry Battalion, Capt. Emory Cummings.
Artillery.
3d New York Light, Maj. Terance J. Kennedy.
1st Rhode Island Light, Battery F, Lieut. Thomas Simpson.
[excerpt]
---------------------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXIX/2 [S# 49]
Correspondence, Orders, And Returns Relating Specially To Operations In North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, And Pennsylvania, From August 4 To December 31, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.--#4
HEADQUARTERS EIGHTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
New Berne, N. C., August 20, 1863.
Maj. Gen. J. G. FOSTER,
Comdg. Dept. of Virginia and North Carolina:
GENERAL: Agreeably to your instructions of the 12th instant, I assumed command on the 14th instant of the Eighteenth Army Corps, serving in North Carolina. On the 15th instant, in company with General Palmer, I commenced an inspection of this important command, more especially with respect to the general system of defenses.
[excerpt]
Pamlico District.--At Washington I examined the old and new lines, both of which are well arranged. The second or interior line has many advantages over the exterior, especially in its command and the requiring of a lesser force for its defense. Some guns should be added, and some slashing done for the better protection of the artillerists against riflemen.
In this connection I will observe, that on the 14th the cavalry outpost, 1 corporal and 4 men, were surprised. The corporal, 2 men, 4 horses, and the equipments were captured.
The cavalry company at Washington is small and inefficient. It seems proper to make a change. Really, another company ought to be sent there; a good field officer to take charge of both.
General Palmer. General Heckman, and others, urge Colonel Amory, or some new commander, for that place. But in view of your observations on this point, I shall defer any change until I see you. Colonel Amory has been relieved by General Heckman.
[excerpt]
I am, very respectfully,
JOHN J. PECK,
Major-General.
-----
continued
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#7
Organization of the Eighteenth Army Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. JohnG. Foster (headquarters New Berne, N.C.), February, 1863.
FIRST DIVISION.
Brig. Gen. I. N. PALMER commanding.
First Brigade.
Col. T. J. C. AMORY commanding.
17th Massachusetts.
43d Massachusetts.
45th Massachusetts.
51st Massachusetts.
Second Brigade.
Col. H. C. LEE commanding.
5th Massachusetts.
25th Massachusetts.
27th Massachusetts.
46th Massachusetts.
ECOND DIVISION.
Brig. Gen. HENRY M. NAGLEE commanding.
First Brigade.
Brig. Gen. C. A. HECKMAN commanding.
23d Massachusetts.
9th New Jersey.
81st New York.
98th New York.
econd Brigade.
Col. W. W. H. DAVIS commanding.
11th Maine.
100th New York.
52d Pennsylvania.
104th Pennsylvania.
Independent New York Battalion.
THIRD DIVISION.
Brig. Gen. O. S. FERRY commanding.
First Brigade.
Col. FRANCIS A. OSBORN commanding.
39th Illinois.
62d Ohio.
67th Ohio.
176th Pennsylvania.
Second Brigade.
Col. J. B. HOWELL commanding,
56th New York.
58th Pennsylvania.
85th Pennsylvania.
174th Pennsylvania.
[end of excerpt]
------------------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA FROM AUGUST 20, 1862, TO JUNE 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#13
Organization of the Eighteenth Army Corps, Department of North Carolina, Maj. Gen. John G. Foster, U.S. Army, commanding, April 30, 1863.
FIRST DIVISION.
Brig. Gen. INNIS N. PALMER.
First Brigade.
Col. T. J. C. AMORY.
17th Massachusetts.
43d Massachusetts.
45th Massachusetts.
51st Massachusetts.
Second Brigade.
Col. H. C. LEE.
5th Massachusetts.
25th Massachusetts.
27th Massachusetts.
46th Massachusetts.
[ excerpt]
--------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
DECEMBER 11-20,1862.--Expedition from New Berne to Goldsborough, N.C.
.
No. 12.--Col. Thomas J. C. Amory, Seventeenth Massachusetts Infantry, commanding First Brigade, First Division, of engagements at Kinston, White Hall, and Goldsborough Bridge, December 14, 16, and 17.
---------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XVIII [S# 26]
APRIL 27-MAY 1, 1863.--Expedition from New Berne toward Kinston,
N.C., and skirmish (28th) at Wise's Cross-Roads.
No. 1.--Reports of Brig. Gen. Innis N. Palmer, U. S. Army, commanding Expedition.
HDQRS. FIRST DIVISION, EIGHTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
New Berne, N.C., May 2, 1863.
COLONEL: In accordance with instructions from department headquarters of April 26, 1863, on the morning of the 27th instant I embarked my division upon the cars, and at 3 p.m. all the command were at Batch-elder's Creek. The First Brigade, Colonel Amory commanding, was sent forward on the railroad to Core Creek. In accordance with my orders he took possession of the bridge at that point and sent a force immediately across the creek to the switch but found nothing. His command bivouacked on the railroad immediately behind the creek, while the remainder of the command, consisting of the brigade of Colonel Lee, the Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers, Colonel Jones, one section of Riggs' battery, and a company of the Third New York Cavalry, moved up a cross-road to the Neuse road, and from thence to the Dover-road Crossing of Core Creek, behind which we encamped. Thus was the command posted on two different roads, some 2½ miles apart, with a good cross-road connecting.
[excerpt]
Colonel Amory, with two regiments (the Seventeenth Massachusetts Volunteers and the Forty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia), was ordered to march up the railroad as rapidly as possible to the point where the railroad and Dover road cross. I will here say that Colonel Amory, who has been ill for some time, was not able to go with the Brigade, inasmuch as it was impossible to march horses on the railroad. He therefore returned to the bivouac, leaving Colonel Codman, of the Forty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, in command.
[excerpt]
he whole command behaved very well. The commanding officers of regiments, &c., showed themselves energetic in the discharge of their duties. To Colonel Jones, of the Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania, I am indebted for much valuable information regarding the country, its inhabitants, &c. Energetic, untiring, and zealous, he has shown himself the man for his place as commandant of the outposts in front of New Berne.
I have the honor to be, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
I. N. PALMER,
Brigadier-General
Lieut. Col. SOUTHARD HOFFMAN,
Assistant Adjutant-General, Eighteenth Army Corps.
------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXVII/3 [S# 45]
Correspondence, Orders, And Returns Relating To Operations In North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, And Department Of The East, From June 3 To August 3, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE. ETC.--#19
Troops in the Department of North Carolina, Maj. Gen. John G. Foster, U. S. Army, commanding, June 30, 1863.
NEW BERNE.
FIRST DIVISION, EIGHTEENTH ARMY CORPS.(+)
Col. THOMAS J. C. AMORY.
First Brigade.
Capt. LUTHER DAY.
17th Massachusetts. Capt. Luther Day.
Second Brigade.
Col. HORACE C. LEE.
25th Massachusetts, Lieut. Col. Orson Moulton.
27th Massachusetts, Maj. Walter G. Bartholomew.
Jourdan's Brigade.
Col. JAMES JOURDAN.
9th New Jersey, Col. Abram Zabriskie.
158th New York, Lieut. Col. William H. McNary.
Infantry not Brigaded.
1st North Carolina (colored), Col. James C. Beecher.
92d New York, Lieut. Col. Hiram Anderson, jr.
132d New York, Col. Peter J. Claassen.
5th Rhode Island, Lieut. Col. George W. Tew.
Cavalry Brigade.
Lieut. Col. GEORGE W. LEWIS.
3d New York Cavalry, Lieut. Col. George W. Lewis.
12th New York Cavalry, Lieut. Col. Philip G. Vought.
23d New York Cavalry Battalion, Capt. Emory Cummings.
Artillery.
3d New York Light, Maj. Terance J. Kennedy.
1st Rhode Island Light, Battery F, Lieut. Thomas Simpson.
[excerpt]
---------------------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXIX/2 [S# 49]
Correspondence, Orders, And Returns Relating Specially To Operations In North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, And Pennsylvania, From August 4 To December 31, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.--#4
HEADQUARTERS EIGHTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
New Berne, N. C., August 20, 1863.
Maj. Gen. J. G. FOSTER,
Comdg. Dept. of Virginia and North Carolina:
GENERAL: Agreeably to your instructions of the 12th instant, I assumed command on the 14th instant of the Eighteenth Army Corps, serving in North Carolina. On the 15th instant, in company with General Palmer, I commenced an inspection of this important command, more especially with respect to the general system of defenses.
[excerpt]
Pamlico District.--At Washington I examined the old and new lines, both of which are well arranged. The second or interior line has many advantages over the exterior, especially in its command and the requiring of a lesser force for its defense. Some guns should be added, and some slashing done for the better protection of the artillerists against riflemen.
In this connection I will observe, that on the 14th the cavalry outpost, 1 corporal and 4 men, were surprised. The corporal, 2 men, 4 horses, and the equipments were captured.
The cavalry company at Washington is small and inefficient. It seems proper to make a change. Really, another company ought to be sent there; a good field officer to take charge of both.
General Palmer. General Heckman, and others, urge Colonel Amory, or some new commander, for that place. But in view of your observations on this point, I shall defer any change until I see you. Colonel Amory has been relieved by General Heckman.
[excerpt]
I am, very respectfully,
JOHN J. PECK,
Major-General.
-----
continued
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXXIII [S# 60]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA, VIRGINIA, WEST VIRGINIA, MARYLAND, AND PENNSYLVANIA, FROM JANUARY 1 TO APRIL 30, 1864.--#7
DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA.
Maj. Gen. JOHN J. PECK.
Signal detachment, Lieut. Amos M. Thayer.
DEFENSES OF NEW BERNE.
Brig. Gen. INNlS N. PALMER
Infantry.
l7th Massachusetts, Col. Thomas J. C. Amory.
92d New York, Lieut. Col. Hiram Anderson, jr.
99th New York, Col. David W. Wardrop.
132d New York,(*) Col. Peter J. Claassen.
19th Wisconsin (nine companies), Lieut. Col. Rollin M. Strong.
Cavalry.
12th New York (eight companies), Col. James W. Savage.
Artillery.
3d New York Light, Col. Charles H. Stewart.
5th Rhode Island Heavy (seven companies), Col. Henry T. Sisson.
2d Massachusetts Heavy, Capt. Nehemiah P. Fuller.
-----------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXXIII [S# 60]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA, VIRGINIA, WEST VIRGINIA, MARYLAND, AND PENNSYLVANIA, FROM JANUARY 1 TO APRIL 30, 1864.--#12
HDQRS. FORCES AND DEFENSES OF NEW BERNE,
New Berne, N. C., February 19, 1864.
Maj. BENJAMIN B. FOSTER,
Asst. Adjt. Gen., Army and Dist. of North Carolina:
MAJOR: I have the honor to transmit a statement in detail of the strength and disposition of the forces under my command, as requested in your note of the 10th instant:
Cavalry.
Men.
Twelfth Regiment New York Volunteer Cavalry, Col. James W. Savage (eight companies):
Companies A, C, H, and M, stationed at Camp Palmer 210 ....
Companies E and G, stationed at Rock Run 108 ....
Company K, stationed at Brice's Creek 35 ....
Company L, stationed at Batchelder's Creek 47 ....
Total .... 400
Third Regiment New York Volunteer Cavalry, Lieut. Col. George W. Lewis (five companies), stationed at Grove Camp .... 207
Artillery.
Third Regiment New York Light Artillery, Col. Charles H. Stewart (four batteries present): Batteries C, E, I, and K, stationed in New Berne .... 438
Fifth Regiment Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, Col. Henry T. Sisson (seven companies present): .... ....
Company B, stationed at Fort Spinola 62 ....
Companies D and I, stationed at Fort Totten 86 ....
Company F, stationed at Fort Rowan 55 ....
Company G, stationed at Fort Amory 45 ....
Company H, stationed at Fort Stevenson 43 ....
Company K, stationed at Fort Gaston 34 ....
Total .... 325
Second Battalion Second Massachusetts Heavy Artillery (two companies), stationed at Fort Totten .... 210
Infantry.
Seventeenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Col. T. J. C. Amory (ten companies present): .... ....
Five companies on provost-guard duty 226 ....
Five companies in rear of Fort Totten 212 ....
Total .... 438
One hundred and thirty-second Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry, Col. P. J. Claassen (ten companies), stationed at Batchelder's Creek 470 ....
Ninety-ninth Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry, Col. D.W. Wardrop (ten companies), stationed at New Berne 372 ....
Ninety-second Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry, Lieut. Col. Hiram Anderson, jr. (ten companies): .... ....
Nine companies stationed at Fort Anderson 291 ....
One company stationed at Fort Chase 52 ....
Total .... 343
Men
Nineteenth Regiment Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, Lieut. Col. R. M. Strong (ten companies):
Eight companies stationed in New Berne, south side Trent River. 363
One company stationed at Evans' Mills 57
One company stationed at Brice's Creek 41
Total 461
Fifteenth Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, Col. Charles L. Upham (ten companies), stationed in New Berne fair-grounds 516
Twenty-first Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, Col. A. H. Dutton (ten companies), stationed in New Berne 477
First Regiment U.S. Colored Infantry (ten companies), stationed in New Berne, south side Trent River 767
Armament of forts.
Fort Anderson: One 32-pounder rifle; three 32-pounders, smooth; one 32-pounder carronade; one 24-pounder howitzer; one 12-pounder howitzer.
Fort Rowan: One 100-pounder Parrott; two 32-pounders, long; one 3-inch rifle, brass; one 3-inch rifle, steel; two 8-inch mortars.
Fort Stevenson: One 32-pounder rifle; four 39-pounders, long.
Fort Gaston: Four 32-pounders, long; three 32-pounders, short.
Fort Totten: Four 32-pounder howitzers; nine 32-pounders, long; two 32-pounder rifles; nine 32-pounder Carronades; one 8-inch Columbiad; two 8-inch mortars. Fort Amory: Three 39-pounders, long.
Fort Spinola: Six 39-pounders, long; two 32-pounder rifles.
Fort Chase: Three 24-pounders.
Monitor Car: Batchelder's Creek, two Wiards, 2.6.
Third Regiment New York Volunteer Artillery: Ten pieces, 3-inch; four pieces, 3.67-inch; six pieces, 4.62-inch.
Recapitulation of troops.
Men
12th Regiment New York Volunteer Cavalry 400
3d Regiment New York Volunteer Cavalry 207
3d Regiment New York Volunteer Artillery 438
5th Regiment Rhode Island Artillery 325
Detachment Second Massachusetts Heavy Artillery 210
17th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry 438
182d New York Volunteer Infantry 470
99th New York Volunteer Infantry 372
92d New York Volunteer Infantry 343
19th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry 461
15th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry 516
21st Connecticut Volunteer Infantry 477
1st U.S. Colored Infantry 767
Total 5,424
I am, major, very respectfully, your obedient servant.
I. N. PALMER,
Brigadier-General, Commanding.
-----
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXXIII [S# 60]
JANUARY 28-FEBRUARY 10, 1864.--Expedition against New Berne, N. C.
No. 3.--Reports of Maj. Gen. John J. Peck, U. S. Army, commanding District of North Carolina.
ENERAL ORDERS No. 15.
HDQRS. ARMY AND DISTRICT OF N. C.,
New Berne, N. C., February 10, 1864.
The commanding general, learning of the desperate advance of the rebel hordes upon his lines in quest of bread, meat, clothing, and plunder, gave up his leave of absence and has returned to his command; not so much from doubt of the ability of the troops to hurl back the enemy as to share with them the honors, toils, and privations of the opening campaign. He returns his thanks to General Palmer and Colonels Jourdan, Amory, and Claassen, and to all the officers and men of their commands, for the gallant repulse of Major-General Pickett with more than twice their numbers. The moment was seized upon for executing a long and well-prepared plan when many of the troops were on furlough as veterans. On this occasion the enemy found by bitter experience that all our men were veterans.
Those regiments that were with the commanding general during the siege of Suffolk have earned fresh laurels in this late triumph over the troops of Pickett, Armistead, Kemper, and Hoke, their old adversaries under Longstreet and Hill.
By command of Major-General Peck:
BENJ. B. FOSTER,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
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O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXXVI/2 [S# 68]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, FROM MAY 1, 1864, TO MAY 19, 1864.(*)--#2
SPECIAL ORDERS No. 7.
HDQRS. DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N. C., May 2, 1864.
* * * * * * * * * *
IV. The army gun-boats Reno and Shrapnel, with their officers and crews, are hereby attached to the command of Col. T. J. C. Amory, commanding Sub-District of New Berne. Reports and returns will be made accordingly.
* * * * * * * * * *
VI. The sub-district heretofore known as the Sub-District of the Pamlico, with headquarters at Washington, N. C., is hereby discontinued from this date. All orders and regulations applying to that sub-district are hereby annulled. The Twenty-first Connecticut Volunteers and Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers, having been ordered to Fort Monroe, Va., will be dropped from the returns. The two companies of the Fifth Rhode Island Artillery, recently serving in that sub-district, are hereby assigned to the Sub-District of New Berne. The officers of the general staff lately serving in that sub-district will report to the chiefs of their various staff departments for assignment to duty.
VII. The command at Hatteras Inlet is hereby attached to the Sub-District of New Berne, Col. Thomas J. C. Amory, Seventeenth Massachusetts Volunteers, commanding. Reports and returns will be made accordingly.
* * * * * * * * * *
By command of Brig. Gen. I. N. Palmer:
J. A. JUDSON,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
-----
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXXVI/2 [S# 68]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, FROM MAY 1, 1864, TO MAY 19, 1864.(*)--#2
PECIAL ORDERS No. 8.
HDQRS. DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N. C., May 3, 1864.
* * * * * * * * * *
IV. Col. Thomas J. C. Amory, Seventeenth Massachusetts Volunteers, is hereby relieved from the command of the Sub-District of New Berne, and will report for orders to Brig. Gen. Edward Harland, U.S. Volunteers.
V. Brig. Gen. Edward Harland, U.S. Volunteers, is hereby assigned to the command of the Sub-District of New Berne, vice Colonel Amory, relieved.
* * * * * * * * * *
By command of Brig. Gen. I. N. Palmer:
J. A. JUDSON,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
-----
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXXVI/2 [S# 68]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, FROM MAY 1, 1864, TO MAY 19, 1864.(*)--#5
FORT GASTON SIGNAL STATION,
May 5, 1864--9.30 a.m.
Colonel AMORY:
Courier from Evans' Mill reports the enemy driving our pickets at 7.30. Artillery firing is heard in that direction at this hour, 9.30. I have sent to the front to ascertain more.
McCHESNEY,
Colonel.
------------
FORT GASTON, May 5, 1864--9.45 a.m.
Colonel AMORY,
New Berne:
The commanding officer at Evans' Mill reports the enemy getting in his rear. Have ordered him to fall back. A force of the enemy has gone toward the railroad.
MCCHESNEY,
Colonel.
-----
FORT GASTON SIGNAL STATION,
May 5, 1864--11 a.m.
Captain POTTER,
Commanding Fort Spinola:
Keep a strict lookout on your front, and have everything in readiness. Our pickets have been driven in from Evans' Mill. Do not fire on the company coming from Evans' Mill.
By order of Colonel Amory:
F. H. FAILEY,
In charge of Station.
-----
FORT GASTON SIGNAL STATION,
May 5, 1864--11.20 a.m.
General HARLAND:
Captain Graham from Evans' Mill reports our force at that place retreating this way. The enemy passed on toward Croatan, which has probably been attacked ere this.
AMORY,
Colonel.
-----
FORT GASTON, May 6, 1864--5.15 p.m.
Colonel AMORY,
Commanding, New Berne:
Captain Graham has just returned to camp, and reports that he went in sight of Evans' Mill; that he saw the rear guard of the enemy; that they appeared to be in full retreat. A small force of the enemy appeared above Brice's Creek. We have given them some shells, and I think they are satisfied. Captain Ransom has been sent to town.
McCHESNEY,
Colonel.
-----
continued
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA, VIRGINIA, WEST VIRGINIA, MARYLAND, AND PENNSYLVANIA, FROM JANUARY 1 TO APRIL 30, 1864.--#7
DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA.
Maj. Gen. JOHN J. PECK.
Signal detachment, Lieut. Amos M. Thayer.
DEFENSES OF NEW BERNE.
Brig. Gen. INNlS N. PALMER
Infantry.
l7th Massachusetts, Col. Thomas J. C. Amory.
92d New York, Lieut. Col. Hiram Anderson, jr.
99th New York, Col. David W. Wardrop.
132d New York,(*) Col. Peter J. Claassen.
19th Wisconsin (nine companies), Lieut. Col. Rollin M. Strong.
Cavalry.
12th New York (eight companies), Col. James W. Savage.
Artillery.
3d New York Light, Col. Charles H. Stewart.
5th Rhode Island Heavy (seven companies), Col. Henry T. Sisson.
2d Massachusetts Heavy, Capt. Nehemiah P. Fuller.
-----------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXXIII [S# 60]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA, VIRGINIA, WEST VIRGINIA, MARYLAND, AND PENNSYLVANIA, FROM JANUARY 1 TO APRIL 30, 1864.--#12
HDQRS. FORCES AND DEFENSES OF NEW BERNE,
New Berne, N. C., February 19, 1864.
Maj. BENJAMIN B. FOSTER,
Asst. Adjt. Gen., Army and Dist. of North Carolina:
MAJOR: I have the honor to transmit a statement in detail of the strength and disposition of the forces under my command, as requested in your note of the 10th instant:
Cavalry.
Men.
Twelfth Regiment New York Volunteer Cavalry, Col. James W. Savage (eight companies):
Companies A, C, H, and M, stationed at Camp Palmer 210 ....
Companies E and G, stationed at Rock Run 108 ....
Company K, stationed at Brice's Creek 35 ....
Company L, stationed at Batchelder's Creek 47 ....
Total .... 400
Third Regiment New York Volunteer Cavalry, Lieut. Col. George W. Lewis (five companies), stationed at Grove Camp .... 207
Artillery.
Third Regiment New York Light Artillery, Col. Charles H. Stewart (four batteries present): Batteries C, E, I, and K, stationed in New Berne .... 438
Fifth Regiment Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, Col. Henry T. Sisson (seven companies present): .... ....
Company B, stationed at Fort Spinola 62 ....
Companies D and I, stationed at Fort Totten 86 ....
Company F, stationed at Fort Rowan 55 ....
Company G, stationed at Fort Amory 45 ....
Company H, stationed at Fort Stevenson 43 ....
Company K, stationed at Fort Gaston 34 ....
Total .... 325
Second Battalion Second Massachusetts Heavy Artillery (two companies), stationed at Fort Totten .... 210
Infantry.
Seventeenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Col. T. J. C. Amory (ten companies present): .... ....
Five companies on provost-guard duty 226 ....
Five companies in rear of Fort Totten 212 ....
Total .... 438
One hundred and thirty-second Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry, Col. P. J. Claassen (ten companies), stationed at Batchelder's Creek 470 ....
Ninety-ninth Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry, Col. D.W. Wardrop (ten companies), stationed at New Berne 372 ....
Ninety-second Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry, Lieut. Col. Hiram Anderson, jr. (ten companies): .... ....
Nine companies stationed at Fort Anderson 291 ....
One company stationed at Fort Chase 52 ....
Total .... 343
Men
Nineteenth Regiment Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, Lieut. Col. R. M. Strong (ten companies):
Eight companies stationed in New Berne, south side Trent River. 363
One company stationed at Evans' Mills 57
One company stationed at Brice's Creek 41
Total 461
Fifteenth Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, Col. Charles L. Upham (ten companies), stationed in New Berne fair-grounds 516
Twenty-first Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, Col. A. H. Dutton (ten companies), stationed in New Berne 477
First Regiment U.S. Colored Infantry (ten companies), stationed in New Berne, south side Trent River 767
Armament of forts.
Fort Anderson: One 32-pounder rifle; three 32-pounders, smooth; one 32-pounder carronade; one 24-pounder howitzer; one 12-pounder howitzer.
Fort Rowan: One 100-pounder Parrott; two 32-pounders, long; one 3-inch rifle, brass; one 3-inch rifle, steel; two 8-inch mortars.
Fort Stevenson: One 32-pounder rifle; four 39-pounders, long.
Fort Gaston: Four 32-pounders, long; three 32-pounders, short.
Fort Totten: Four 32-pounder howitzers; nine 32-pounders, long; two 32-pounder rifles; nine 32-pounder Carronades; one 8-inch Columbiad; two 8-inch mortars. Fort Amory: Three 39-pounders, long.
Fort Spinola: Six 39-pounders, long; two 32-pounder rifles.
Fort Chase: Three 24-pounders.
Monitor Car: Batchelder's Creek, two Wiards, 2.6.
Third Regiment New York Volunteer Artillery: Ten pieces, 3-inch; four pieces, 3.67-inch; six pieces, 4.62-inch.
Recapitulation of troops.
Men
12th Regiment New York Volunteer Cavalry 400
3d Regiment New York Volunteer Cavalry 207
3d Regiment New York Volunteer Artillery 438
5th Regiment Rhode Island Artillery 325
Detachment Second Massachusetts Heavy Artillery 210
17th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry 438
182d New York Volunteer Infantry 470
99th New York Volunteer Infantry 372
92d New York Volunteer Infantry 343
19th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry 461
15th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry 516
21st Connecticut Volunteer Infantry 477
1st U.S. Colored Infantry 767
Total 5,424
I am, major, very respectfully, your obedient servant.
I. N. PALMER,
Brigadier-General, Commanding.
-----
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXXIII [S# 60]
JANUARY 28-FEBRUARY 10, 1864.--Expedition against New Berne, N. C.
No. 3.--Reports of Maj. Gen. John J. Peck, U. S. Army, commanding District of North Carolina.
ENERAL ORDERS No. 15.
HDQRS. ARMY AND DISTRICT OF N. C.,
New Berne, N. C., February 10, 1864.
The commanding general, learning of the desperate advance of the rebel hordes upon his lines in quest of bread, meat, clothing, and plunder, gave up his leave of absence and has returned to his command; not so much from doubt of the ability of the troops to hurl back the enemy as to share with them the honors, toils, and privations of the opening campaign. He returns his thanks to General Palmer and Colonels Jourdan, Amory, and Claassen, and to all the officers and men of their commands, for the gallant repulse of Major-General Pickett with more than twice their numbers. The moment was seized upon for executing a long and well-prepared plan when many of the troops were on furlough as veterans. On this occasion the enemy found by bitter experience that all our men were veterans.
Those regiments that were with the commanding general during the siege of Suffolk have earned fresh laurels in this late triumph over the troops of Pickett, Armistead, Kemper, and Hoke, their old adversaries under Longstreet and Hill.
By command of Major-General Peck:
BENJ. B. FOSTER,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
------------------------------------------------------------------
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXXVI/2 [S# 68]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, FROM MAY 1, 1864, TO MAY 19, 1864.(*)--#2
SPECIAL ORDERS No. 7.
HDQRS. DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N. C., May 2, 1864.
* * * * * * * * * *
IV. The army gun-boats Reno and Shrapnel, with their officers and crews, are hereby attached to the command of Col. T. J. C. Amory, commanding Sub-District of New Berne. Reports and returns will be made accordingly.
* * * * * * * * * *
VI. The sub-district heretofore known as the Sub-District of the Pamlico, with headquarters at Washington, N. C., is hereby discontinued from this date. All orders and regulations applying to that sub-district are hereby annulled. The Twenty-first Connecticut Volunteers and Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers, having been ordered to Fort Monroe, Va., will be dropped from the returns. The two companies of the Fifth Rhode Island Artillery, recently serving in that sub-district, are hereby assigned to the Sub-District of New Berne. The officers of the general staff lately serving in that sub-district will report to the chiefs of their various staff departments for assignment to duty.
VII. The command at Hatteras Inlet is hereby attached to the Sub-District of New Berne, Col. Thomas J. C. Amory, Seventeenth Massachusetts Volunteers, commanding. Reports and returns will be made accordingly.
* * * * * * * * * *
By command of Brig. Gen. I. N. Palmer:
J. A. JUDSON,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
-----
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXXVI/2 [S# 68]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, FROM MAY 1, 1864, TO MAY 19, 1864.(*)--#2
PECIAL ORDERS No. 8.
HDQRS. DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N. C., May 3, 1864.
* * * * * * * * * *
IV. Col. Thomas J. C. Amory, Seventeenth Massachusetts Volunteers, is hereby relieved from the command of the Sub-District of New Berne, and will report for orders to Brig. Gen. Edward Harland, U.S. Volunteers.
V. Brig. Gen. Edward Harland, U.S. Volunteers, is hereby assigned to the command of the Sub-District of New Berne, vice Colonel Amory, relieved.
* * * * * * * * * *
By command of Brig. Gen. I. N. Palmer:
J. A. JUDSON,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
-----
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXXVI/2 [S# 68]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, FROM MAY 1, 1864, TO MAY 19, 1864.(*)--#5
FORT GASTON SIGNAL STATION,
May 5, 1864--9.30 a.m.
Colonel AMORY:
Courier from Evans' Mill reports the enemy driving our pickets at 7.30. Artillery firing is heard in that direction at this hour, 9.30. I have sent to the front to ascertain more.
McCHESNEY,
Colonel.
------------
FORT GASTON, May 5, 1864--9.45 a.m.
Colonel AMORY,
New Berne:
The commanding officer at Evans' Mill reports the enemy getting in his rear. Have ordered him to fall back. A force of the enemy has gone toward the railroad.
MCCHESNEY,
Colonel.
-----
FORT GASTON SIGNAL STATION,
May 5, 1864--11 a.m.
Captain POTTER,
Commanding Fort Spinola:
Keep a strict lookout on your front, and have everything in readiness. Our pickets have been driven in from Evans' Mill. Do not fire on the company coming from Evans' Mill.
By order of Colonel Amory:
F. H. FAILEY,
In charge of Station.
-----
FORT GASTON SIGNAL STATION,
May 5, 1864--11.20 a.m.
General HARLAND:
Captain Graham from Evans' Mill reports our force at that place retreating this way. The enemy passed on toward Croatan, which has probably been attacked ere this.
AMORY,
Colonel.
-----
FORT GASTON, May 6, 1864--5.15 p.m.
Colonel AMORY,
Commanding, New Berne:
Captain Graham has just returned to camp, and reports that he went in sight of Evans' Mill; that he saw the rear guard of the enemy; that they appeared to be in full retreat. A small force of the enemy appeared above Brice's Creek. We have given them some shells, and I think they are satisfied. Captain Ransom has been sent to town.
McCHESNEY,
Colonel.
-----
continued
O.R.--SERIES I--VOLUME XL/2 [S# 81]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, FROM JUNE 13, 1864, TO JULY 4, 1864.--#20
SPECIAL ORDERS No. 63.
HDQRS. DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N. C., June 27, 1864.
I. Col. T. J. C. Amory, Seventeenth Massachusetts Volunteers, is assigned to the command of the Sub-District of Beaufort, relieving Col. J. Jourdan, One hundred and fifty-eighth New York Volunteers, who will report to Colonel Amory for orders.
II. The commanding general takes this opportunity of expressing to Colonel Jourdan his high appreciation of the admirable manner in which he has conducted the affairs in his sub-district during his command of the same.
* * * * * * * * * *
By command of Brig. Gen. I. N. Palmer:
G. F. WARD, JR.,
Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.
----------------------------------------
O.R.--SERIES I--VOLUME XL/3 [S# 82]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, FROM JULY 5, 1864, TO JULY 31, 1864.(*)--#2
GENERAL ORDERS No. 38.
HDQRS. DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N. C., July 5, 1864.
Col. Thomas J. C. Amory, Seventeenth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, having been assigned to the command of the Sub-District of Beaufort, relieving Col. J. Jourdan, One hundred and fifty-eighth New York Volunteer Infantry, he will be obeyed and respected accordingly. The commanding general takes this occasion to tender his thanks to Colonel Jourdan for the energy and ability exhibited by him while in command of the sub-district.
By command of Brig. Gen. I. N. Palmer:
J. A. JUDSON,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
----------------------------------------------
O.R.--SERIES I--VOLUME XL/3 [S# 82]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, FROM JULY 5, 1864, TO JULY 31, 1864.(*)--#4
SPECIAL ORDERS No. 74.
HDQRS. DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N. C., July 8, 1864.
* * * * * * * * * *
VI. Col. Thomas J. C. Amory, commanding Sub-District of Beaufort, will send four companies of the Ninth Vermont Volunteers under command of either the lieutenant-colonel or major, to report for duty to Brigadier-General Harland, commanding Sub-District of New Berne. All camp and garrison equipage will be taken. The quartermaster's department will furnish the necessary transportation.
* * * * * * * * * *
By command of Brig. Gen. I. N. Palmer:
J. A. JUDSON,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
-----------------------------------
NOTE: Thomas J. C. Amroy is a Captain, U.S. Seventh Infantry at the beginning of the A.C.W.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
O.R.--SERIES III--VOLUME I [S# 122]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, REPORTS, AND RETURNS OF THE UNION AUTHORITIES FROM NOVEMBER 1, 1860, TO MARCH 31, 1862.(*)--#18
XECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
Boston, Mass., August 22, 1861.
Major-General MCCLELLAN, U.S. Army:
GENERAL: I have the duty to inform you that, having sent eleven volunteer regiments for three years, we have arranged to forward before the end of this week five more regiments, not all of them up to the maximum army size. We have hitherto required the full maximum of 101 men to each company. Some of these five regiments will exceed the minimum and approximate the maximum, and others will not quite equal the minimum size, but we obey the recent order and send them as they are, intending on our part to recruit men hereafter in order to fill the companies to the proper standard.
I beg specially to call your attention to the fact that we send our Seventeenth Regiment without a colonel. It is made up from the county of Essex, which has furnished more soldiers in proportion than any other within my knowledge. It is entitled to be well commanded, but I have no militia officer who is available, and as yet, in my opinion, just what the regiment is entitled to as a commander. I have in vain besought the Secretary of War, General Scott, and the Adjutant-General to let me have an Army officer--naming Capt. T. J. C. Amory, of the U. S. Army, Seventh Infantry, a native of Boston, now here in the general recruiting service, who might be replaced by some other person of less general capacity and experience.
I have sent the regiment without a colonel and under a lieutenant-colonel. If a furlough had been granted to Captain Amory I should have commissioned him, and he would have been able to instruct the other officers, put the regiment into army trim, and when recalled to his company, if recalled, he may be able to leave behind a lieutenant-colonel educated to take the command.
I have the honor to be, your obedient servant.
JOHN A. ANDREW,
Governor of Massachusetts.
[Indorsement.]
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF the POTOMAC,
August 24, 1861.
Respectfully referred to the honorable Secretary of War, with the recommendation that the request of Governor Andrew be at once granted. I do not think it possible to employ our Army officers to more advantage than in commanding divisions, brigades, and regiments of new troops, particularly when it is remembered that we have almost none of the old troops at our disposal.
GEO. B. McCLELLAN,
Major-General, U. S. Army, Commanding.
-----
continued
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, FROM JUNE 13, 1864, TO JULY 4, 1864.--#20
SPECIAL ORDERS No. 63.
HDQRS. DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N. C., June 27, 1864.
I. Col. T. J. C. Amory, Seventeenth Massachusetts Volunteers, is assigned to the command of the Sub-District of Beaufort, relieving Col. J. Jourdan, One hundred and fifty-eighth New York Volunteers, who will report to Colonel Amory for orders.
II. The commanding general takes this opportunity of expressing to Colonel Jourdan his high appreciation of the admirable manner in which he has conducted the affairs in his sub-district during his command of the same.
* * * * * * * * * *
By command of Brig. Gen. I. N. Palmer:
G. F. WARD, JR.,
Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.
----------------------------------------
O.R.--SERIES I--VOLUME XL/3 [S# 82]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, FROM JULY 5, 1864, TO JULY 31, 1864.(*)--#2
GENERAL ORDERS No. 38.
HDQRS. DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N. C., July 5, 1864.
Col. Thomas J. C. Amory, Seventeenth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, having been assigned to the command of the Sub-District of Beaufort, relieving Col. J. Jourdan, One hundred and fifty-eighth New York Volunteer Infantry, he will be obeyed and respected accordingly. The commanding general takes this occasion to tender his thanks to Colonel Jourdan for the energy and ability exhibited by him while in command of the sub-district.
By command of Brig. Gen. I. N. Palmer:
J. A. JUDSON,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
----------------------------------------------
O.R.--SERIES I--VOLUME XL/3 [S# 82]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, FROM JULY 5, 1864, TO JULY 31, 1864.(*)--#4
SPECIAL ORDERS No. 74.
HDQRS. DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N. C., July 8, 1864.
* * * * * * * * * *
VI. Col. Thomas J. C. Amory, commanding Sub-District of Beaufort, will send four companies of the Ninth Vermont Volunteers under command of either the lieutenant-colonel or major, to report for duty to Brigadier-General Harland, commanding Sub-District of New Berne. All camp and garrison equipage will be taken. The quartermaster's department will furnish the necessary transportation.
* * * * * * * * * *
By command of Brig. Gen. I. N. Palmer:
J. A. JUDSON,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
-----------------------------------
NOTE: Thomas J. C. Amroy is a Captain, U.S. Seventh Infantry at the beginning of the A.C.W.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
O.R.--SERIES III--VOLUME I [S# 122]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, REPORTS, AND RETURNS OF THE UNION AUTHORITIES FROM NOVEMBER 1, 1860, TO MARCH 31, 1862.(*)--#18
XECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
Boston, Mass., August 22, 1861.
Major-General MCCLELLAN, U.S. Army:
GENERAL: I have the duty to inform you that, having sent eleven volunteer regiments for three years, we have arranged to forward before the end of this week five more regiments, not all of them up to the maximum army size. We have hitherto required the full maximum of 101 men to each company. Some of these five regiments will exceed the minimum and approximate the maximum, and others will not quite equal the minimum size, but we obey the recent order and send them as they are, intending on our part to recruit men hereafter in order to fill the companies to the proper standard.
I beg specially to call your attention to the fact that we send our Seventeenth Regiment without a colonel. It is made up from the county of Essex, which has furnished more soldiers in proportion than any other within my knowledge. It is entitled to be well commanded, but I have no militia officer who is available, and as yet, in my opinion, just what the regiment is entitled to as a commander. I have in vain besought the Secretary of War, General Scott, and the Adjutant-General to let me have an Army officer--naming Capt. T. J. C. Amory, of the U. S. Army, Seventh Infantry, a native of Boston, now here in the general recruiting service, who might be replaced by some other person of less general capacity and experience.
I have sent the regiment without a colonel and under a lieutenant-colonel. If a furlough had been granted to Captain Amory I should have commissioned him, and he would have been able to instruct the other officers, put the regiment into army trim, and when recalled to his company, if recalled, he may be able to leave behind a lieutenant-colonel educated to take the command.
I have the honor to be, your obedient servant.
JOHN A. ANDREW,
Governor of Massachusetts.
[Indorsement.]
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF the POTOMAC,
August 24, 1861.
Respectfully referred to the honorable Secretary of War, with the recommendation that the request of Governor Andrew be at once granted. I do not think it possible to employ our Army officers to more advantage than in commanding divisions, brigades, and regiments of new troops, particularly when it is remembered that we have almost none of the old troops at our disposal.
GEO. B. McCLELLAN,
Major-General, U. S. Army, Commanding.
-----
continued
Dyer's Compendium, Pt. 1 (Campaigns etc.)
Alphabetical Index to Commanders of the Various Military Divisions, Departments, Armies, Army
Name Brigade Division, District. Etc. Corps Army or Dept.
Amory, T. J.C. First, First, North Carolina.
Amory's, North Carolina.
First, First, Eighteenth, North Carolina.
First, Eighteenth, North Carolina.
District Beaufort, N.C., Eighteenth, North Carolina.
Sub. Dist. Beaufort, N.C., Va. and N. C.
Defences New Berne, N.C., Va. and N. C.
========================================================
Dyer's Compendium, Pt. 1 (Campaigns etc.)
Eastern Departments and Armies
Eighteenth Army Corps
SUB DISTRICT OF BEAUFORT.—COMMANDERS.
T. J. C. Amory Col. 17th Mass. Infy Aug. 1, 1863, to Aug. 14, 1863.
C. A. Heckman Brigadier General Aug. 14, 1863, to Oct. 11, 1863.
James Jourdan Col. 158th N.Y. Infy Oct. 11, 1863, to June 27, 1864.
T. J. C. Amory Col. 17th Mass. Infy June 27, 1864, to Oct. 7, 1864.
James Stewart, Jr Col. 9th N.J. Infy Oct. 7, 1864, to Jan. 31, 1865.
--------------------
DEFENCES OF NEWBERNE.—COMMANDERS.
C. A. Heckman Brigadier General Aug. 1, 1863, to Aug. 14, 1863.
I. N.C. Palmer Brigadier General Aug. 14, 1863, to Oct. 7, 1863.
T. J. C. Amory Col. 17th Mass. Infy Oct. 7, 1863, to Nov. 7, 1863.
I. N.C. Palmer Brigadier General Nov. 7, 1863, to Jan. 15, 1864.
T. J. C. Amory Col. 17th Mass. Infy Jan. 15, 1864, to July 27, 1864.
Edward Harland Brigadier General July 27, 1864, to Jan. 31, 1865.
-------------------------------------
Amory, Thomas Jonathan Coffin - Col., 17th Regt. Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry
Brevet Brig. Gen. U.S.V. October 1 1864
------------------------------------------------------------
M. E. Wolf
Alphabetical Index to Commanders of the Various Military Divisions, Departments, Armies, Army
Name Brigade Division, District. Etc. Corps Army or Dept.
Amory, T. J.C. First, First, North Carolina.
Amory's, North Carolina.
First, First, Eighteenth, North Carolina.
First, Eighteenth, North Carolina.
District Beaufort, N.C., Eighteenth, North Carolina.
Sub. Dist. Beaufort, N.C., Va. and N. C.
Defences New Berne, N.C., Va. and N. C.
========================================================
Dyer's Compendium, Pt. 1 (Campaigns etc.)
Eastern Departments and Armies
Eighteenth Army Corps
SUB DISTRICT OF BEAUFORT.—COMMANDERS.
T. J. C. Amory Col. 17th Mass. Infy Aug. 1, 1863, to Aug. 14, 1863.
C. A. Heckman Brigadier General Aug. 14, 1863, to Oct. 11, 1863.
James Jourdan Col. 158th N.Y. Infy Oct. 11, 1863, to June 27, 1864.
T. J. C. Amory Col. 17th Mass. Infy June 27, 1864, to Oct. 7, 1864.
James Stewart, Jr Col. 9th N.J. Infy Oct. 7, 1864, to Jan. 31, 1865.
--------------------
DEFENCES OF NEWBERNE.—COMMANDERS.
C. A. Heckman Brigadier General Aug. 1, 1863, to Aug. 14, 1863.
I. N.C. Palmer Brigadier General Aug. 14, 1863, to Oct. 7, 1863.
T. J. C. Amory Col. 17th Mass. Infy Oct. 7, 1863, to Nov. 7, 1863.
I. N.C. Palmer Brigadier General Nov. 7, 1863, to Jan. 15, 1864.
T. J. C. Amory Col. 17th Mass. Infy Jan. 15, 1864, to July 27, 1864.
Edward Harland Brigadier General July 27, 1864, to Jan. 31, 1865.
-------------------------------------
Amory, Thomas Jonathan Coffin - Col., 17th Regt. Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry
Brevet Brig. Gen. U.S.V. October 1 1864
------------------------------------------------------------
M. E. Wolf
Dyer's Compendium, Pt. 3 (Regimental Histories)
MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEERS.
17th REGIMENT INFANTRY.
Organized at Lynnfield July 22, 1861. Left State for Baltimore, Md., August 23. Attached to Dix's Command, Baltimore, Md., to March, 1862. Foster's 1st Brigade, Burnside's Expeditionary Corps, to April, 1862. 1st Brigade, 1st Division, Dept. of North Carolina, to December, 1862. Amory's Brigade, Dept. of North Carolina, to January, 1863. 1st Brigade, 1st Division, 18th Army Corps, Dept. of North Carolina, to July, 1863, Defences of New Berne, N. C., Dept. of Virginia and North Carolina, to July, 1864. Sub-District of Beaufort, N. C., Dept. of Virginia and North Carolina, to January, 1865. Sub-District of Beaufort, N. C., Dept. of North Carolina, to March, 1865. 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division, District of Beaufort, N. C, Dept. of North Carolina, to March, 1865. 1st Brigade, Division District of Beaufort, to April, 1865. 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division, 23rd Army Corps, to July, 1865.
SERVICE.--Duty at Baltimore, Md., till March, 1862. Ordered to New Berne, N. C., March 12, and duty there till December. Reconnoissance toward Trenton May 15-16. Trenton Bridge May 15. Trenton and Pollocksville Road May 22 (Co. "I"). Expedition to Trenton and Pollocksville July 24-28. Demonstration on New Berne November 11. Foster's Expedition to Goldsboro December 11-20. Kinston December 14. Whitehall December 16. Goldsboro December 17. Provost duty at and near New Berne till April, 1863. March to relief of Washington, N. C., April 7-10. Blount's Creek April 9. Expedition to Washington April 17-19. Expedition toward Kinston April 27-May 1. Wise's Cross Roads and Dover Road April 28. Expedition to Thenton July 4-8. Quaker Bridge July 6. Raid on Weldon July 25-August 1. Duty at New Berne till February, 1864. Operations about New Berne against Whiting January 18-February 10, 1864. Skirmishes at Beech Creek and Batchelor's Creek February 1-3. Expedition to Washington April 18-22. Washington April 27-28. Duty at New Berne and vicinity till July 27, and at Newport Barracks till September 23. Veterans on furlough till November 10. Duty at Newport Barracks November 20, 1864, to March 4, 1865. Moved to Core Creek. Battle of Wise's Forks March 8-10, 1865. Occupation of Kinston March 15. Occupation of Goldsboro March 21. Advance on Raleigh April 9-14. Occupation of Raleigh April 14. Duty at Greensboro May 5-July 11. Mustered out at Greensboro, N. C., July 11, 1865.
Regiment lost during service 21 Enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 4 Officers and 147 Enlisted men by disease. Total 172.
MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEERS.
17th REGIMENT INFANTRY.
Organized at Lynnfield July 22, 1861. Left State for Baltimore, Md., August 23. Attached to Dix's Command, Baltimore, Md., to March, 1862. Foster's 1st Brigade, Burnside's Expeditionary Corps, to April, 1862. 1st Brigade, 1st Division, Dept. of North Carolina, to December, 1862. Amory's Brigade, Dept. of North Carolina, to January, 1863. 1st Brigade, 1st Division, 18th Army Corps, Dept. of North Carolina, to July, 1863, Defences of New Berne, N. C., Dept. of Virginia and North Carolina, to July, 1864. Sub-District of Beaufort, N. C., Dept. of Virginia and North Carolina, to January, 1865. Sub-District of Beaufort, N. C., Dept. of North Carolina, to March, 1865. 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division, District of Beaufort, N. C, Dept. of North Carolina, to March, 1865. 1st Brigade, Division District of Beaufort, to April, 1865. 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division, 23rd Army Corps, to July, 1865.
SERVICE.--Duty at Baltimore, Md., till March, 1862. Ordered to New Berne, N. C., March 12, and duty there till December. Reconnoissance toward Trenton May 15-16. Trenton Bridge May 15. Trenton and Pollocksville Road May 22 (Co. "I"). Expedition to Trenton and Pollocksville July 24-28. Demonstration on New Berne November 11. Foster's Expedition to Goldsboro December 11-20. Kinston December 14. Whitehall December 16. Goldsboro December 17. Provost duty at and near New Berne till April, 1863. March to relief of Washington, N. C., April 7-10. Blount's Creek April 9. Expedition to Washington April 17-19. Expedition toward Kinston April 27-May 1. Wise's Cross Roads and Dover Road April 28. Expedition to Thenton July 4-8. Quaker Bridge July 6. Raid on Weldon July 25-August 1. Duty at New Berne till February, 1864. Operations about New Berne against Whiting January 18-February 10, 1864. Skirmishes at Beech Creek and Batchelor's Creek February 1-3. Expedition to Washington April 18-22. Washington April 27-28. Duty at New Berne and vicinity till July 27, and at Newport Barracks till September 23. Veterans on furlough till November 10. Duty at Newport Barracks November 20, 1864, to March 4, 1865. Moved to Core Creek. Battle of Wise's Forks March 8-10, 1865. Occupation of Kinston March 15. Occupation of Goldsboro March 21. Advance on Raleigh April 9-14. Occupation of Raleigh April 14. Duty at Greensboro May 5-July 11. Mustered out at Greensboro, N. C., July 11, 1865.
Regiment lost during service 21 Enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 4 Officers and 147 Enlisted men by disease. Total 172.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer (Sorrel)
Chapter V—Our National Hymn
Singing among the troops—Van Dorn—Longstreet—Smith and "I Puritani" for National hymn—Surgeon Francis Sorrel, C. S. A.—Life in Richmond—Troops passing through—Toombs and his brigade—General D. H. Hill.
[excerpt]
Being quite without notes I had almost omitted a jotting about one of Longstreet's brigadiers at Centerville—a marked and peculiar character. This was General D. H. Hill, not long with us. He was soon made major-general and sent elsewhere to command. Hill was a small, delicate man, rather bent, and cursed with dyspepsia, which seemed to give color to his whole being. He was out of West Point with a good class number, was a capable, well-read soldier, and positively about the bravest man ever seen. He seemed not to know peril and was utterly indifferent to bullets and shell, but with all these qualities was not successful. His backbone seemed a trifle weak. He would take his men into battle, fight furiously for some time and then something weakened about him. Unless there was some strong character near by, like Longstreet, for instance, on whom he leaned, his attack would be apt to fail and his first efforts go unrewarded. His speech was bitter, although a most devout Presbyterian elder. He had resigned long before from the United States Army, and had a large school in North Carolina. He was accustomed to sneer at cavalry, and once went so far as to say he had "yet to see a dead man with spurs on." It may be imagined what Stuart's gallant troopers thought of him. But Hill had brains, and rose. He was later on sent West to command in Bragg's army, was promoted to lieutenant-general, and is said to have failed grievously at Chickamauga, for which Bragg suspended him from command; and he was not, I think, restored to any service in the field. He was really a good man, but of sharp prejudice and intemperate language. If there was one department of the army well administered amid almost impossibilities, requiring most ingenious and inventive resources, it was the Ordnance, under Colonel Gorgas. Hill took a hatred to it because a gun burst in action, and his imputations on the faith of the department and its abilities were quite unworthy of him or of any good soldier.
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Confederate Military History, Vol. 1
Officers Of Civil And Military Organizations.
Josiah Gorgas, distinguished as chief of ordnance of the Confederate States, was born in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, July 1, 1818. He was graduated at West Point as No. 6 in the class of 1841, and was assigned to the ordnance department of the United States army. In 1845-46 he was in Europe on leave of absence for the study of his profession in foreign lands, and in the year following his return he went into active service in the Mexican war. March 3, 1847, he was promoted first-lieu-tenant. He served with distinction in the siege of Vera Cruz and was subsequently in charge of the ordnance depot at that point. On the return of peace he served as assistant ordnance officer at various arsenals until placed in command of Mt. Vernon arsenal, Alabama, in 1853. In December of that year he was married to the daughter of ex-Governor Gayle, of Mobile. He was promoted captain in 1855, transferred to Kennebec (Maine) arsenal in 1856, commanded the Charleston (S. C.) arsenal until 1860, and was then transferred to Pennsylvania. In the latter year he served as a member of the ordnance board. Resigning in April, 1861, he removed with his family to Alabama, and received from President Davis the appointment of chief of ordnance of the Confederate States, then "the most important scientific and administrative office in the government." Fully appreciating the great poverty of the South in this department, he promptly sent an efficient officer to Europe to procure arms, located arsenals, and made immediate preparation for the manufacture of powder and saltpeter, and the development of lead and copper mines, also preparing elaborate papers showing the proper distribution of heavy armament for effective defense against invasion. At an early date he insisted upon the use of cotton and tobacco to procure military supplies, and arranged for an effective service by blockade runners. Out of his suggestion and practical action grew the bureau of foreign supplies and the mining and nitre bureau. He displayed remarkable ability in the selection of officials for the work under his control, and impressed all those brought into intercourse with him, as an executive officer of remarkable energy and ability, though his modesty rendered him little known to the general public. "He created the ordnance department out of nothing," was the brief and comprehensive verdict of General J. E. Johnston. After the practical dissolution of the Confederate government at Charlotte, N. C., in the spring of 1865, he returned to Alabama, and promptly turned his activity into industrial channels as superintendent of the Briar-field iron works. Soon afterward he was appointed headmaster and later vice-chancellor of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee. In 1877 he became president of the University of Alabama, but after a brief tenure was compelled by failing health to resign. The trustees desiring his continued presence, he accepted the office of librarian, and was thus connected with the university until his death, May 15, 1883.
continued
Southern Historical Society Papers.
Vol. II. Richmond, Virginia, July, 1876. No. 1.
Resources Of The Confederacy In February, 1865.
War Office, February 7, 1865.
Circular.
The Secretary of War desires that you will prepare at once, for his information, a succinct but clear statement of the means and resources you have on hand for carrying on the business of your bureau, and your ability for carrying it on, what impediments exist, and what is necessary for that purpose. Respectfully,
(Signed) R.G.H. Kean,
Chief of Bureau of War.
Brigadier General J. Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance.
-----
REPORT OF GENERAL J. GORGAS, CHIEF OF ORDNANCE.
Bureau of Ordnance, Richmond, February 9th, 1865.
To: Honorable John Cabell Breckenridge, Secretary of War.
Sir -- In reply to your circular of 7th February (received yesterday) I have the honor to enclose copies of "Annual Report," marked No. 1, "Special Report of December 31,1864," No. 2, and "Report of Operatives, Whites and Slaves, needed," No. 3.
No. 2 contains all the information as to the "ability" and "means and resources" of the Bureau.
As to "impediments", I know of none which I cannot overcome, except the persistent and continuous interference with our workmen on account of military operations. If this source of disorganization and weakness be not finally disposed of, there is no possibility of sustaining the operations of the Bureau.
The "Special Report" of December 31st, No. 2, shows that 800 men must be added to our force of mechanics at the armories; and Report No. 3 shows that about 3,691 men liable to military duty, and about 2,245 slaves, are required for the whole operations of the Bureau. These are minimum figures. If these men and slaves can be permanently attached to this Bureau, and an adequate force be attached in the same manner to the Nitre and Mining Bureau, I will answer for the supply of ordnance and ordnance stores to the army. It will, however, be necessary that the Commissary and Quartermaster Departments cooperate in so far as the feeding and clothing of this force is concerned. This is rendered necessary because these departments enjoy almost a monopoly of the resources for food and clothing in the country.
There is wanted, therefore, for home production --
1st. A force of workmen adequate to the production of a minimum supply of ordnance and ordnance stores for the army. This force is shown in paper No. 3.
2d. That this force should be permanently attached to the Bureau, and in no way liable to be interfered with by any one.
d. That a minimum supply of food and clothing should be furnished by the Subsistence and Quartermaster Departments.
The "impediments" to the importation of such supplies as must still come from abroad, must be overcome, as they arise, by individual energy and resource.
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
(Signed) J. Gorgas, Brigadier General, Chief of Ordnance.
copy.)
ANNUAL REPORT NO.1.
Ordnance Office, Richmond, Va., October 13, 1864.
To: Honorable J. A. Seddon, Secretary of War:
I have the honor to present the following general view of the operations of my department for the year ending September 30, and of its present condition and prospects. I refer briefly to the more important branches of supply:
Small Arms -- The chief supply has been from importations, which, since the loss of the vessels belonging to this Bureau, have been very light, not to exceed say on this side of the Mississippi 30,000 during the year, included in this report. The number manufactured is about 20,000, instead of 50 to 60,000, as I anticipated. The reduced product is due to the interference of military operations, both of the enemy and our own. The captures have been about 45,000, and the losses about 30,000, leaving a gain of 15,000. The stock of arms in the arsenals is about the same as it was one year ago. If we place the diminution of our military force at 50,000 men (including reserves, local forces, militia, &c.), the aggregate of these figures (30,000 imported +20,000 made +15,000 captured +50,000 less troops = 115,000) will represent the waste of arms during the year. About 20,000 are now on the way from Europe, and 50,000 more have been ordered purchased. A further purchase of at least 50,000 will be necessary for the coming year, unless the operations of the armories can be placed on a permanent footing by declaring all skilled mechanics engaged on them absolutely exempt from military duty, attaching them permanently to the Ordnance Department, and encouraging in every way the growth of this class of workmen. I cannot lay too much stress on the necessity for legislative action on this point, in order to give assurance to the workmen.
Powder -- The mechanical means of the Bureau for the production of powder are ample for a war conducted on any scale, and are so arranged as to be almost beyond casualty. The supply depends alone on that of saltpeter and sulphur, and for the present on the former. While we must still depend on importation as our chief supply of nitre, it will be indispensable that the efforts of the Nitre and Mining Bureau be sustained, in order that the home production may be assured. A certain force of white and black labor ought to be permanently assigned to this duty of procuring nitre and sulphur and the other operations of the Nitre and Mining Bureau.
Lead -- The expenditure of small arm ammunition has been very heavy, and has exhausted all our efforts to accumulate a supply of this precious material. I feel more uneasiness on this point than on all others. The requisitions have, however, been fully met, through the energy of the Nitre and Mining Bureau and our own exertions in gleaning the battlefields.
Artillery -- The supply of field artillery has been adequate to thedemand, and the quality very good. The quality of the rifled ammunition is susceptible of improvement. From deficiency in the supply of copper the manufacture of bronze field pieces is suspended, and an iron gun, tightly banded, substituted for the 12 pounder Napoleon, which gives entire satisfaction. Harness and equipments have not been deficient.
Cavalry -- Good cavalry arms are much needed. Here again the removal of an armory (for military reasons) and the want of workmen have crippled the Bureau.
The seacoast defences have been supplied with a large number of 10 and 8 inch columbiads and some heavy rifled and banded guns. The want of transportation for iron and coal from Selma to Macon has paralyzed the operations of the foundry for heavy guns established at Macon.
I regret, too, that military operations about Richmond have prevented the carting of 12 inch guns, the preparations for which are now completed. A few guns of this calibre at Wilmington would have been of inestimable advantage in defence against monitors.
Mechanics, Miners, Artisans, &c. -- While the army has been well supplied during the past year, there are causes operating which will render future results less satisfactory. The chief of these is the diminution of skilled workmen. Without statistics I can only assure you that the number and quality of workmen have greatly fallen off since the middle of the year 1863. While two years ago it was difficult to get machinery, we have now a surplus, and can not get workmen to run it. This opens a most melancholy prospect, and indicates an evil that cannot be too soon corrected. While we are importing workmen by twos, they are leaving us by the hundred. I formerly reported to you that from Christmas, 1863, to May, 1864, fifty five men left our (Government) workshop in Richmond. This may give a glimpse of the exodus.
Nor is it that this class of men is disaffected or unpatriotic that they leave the country. When called on they have fought, and fought well. Out of one battalion of say 200 workmen from the armory here, four were killed and died of their wounds, and some eight or ten wounded in a skirmish. But workmen will not fight and work both. This must be accepted as settled in their minds.
I trust the policy of the War Department may be modified towards these men, for the sake of results as to home production, and that legislative action will secure to these men exemption from military service while in the employ of the Government.
I have heretofore urged that this Bureau and the Nitre and Mining Bureau should have a definite number of mechanics, miners and other skilled labor assigned to them, and that the usual bimonthly returns be rendered by these Bureaux for them -- thus placing such force exclusively under the control of the Chiefs of those Bureaus. Considering the vital nature of the operations confided to these two Bureaus, I again urge this proposition.
Respectfully, your obedient servant,
(Signed) J. Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance.
continued
Vol. II. Richmond, Virginia, July, 1876. No. 1.
Resources Of The Confederacy In February, 1865.
War Office, February 7, 1865.
Circular.
The Secretary of War desires that you will prepare at once, for his information, a succinct but clear statement of the means and resources you have on hand for carrying on the business of your bureau, and your ability for carrying it on, what impediments exist, and what is necessary for that purpose. Respectfully,
(Signed) R.G.H. Kean,
Chief of Bureau of War.
Brigadier General J. Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance.
-----
REPORT OF GENERAL J. GORGAS, CHIEF OF ORDNANCE.
Bureau of Ordnance, Richmond, February 9th, 1865.
To: Honorable John Cabell Breckenridge, Secretary of War.
Sir -- In reply to your circular of 7th February (received yesterday) I have the honor to enclose copies of "Annual Report," marked No. 1, "Special Report of December 31,1864," No. 2, and "Report of Operatives, Whites and Slaves, needed," No. 3.
No. 2 contains all the information as to the "ability" and "means and resources" of the Bureau.
As to "impediments", I know of none which I cannot overcome, except the persistent and continuous interference with our workmen on account of military operations. If this source of disorganization and weakness be not finally disposed of, there is no possibility of sustaining the operations of the Bureau.
The "Special Report" of December 31st, No. 2, shows that 800 men must be added to our force of mechanics at the armories; and Report No. 3 shows that about 3,691 men liable to military duty, and about 2,245 slaves, are required for the whole operations of the Bureau. These are minimum figures. If these men and slaves can be permanently attached to this Bureau, and an adequate force be attached in the same manner to the Nitre and Mining Bureau, I will answer for the supply of ordnance and ordnance stores to the army. It will, however, be necessary that the Commissary and Quartermaster Departments cooperate in so far as the feeding and clothing of this force is concerned. This is rendered necessary because these departments enjoy almost a monopoly of the resources for food and clothing in the country.
There is wanted, therefore, for home production --
1st. A force of workmen adequate to the production of a minimum supply of ordnance and ordnance stores for the army. This force is shown in paper No. 3.
2d. That this force should be permanently attached to the Bureau, and in no way liable to be interfered with by any one.
d. That a minimum supply of food and clothing should be furnished by the Subsistence and Quartermaster Departments.
The "impediments" to the importation of such supplies as must still come from abroad, must be overcome, as they arise, by individual energy and resource.
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
(Signed) J. Gorgas, Brigadier General, Chief of Ordnance.
copy.)
ANNUAL REPORT NO.1.
Ordnance Office, Richmond, Va., October 13, 1864.
To: Honorable J. A. Seddon, Secretary of War:
I have the honor to present the following general view of the operations of my department for the year ending September 30, and of its present condition and prospects. I refer briefly to the more important branches of supply:
Small Arms -- The chief supply has been from importations, which, since the loss of the vessels belonging to this Bureau, have been very light, not to exceed say on this side of the Mississippi 30,000 during the year, included in this report. The number manufactured is about 20,000, instead of 50 to 60,000, as I anticipated. The reduced product is due to the interference of military operations, both of the enemy and our own. The captures have been about 45,000, and the losses about 30,000, leaving a gain of 15,000. The stock of arms in the arsenals is about the same as it was one year ago. If we place the diminution of our military force at 50,000 men (including reserves, local forces, militia, &c.), the aggregate of these figures (30,000 imported +20,000 made +15,000 captured +50,000 less troops = 115,000) will represent the waste of arms during the year. About 20,000 are now on the way from Europe, and 50,000 more have been ordered purchased. A further purchase of at least 50,000 will be necessary for the coming year, unless the operations of the armories can be placed on a permanent footing by declaring all skilled mechanics engaged on them absolutely exempt from military duty, attaching them permanently to the Ordnance Department, and encouraging in every way the growth of this class of workmen. I cannot lay too much stress on the necessity for legislative action on this point, in order to give assurance to the workmen.
Powder -- The mechanical means of the Bureau for the production of powder are ample for a war conducted on any scale, and are so arranged as to be almost beyond casualty. The supply depends alone on that of saltpeter and sulphur, and for the present on the former. While we must still depend on importation as our chief supply of nitre, it will be indispensable that the efforts of the Nitre and Mining Bureau be sustained, in order that the home production may be assured. A certain force of white and black labor ought to be permanently assigned to this duty of procuring nitre and sulphur and the other operations of the Nitre and Mining Bureau.
Lead -- The expenditure of small arm ammunition has been very heavy, and has exhausted all our efforts to accumulate a supply of this precious material. I feel more uneasiness on this point than on all others. The requisitions have, however, been fully met, through the energy of the Nitre and Mining Bureau and our own exertions in gleaning the battlefields.
Artillery -- The supply of field artillery has been adequate to thedemand, and the quality very good. The quality of the rifled ammunition is susceptible of improvement. From deficiency in the supply of copper the manufacture of bronze field pieces is suspended, and an iron gun, tightly banded, substituted for the 12 pounder Napoleon, which gives entire satisfaction. Harness and equipments have not been deficient.
Cavalry -- Good cavalry arms are much needed. Here again the removal of an armory (for military reasons) and the want of workmen have crippled the Bureau.
The seacoast defences have been supplied with a large number of 10 and 8 inch columbiads and some heavy rifled and banded guns. The want of transportation for iron and coal from Selma to Macon has paralyzed the operations of the foundry for heavy guns established at Macon.
I regret, too, that military operations about Richmond have prevented the carting of 12 inch guns, the preparations for which are now completed. A few guns of this calibre at Wilmington would have been of inestimable advantage in defence against monitors.
Mechanics, Miners, Artisans, &c. -- While the army has been well supplied during the past year, there are causes operating which will render future results less satisfactory. The chief of these is the diminution of skilled workmen. Without statistics I can only assure you that the number and quality of workmen have greatly fallen off since the middle of the year 1863. While two years ago it was difficult to get machinery, we have now a surplus, and can not get workmen to run it. This opens a most melancholy prospect, and indicates an evil that cannot be too soon corrected. While we are importing workmen by twos, they are leaving us by the hundred. I formerly reported to you that from Christmas, 1863, to May, 1864, fifty five men left our (Government) workshop in Richmond. This may give a glimpse of the exodus.
Nor is it that this class of men is disaffected or unpatriotic that they leave the country. When called on they have fought, and fought well. Out of one battalion of say 200 workmen from the armory here, four were killed and died of their wounds, and some eight or ten wounded in a skirmish. But workmen will not fight and work both. This must be accepted as settled in their minds.
I trust the policy of the War Department may be modified towards these men, for the sake of results as to home production, and that legislative action will secure to these men exemption from military service while in the employ of the Government.
I have heretofore urged that this Bureau and the Nitre and Mining Bureau should have a definite number of mechanics, miners and other skilled labor assigned to them, and that the usual bimonthly returns be rendered by these Bureaux for them -- thus placing such force exclusively under the control of the Chiefs of those Bureaus. Considering the vital nature of the operations confided to these two Bureaus, I again urge this proposition.
Respectfully, your obedient servant,
(Signed) J. Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance.
continued
Southern Historical Society Papers.
Vol. II. Richmond, Virginia, July, 1876. No. 1.
Resources Of The Confederacy In February, 1865.
continued:
SPECIAL REPORT NO. 2.
C.S.A. War Department,
Ordnance Bureau,
Richmond, December 31,1864.
To: Honorable James A. Seddon, Secretary of War:
Sir -- In reply to your enquiry for "information as to the means of supplying munitions of war," confining the answer to the munitions furnished by this Bureau to the Trans Mississippi, I have the honor to state
1st. As to arms --
There are enough arms on hand of a mixed character -- that is, arms most of which are not as good as those now in the hands of troops in the field - - to arm and equip some additional force. The returns of November, 1864, showed on hand at the various arsenals and depots --
Rifles of calibre 58 3,882
Rifles of calibre 54 2,709
Smoothbore muskets 69 3,564
All other infantry arms 10,004
Carbines 2,546
This amount can be probably increased by ten or twelve thousand by a vigorous system of collecting the arms scattered about through the country.
Importations -- We have hitherto had no difficulty in importing arms through the blockaded seaports. The total importations for the year have been
Rifles 39,798
Pistols 1,716
Carbines 4,740
The want of funds necessary to purchase has greatly limited the importations of the expiring year. There are probably not more than ten or twelve thousand on the Islands awaiting shipment.
Manufactured -- The number of arms manufactured and made up of parts derived from capture and other sources for the year ending November 30th, 1864, were:
Rifles, calibre 58 12,778
Carbines 5,354
Pistols 2,353
There is machinery enough under the control of this Bureau to manufacture 55,000 rifles and carbines per annum, provided a sufficient mechanical force be employed, as follows:
Richmond Armory 25,000 rifles, with 450 workmen.
Fayetteville " 10,000 " " 250 "
Columbia, S.C. Armory 4,000 " " 125 "
Athens, Ga. Armory 10,000 " " 250 "
Tallahassee, Ala. Armory 6,000 carbines, " 150 "
55,000 1,225
The proviso is the workmen, and these must be permanently attached to those establishments and excused from the performance of all military duty, except, perhaps, local guard duty. The number actually employed is about 425, about 300 less than were employed say twelve months since. Defection from service in the local forces and losses on the battlefield have thus greatly reduced our force of workmen. By General Order No. 82, over 700 men were placed in the ranks. Of these, perhaps, one half were competent mechanics, many of them valuable for the service of the armories.
The product could not at once be raised to the maximum figures above indicated, but could with the 800 additional workmen be so raised, allowing for the time it would take to teach and organize them.
For our cavalry arms we have chiefly to rely on importations, although pistols are being made at several points with success. Want of workmen alone prevents additional results.
Sabres can be produced in sufficient numbers and of pretty good quality by the detail of a very few workmen from the field.
2d. As to powder --
The manufacturing capacity at the disposal of the Bureau is ample for all purposes, viz:
Augusta Mills 5,000 lbs, per day.
Selma Mills 600 "
Raleigh Mills 600 "
Richmond Mills (in a few weeks) 1,500 "
Total 7,600 "
There is besides a private mill at Charlotte, North Carolina, and an excellent mill belonging to the Navy Department at Columbia, South Carolina. The products could be nearly doubled by running the mills day and night.
he quantity of small arms ammunition in the hands of the troops in the field is about eighty to ninety rounds to the man. The most obstinate and protracted battles, such as Chancellorsville and Gettysburg exhibit an expenditure of about twenty five rounds per man for the former battle and about thirty rounds per man for the latter. The quantity of small arms ammunition on hand at the several arsenals and depots shows an aggregate of 5,376,034 small arm cartridges on the 12th November.
There are 50,480 rounds of siege and seacoast projectiles and 133,962 rounds of field artillery ammunition on hand same date. No uneasiness is felt on this head, provided the supply of powder (dependent on saltpeter) is kept up. As to the means of keeping up the supply of saltpeter, and the date in reference to production and importation, I beg leave to refer you to the Nitre and Mining Bureau.
The chief detriment the operations of the Bureau has had has arisen from interference with its workmen for military purposes.
(Signed) J. Gorgas,
Brigadier General, Chief of Ordnance.
===============================
NO. 3.
C.S.A. War Department,
Ordnance Bureau,
Richmond, February 2d, 1866.
REPORT OF OPERATIONS (WHITE AND SLAVE) MADE
(copy)
To: Honorable J. A. Seddon, Secretary of War:
Sir -- In answer to the following extract of a resolution of the Senate of the 24th May, * * * "First: With information as to the number of white men between the ages of 18 and 45, and of the number of negroes who in addition to their own officers may be required for the necessary employment and the proper discharge of the functions of the department of * * the Ordnance Bureau * * ," I have the honor to submit that there were borne on the rolls of this department on the 1st October, 1864, 3,433 white men, between the ages of 18 and 45, including contractors and their employees. General Order No. 82 reduced this number to 2,691, turning over to the enrolling officers 742. Of this number thus turned over, full one half were mechanics of the classes now needed to push our work. There must be returned say 400. This will leave the working force at the arsenals less by about 342 men than on the 1st of October, but will suffice. In addition, in order to raise the product of our armories in time to 55,000 arms per annum, 800 good mechanics must be added -- say that three fourths of them will be white men, between the ages of 18 and 45, and the total required thus will be --
Number in workshops December 31. 2,691
Number of them taken by General Order to be returned 400
Number to be added for additional product of arms 600
3,961
This would give us a total of 258 more workmen than we had October 1, 1864, but would raise the product of arms from 20,000 to 55,000 (in time). The number of negroes on the rolls of the department during the past year is 830; add to them, say 1,000 in the employ of contractors, of which there are no returns in the office, making 1,830 negroes. An addition of fifty per cent should be made to that part of the force employed at the arsenals, &c., in order that as much as possible may be done with labor of this description, making 1,245 as the number needed at these establishments. This estimate is reduced to the smallest figures with which the operations of the Bureau can be successfully carried on.
Recapitulation.
White men, between the ages of 18 and 45 (excepting officers) 3,691
Slaves 2,246
Very respectfully,
(Signed) J. Gorgas, Brigadier General, Chief of Ordnance.
=======================================================
continued
Vol. II. Richmond, Virginia, July, 1876. No. 1.
Resources Of The Confederacy In February, 1865.
continued:
SPECIAL REPORT NO. 2.
C.S.A. War Department,
Ordnance Bureau,
Richmond, December 31,1864.
To: Honorable James A. Seddon, Secretary of War:
Sir -- In reply to your enquiry for "information as to the means of supplying munitions of war," confining the answer to the munitions furnished by this Bureau to the Trans Mississippi, I have the honor to state
1st. As to arms --
There are enough arms on hand of a mixed character -- that is, arms most of which are not as good as those now in the hands of troops in the field - - to arm and equip some additional force. The returns of November, 1864, showed on hand at the various arsenals and depots --
Rifles of calibre 58 3,882
Rifles of calibre 54 2,709
Smoothbore muskets 69 3,564
All other infantry arms 10,004
Carbines 2,546
This amount can be probably increased by ten or twelve thousand by a vigorous system of collecting the arms scattered about through the country.
Importations -- We have hitherto had no difficulty in importing arms through the blockaded seaports. The total importations for the year have been
Rifles 39,798
Pistols 1,716
Carbines 4,740
The want of funds necessary to purchase has greatly limited the importations of the expiring year. There are probably not more than ten or twelve thousand on the Islands awaiting shipment.
Manufactured -- The number of arms manufactured and made up of parts derived from capture and other sources for the year ending November 30th, 1864, were:
Rifles, calibre 58 12,778
Carbines 5,354
Pistols 2,353
There is machinery enough under the control of this Bureau to manufacture 55,000 rifles and carbines per annum, provided a sufficient mechanical force be employed, as follows:
Richmond Armory 25,000 rifles, with 450 workmen.
Fayetteville " 10,000 " " 250 "
Columbia, S.C. Armory 4,000 " " 125 "
Athens, Ga. Armory 10,000 " " 250 "
Tallahassee, Ala. Armory 6,000 carbines, " 150 "
55,000 1,225
The proviso is the workmen, and these must be permanently attached to those establishments and excused from the performance of all military duty, except, perhaps, local guard duty. The number actually employed is about 425, about 300 less than were employed say twelve months since. Defection from service in the local forces and losses on the battlefield have thus greatly reduced our force of workmen. By General Order No. 82, over 700 men were placed in the ranks. Of these, perhaps, one half were competent mechanics, many of them valuable for the service of the armories.
The product could not at once be raised to the maximum figures above indicated, but could with the 800 additional workmen be so raised, allowing for the time it would take to teach and organize them.
For our cavalry arms we have chiefly to rely on importations, although pistols are being made at several points with success. Want of workmen alone prevents additional results.
Sabres can be produced in sufficient numbers and of pretty good quality by the detail of a very few workmen from the field.
2d. As to powder --
The manufacturing capacity at the disposal of the Bureau is ample for all purposes, viz:
Augusta Mills 5,000 lbs, per day.
Selma Mills 600 "
Raleigh Mills 600 "
Richmond Mills (in a few weeks) 1,500 "
Total 7,600 "
There is besides a private mill at Charlotte, North Carolina, and an excellent mill belonging to the Navy Department at Columbia, South Carolina. The products could be nearly doubled by running the mills day and night.
he quantity of small arms ammunition in the hands of the troops in the field is about eighty to ninety rounds to the man. The most obstinate and protracted battles, such as Chancellorsville and Gettysburg exhibit an expenditure of about twenty five rounds per man for the former battle and about thirty rounds per man for the latter. The quantity of small arms ammunition on hand at the several arsenals and depots shows an aggregate of 5,376,034 small arm cartridges on the 12th November.
There are 50,480 rounds of siege and seacoast projectiles and 133,962 rounds of field artillery ammunition on hand same date. No uneasiness is felt on this head, provided the supply of powder (dependent on saltpeter) is kept up. As to the means of keeping up the supply of saltpeter, and the date in reference to production and importation, I beg leave to refer you to the Nitre and Mining Bureau.
The chief detriment the operations of the Bureau has had has arisen from interference with its workmen for military purposes.
(Signed) J. Gorgas,
Brigadier General, Chief of Ordnance.
===============================
NO. 3.
C.S.A. War Department,
Ordnance Bureau,
Richmond, February 2d, 1866.
REPORT OF OPERATIONS (WHITE AND SLAVE) MADE
(copy)
To: Honorable J. A. Seddon, Secretary of War:
Sir -- In answer to the following extract of a resolution of the Senate of the 24th May, * * * "First: With information as to the number of white men between the ages of 18 and 45, and of the number of negroes who in addition to their own officers may be required for the necessary employment and the proper discharge of the functions of the department of * * the Ordnance Bureau * * ," I have the honor to submit that there were borne on the rolls of this department on the 1st October, 1864, 3,433 white men, between the ages of 18 and 45, including contractors and their employees. General Order No. 82 reduced this number to 2,691, turning over to the enrolling officers 742. Of this number thus turned over, full one half were mechanics of the classes now needed to push our work. There must be returned say 400. This will leave the working force at the arsenals less by about 342 men than on the 1st of October, but will suffice. In addition, in order to raise the product of our armories in time to 55,000 arms per annum, 800 good mechanics must be added -- say that three fourths of them will be white men, between the ages of 18 and 45, and the total required thus will be --
Number in workshops December 31. 2,691
Number of them taken by General Order to be returned 400
Number to be added for additional product of arms 600
3,961
This would give us a total of 258 more workmen than we had October 1, 1864, but would raise the product of arms from 20,000 to 55,000 (in time). The number of negroes on the rolls of the department during the past year is 830; add to them, say 1,000 in the employ of contractors, of which there are no returns in the office, making 1,830 negroes. An addition of fifty per cent should be made to that part of the force employed at the arsenals, &c., in order that as much as possible may be done with labor of this description, making 1,245 as the number needed at these establishments. This estimate is reduced to the smallest figures with which the operations of the Bureau can be successfully carried on.
Recapitulation.
White men, between the ages of 18 and 45 (excepting officers) 3,691
Slaves 2,246
Very respectfully,
(Signed) J. Gorgas, Brigadier General, Chief of Ordnance.
=======================================================
continued
outhern Historical Society Papers
Vol. VIII. Richmond, Virginia, January, 1880. No.1.
Explosive Or Poisoned Musket Or Rifle Balls ...
... Were They Authorized And Used By The Confederate States Army, Or By The United States Army During The Civil War? -- A Slander Refuted.
By Reverend Horace Edwin Hayden.
The following remarkable statement occurs as a note to the account of the battle of Gettysburg, on page 78, volume III, of "The Pictorial History of the Civil War in the United States of America" by Benson J. Lossing LL.D
Many, mostly young men, were maimed in every conceivable way, by every kind of weapon and missile, the most fiendish of which was an explosive and a poisoned bullet, represented in the engraving a little more than half the size of the originals, procured from the battlefield there by the writer. These were used by the Confederates. Whether any were ever used by the Nationals, the writer is not informed. One was made to explode in the body of the man, and the other to leave a deadly poison in him, whether the bullet lodged in or passed through him.
Figure A represents the explosive bullet. The perpendicular stem, with a piece of thin copper hollowed, and a head over it of bullet metal, fitted a cavity in the bullet proper below it, as seen in the engraving. In the bottom of the cavity was fulminating powder. When the bullet struck, the momentum would cause the copper in the outer disc to flatten, and allow the point of the stem to strike and explode the fulminating powder, when the bullet would be rent into fragments which would lacerate the victim.
In figure B the bullet proper was hollowed, into which was inserted another, also hollow, containing poison. The latter being loose, would slip out and remain in the victim's body or limbs with its freight of poison if the bullet proper should pass through. Among the Confederate wounded at the College were boys of tender age and men who had been forced into the ranks against their will.
The italics I am responsible for. It is difficult for those who live in the South to realize how extensively such insinuating slanders as the above against the Confederates are credited at the North, even by reading people.
I purpose in this paper to examine the statement of the author of this Pictorial History, and to show, by indisputable proof, its recklessness and its falsity. In the above quotation, he states that he had picked up, on the battlefield of Gettysburg, an explosive and a poisoned ball. "These," he adds, "were sent by the Confederates. Whether any were ever used by the Nationals, the writer is not informed." I do not desire to be severe beyond justice; but it does seem that as no one ventured to inform him to the contrary, this author accepted the silence of the world and deliberately put into print this slander against the Confederates without having made any apparent effort to learn, as he could have done with ease, whether his statement had any basis of truth.
It is with entire confidence in the facts presented in this paper that I deny this author's statement, above, to be a statement of fact. I do more than this --
I. I most emphatically deny that the Confederate States ever authorized the use of explosive or poisoned bullets or rifle balls.
II. I most emphatically assert that the United States did purchase, authorize, issue and use explosive musket or rifle balls during the late civil war, and that they were thus officially authorized and used at the battle of Gettysburg.
It happened in 1864, the day after the negro troops made their desperate and drunken charge on the Confederate lines to the left of Chaffin's farm and were so signally repulsed, that the writer, who was located in the trenches a mile still further to the left, picked up, in the field outside the trenches assailed by the negroes, some of the cartridges these poor black victims had dropped, containing the very "explosive" ball described in the above quotation and charged to the Confederates. I have preserved one of these balls ever since. It lies before me as I write. It is similar to figure A, and with a zinc and not a copper disc. It never contained any fulminating powder. The construction of the ball led me to make investigations to ascertain its purpose. At first, I thought it might be made to leave in the body of the person struck by it three pieces of metal, instead of one, to irritate, and possibly destroy life. But this theory appeared to me so "fiendish" that I was unwilling to accept it, and I became convinced, after more careful examination, that the purpose of the ball was to increase the momentum, by forcing in the cap and expanding the disc so as to fill up the grooves of the rifle. The correctness of this view will be proven in this paper.
In the first place, although the charge made by the author of the Pictorial History of the Civil War against the Confederates of having used explosive and poisoned balls, has been made before, and often repeated since, it has never been supported by one grain of proof. How did this author ascertain that the balls he picked up on the battlefield of Gettysburg were sent by the Confederates? How did he learn that one was an explosive and the other a poisoned projectile? Did he test the explosive power of the one and the poisonous character of the other? He gives no evidence of having done so, and advances no proof of his assertions.
It is a very remarkable fact that no case was ever reported in Northern hospitals, or by Northern surgeons, of Union soldiers having been wounded by such barbarous missiles as these from the Confederate side.
I have very carefully examined those valuable quarto volumes issued by the United States Medical Department and entitled "The Medical and Surgical History of the Rebellion," and as yet have failed to find any case of wound or death reported as having occurred by an explosive or poisoned musket ball, excepting that on page 91 of volume II of said work there is a table of four thousand and two ( 4,002 ) cases of gunshot wounds of the scalp, two ( 2 ) of which occurred by explosive musket balls. To which army these two belonged does not appear.
A letter addressed to the Surgeon General of the United States by the writer on this subject, has elicited the reply that the Medical Department is without any information as to wounds by such missiles. I do not find such projectiles noticed as preserved in the museum of the Surgeon General's Department, where rifle projectiles taken from wounds are usually deposited.
In the second place, the manufacture, purchase, issue or use of such projectiles for firearms by the Confederate States, is positively denied by the Confederate authorities, as the following correspondence will show:---
Beuvior, Miss., 28th June, 1879.
My Dear Sir, -- . . . In reply to your inquiries as to the use of explosive or poisoned balls by the troops of the Confederate States, I state as positively as one may in such a case that the charge has no foundation in truth. Our Government certainly did not manufacture or import such balls, and if any were captured from the enemy, they could probably only have been used in the captured arms for which they were suited. I heard occasionally that the enemy did use explosive balls, and others prepared so as to leave a copper ring in the wound, but it was always spoken of as an atrocity beneath knighthood and abhorrent to civilization. The slander is only one of many instances in which our enemy have committed or attempted crimes of which our people and their government were incapable, and then magnified the guilt by accusing us of the offences they had committed ......
Believe me, ever faithfully yours,
Jefferson Davis.
continued
Vol. VIII. Richmond, Virginia, January, 1880. No.1.
Explosive Or Poisoned Musket Or Rifle Balls ...
... Were They Authorized And Used By The Confederate States Army, Or By The United States Army During The Civil War? -- A Slander Refuted.
By Reverend Horace Edwin Hayden.
The following remarkable statement occurs as a note to the account of the battle of Gettysburg, on page 78, volume III, of "The Pictorial History of the Civil War in the United States of America" by Benson J. Lossing LL.D
Many, mostly young men, were maimed in every conceivable way, by every kind of weapon and missile, the most fiendish of which was an explosive and a poisoned bullet, represented in the engraving a little more than half the size of the originals, procured from the battlefield there by the writer. These were used by the Confederates. Whether any were ever used by the Nationals, the writer is not informed. One was made to explode in the body of the man, and the other to leave a deadly poison in him, whether the bullet lodged in or passed through him.
Figure A represents the explosive bullet. The perpendicular stem, with a piece of thin copper hollowed, and a head over it of bullet metal, fitted a cavity in the bullet proper below it, as seen in the engraving. In the bottom of the cavity was fulminating powder. When the bullet struck, the momentum would cause the copper in the outer disc to flatten, and allow the point of the stem to strike and explode the fulminating powder, when the bullet would be rent into fragments which would lacerate the victim.
In figure B the bullet proper was hollowed, into which was inserted another, also hollow, containing poison. The latter being loose, would slip out and remain in the victim's body or limbs with its freight of poison if the bullet proper should pass through. Among the Confederate wounded at the College were boys of tender age and men who had been forced into the ranks against their will.
The italics I am responsible for. It is difficult for those who live in the South to realize how extensively such insinuating slanders as the above against the Confederates are credited at the North, even by reading people.
I purpose in this paper to examine the statement of the author of this Pictorial History, and to show, by indisputable proof, its recklessness and its falsity. In the above quotation, he states that he had picked up, on the battlefield of Gettysburg, an explosive and a poisoned ball. "These," he adds, "were sent by the Confederates. Whether any were ever used by the Nationals, the writer is not informed." I do not desire to be severe beyond justice; but it does seem that as no one ventured to inform him to the contrary, this author accepted the silence of the world and deliberately put into print this slander against the Confederates without having made any apparent effort to learn, as he could have done with ease, whether his statement had any basis of truth.
It is with entire confidence in the facts presented in this paper that I deny this author's statement, above, to be a statement of fact. I do more than this --
I. I most emphatically deny that the Confederate States ever authorized the use of explosive or poisoned bullets or rifle balls.
II. I most emphatically assert that the United States did purchase, authorize, issue and use explosive musket or rifle balls during the late civil war, and that they were thus officially authorized and used at the battle of Gettysburg.
It happened in 1864, the day after the negro troops made their desperate and drunken charge on the Confederate lines to the left of Chaffin's farm and were so signally repulsed, that the writer, who was located in the trenches a mile still further to the left, picked up, in the field outside the trenches assailed by the negroes, some of the cartridges these poor black victims had dropped, containing the very "explosive" ball described in the above quotation and charged to the Confederates. I have preserved one of these balls ever since. It lies before me as I write. It is similar to figure A, and with a zinc and not a copper disc. It never contained any fulminating powder. The construction of the ball led me to make investigations to ascertain its purpose. At first, I thought it might be made to leave in the body of the person struck by it three pieces of metal, instead of one, to irritate, and possibly destroy life. But this theory appeared to me so "fiendish" that I was unwilling to accept it, and I became convinced, after more careful examination, that the purpose of the ball was to increase the momentum, by forcing in the cap and expanding the disc so as to fill up the grooves of the rifle. The correctness of this view will be proven in this paper.
In the first place, although the charge made by the author of the Pictorial History of the Civil War against the Confederates of having used explosive and poisoned balls, has been made before, and often repeated since, it has never been supported by one grain of proof. How did this author ascertain that the balls he picked up on the battlefield of Gettysburg were sent by the Confederates? How did he learn that one was an explosive and the other a poisoned projectile? Did he test the explosive power of the one and the poisonous character of the other? He gives no evidence of having done so, and advances no proof of his assertions.
It is a very remarkable fact that no case was ever reported in Northern hospitals, or by Northern surgeons, of Union soldiers having been wounded by such barbarous missiles as these from the Confederate side.
I have very carefully examined those valuable quarto volumes issued by the United States Medical Department and entitled "The Medical and Surgical History of the Rebellion," and as yet have failed to find any case of wound or death reported as having occurred by an explosive or poisoned musket ball, excepting that on page 91 of volume II of said work there is a table of four thousand and two ( 4,002 ) cases of gunshot wounds of the scalp, two ( 2 ) of which occurred by explosive musket balls. To which army these two belonged does not appear.
A letter addressed to the Surgeon General of the United States by the writer on this subject, has elicited the reply that the Medical Department is without any information as to wounds by such missiles. I do not find such projectiles noticed as preserved in the museum of the Surgeon General's Department, where rifle projectiles taken from wounds are usually deposited.
In the second place, the manufacture, purchase, issue or use of such projectiles for firearms by the Confederate States, is positively denied by the Confederate authorities, as the following correspondence will show:---
Beuvior, Miss., 28th June, 1879.
My Dear Sir, -- . . . In reply to your inquiries as to the use of explosive or poisoned balls by the troops of the Confederate States, I state as positively as one may in such a case that the charge has no foundation in truth. Our Government certainly did not manufacture or import such balls, and if any were captured from the enemy, they could probably only have been used in the captured arms for which they were suited. I heard occasionally that the enemy did use explosive balls, and others prepared so as to leave a copper ring in the wound, but it was always spoken of as an atrocity beneath knighthood and abhorrent to civilization. The slander is only one of many instances in which our enemy have committed or attempted crimes of which our people and their government were incapable, and then magnified the guilt by accusing us of the offences they had committed ......
Believe me, ever faithfully yours,
Jefferson Davis.
continued
Southern Historical Society Papers
Vol. VIII. Richmond, Virginia, January, 1880. No.1.
Explosive Or Poisoned Musket Or Rifle Balls ...
continued:
General Josiah Gorgas, the Chief of Ordnance of the Confederate States -- now of the University of Alabama -- writes, under date of July 11th, 1879, that to his "knowledge the Confederate States never authorized or used explosive or poisoned rifle balls during the late war." In this statement also General I.M. St. John and General John Ellicott, both of the Ordnance Bureau, Confederate States army, entirely concur.
The Adjutant General of the United States also writes me, under date of August 22d, 1879, as to the Confederate archives now in the possession of the National Government, as follows: "In reply to yours of the 18th August, I have the honor to inform you that the Confederate States records in the possession of this Department furnish no evidence that poisoned or explosive musket balls were used by the army of the Confederate States."
[end of excerpt]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Southern Historical Society Papers
Volume XI. Richmond, Va., February-March, 1883. Nos. 2-3.
Confederate Artillery Service.
By General E.P. Alexander, late Chief of Artillery of Longstreet's Corps.
(The following interesting and valuable paper was written in 1866 as an appendix to a proposed history of Longstreet's corps by its able and accomplished Chief of Artillery.)
As the Confederate artillery labored throughout the war under disadvantages which have scarcely been known outside of its own ranks, and which can hardly be fully appreciated except by those who have served with that arm, I have thought it better go give in this form a connected account of the difficulties encountered, and the gradual improvements made in this branch of the service.
[excerpt]
Lest some of the statements of this article should be misunderstood to effect in any way upon the Ordnance Bureau of the War Department,it is but just to close it, not only by disclaiming any such intention, but with the express statement that the energy, enterprise and intelligence which characterized the administration of this bureau were of the highest order, and that the result accomplished by it make a record of which its officers may well be proud. On assuming its duties at the commencement of the war, its admirable chief, General J. Gorgas, might well have hesitated at the task before him. The emergencies and demands of the war were already upon him, and the immense supplies which it became his duty to provide were of a character which the South had neither the factories nor the skilled workmen to produce. With scarcely a single assistant instructed in the peculiar and technical details which are the first elements of an ordnance officer's attainments, and without even an office organization for the transaction of business, the whole machinery of a department was to be organized, which, to illustrate with the history of a single article, should induce the formation of saltpetre from the atmosphere by slow chemical affinities; separate and refine it from impurities by most delicate processes; provide for it, and combine with it sulphur and charcoal in the dangerous operations of he powder manufactory; transport it safely to the arsenal and put it up in safe and convenient cartridges; transport it to the field of battle, and have it at hand where the particular gun to which it is adapted shall receive it ready for use at the moment it is required. And in addition to these operations, the same department, to prevent waste and loss, and to know and anticipate the wants of the army, must institute a system of reports and accounts, which shall not only keep its chief informed of the supplies in the magazine of every gun, and in the cartridge box of every soldier in the whole Confederacy, but which shall trace every ounce of saltpetre in all of its various shapes, and hold to a rigid accountability every man who handles it from the moment that it is washed from the nitre bed until its use upon the battlefield. With indefatigable energy General Gorgas formed and put in motion this whole machinery, selecting his important subordinates with such excellent judgment that the efficiency of the ordnance service was not only always equal to the demand upon it but, in spite of continually increasing demands and decreasing resources, (from the gradual loss of blockade running facilities and of valuable territory) and in spite of serious interference with the skilled labor of the arsenals and workshops by continued conscription, its efficiency formed as long as there was an army to need them. It is true that the Confederate armies were never in condition to use ammunition as lavishly as the enemy frequently did, but the supply never failed to be equal to the actual emergency, and no disaster was ever to be attributed to its scantiness. Wherever insufficiency was apprehended and economy imposed, in fact the scarcity arose far more from the lack of transportation to carry it with the army than from inability of the arsenals to furnish it.
E. P. Alexander.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Southern Historical Society Papers.
Volume XII. Richmond, Va., January-February, 1884. Nos. 1-2.
Contributions to the History of the Confederate Ordnance Department.We have long desired to secure a series of papers on Confederate Ordnance -- the great obstacles with which our Government had to contend, the able and efficient means employed to overcome these obstacles, and the splendid results achieved in the face of difficulties which would have appalled men of less nerve and defeated officers of less skill.
Our gallant and accomplished friend, General I.M. St. John, who was so long the chief of the Nitre and Mining Bureau, had promised to secure us such a series of papers from those who were in position to know the facts, and was at work on it with his accustomed energy when death deprived us of his invaluable services.
General Gorgas, the able chief of the Department, had promised to make his contribution, when his lamented death ended a long and useful career.
We count ourselves, therefore, especially fortunate that the following paper from General Gorgas has been preserved -- that other interesting and valuable papers have been promised -- and that Colonel William Allan, the accomplished Chief of Ordnance of the old Second Corps Army Northern Virginia, has kindly consented to edit them for us.)
INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN.
McDonough, Md., January, 1884.
Probably no better illustration of the difficulties which lay in the way of organizing and supplying the large armies kept in the field by the Confederate Government, and of the skill and energy by which these difficulties were surmounted, is to be found than in the history of the Confederate Ordnance Department. A full account of its operations would constitute one of the most creditable and interesting chapters in the history of the Confederacy. Much of the data for such a narrative has perished, and what remains is widely scattered. It has been proposed to save what is left by means of a series of "Contributions to the History of the Confederate States Ordnance Department," to consist of such facts as surviving officers of that Department may be able to furnish.
It is greatly to be regretted that General Gorgas, to whose energy, zeal, and executive ability, more than to any other one cause, the remarkable efficiency of the Ordnance Department was due, did not prepare a full narrative of its operations. His lamented death prevented this, and deprives us of the further service he might thus have added to a most honorable and useful career. Among his papers were found, however, the following most valuable historical memoranda. Mrs. Gorgas has kindly consented to the publication of this paper, with the statement that these notes were informal, and not intended by General Gorgas for publication in their present unfinished shape.
We believe that even in its present shape this paper contains the best and most reliable sketch of the work of the Confederate Ordnance Department that is now attainable. It is offered as the first of the "Contributions," with the hope and expectation that subsequent papers may supplement and fill out subjects too briefly touched upon by General Gorgas.
W. Allan.
continued
Vol. VIII. Richmond, Virginia, January, 1880. No.1.
Explosive Or Poisoned Musket Or Rifle Balls ...
continued:
General Josiah Gorgas, the Chief of Ordnance of the Confederate States -- now of the University of Alabama -- writes, under date of July 11th, 1879, that to his "knowledge the Confederate States never authorized or used explosive or poisoned rifle balls during the late war." In this statement also General I.M. St. John and General John Ellicott, both of the Ordnance Bureau, Confederate States army, entirely concur.
The Adjutant General of the United States also writes me, under date of August 22d, 1879, as to the Confederate archives now in the possession of the National Government, as follows: "In reply to yours of the 18th August, I have the honor to inform you that the Confederate States records in the possession of this Department furnish no evidence that poisoned or explosive musket balls were used by the army of the Confederate States."
[end of excerpt]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Southern Historical Society Papers
Volume XI. Richmond, Va., February-March, 1883. Nos. 2-3.
Confederate Artillery Service.
By General E.P. Alexander, late Chief of Artillery of Longstreet's Corps.
(The following interesting and valuable paper was written in 1866 as an appendix to a proposed history of Longstreet's corps by its able and accomplished Chief of Artillery.)
As the Confederate artillery labored throughout the war under disadvantages which have scarcely been known outside of its own ranks, and which can hardly be fully appreciated except by those who have served with that arm, I have thought it better go give in this form a connected account of the difficulties encountered, and the gradual improvements made in this branch of the service.
[excerpt]
Lest some of the statements of this article should be misunderstood to effect in any way upon the Ordnance Bureau of the War Department,it is but just to close it, not only by disclaiming any such intention, but with the express statement that the energy, enterprise and intelligence which characterized the administration of this bureau were of the highest order, and that the result accomplished by it make a record of which its officers may well be proud. On assuming its duties at the commencement of the war, its admirable chief, General J. Gorgas, might well have hesitated at the task before him. The emergencies and demands of the war were already upon him, and the immense supplies which it became his duty to provide were of a character which the South had neither the factories nor the skilled workmen to produce. With scarcely a single assistant instructed in the peculiar and technical details which are the first elements of an ordnance officer's attainments, and without even an office organization for the transaction of business, the whole machinery of a department was to be organized, which, to illustrate with the history of a single article, should induce the formation of saltpetre from the atmosphere by slow chemical affinities; separate and refine it from impurities by most delicate processes; provide for it, and combine with it sulphur and charcoal in the dangerous operations of he powder manufactory; transport it safely to the arsenal and put it up in safe and convenient cartridges; transport it to the field of battle, and have it at hand where the particular gun to which it is adapted shall receive it ready for use at the moment it is required. And in addition to these operations, the same department, to prevent waste and loss, and to know and anticipate the wants of the army, must institute a system of reports and accounts, which shall not only keep its chief informed of the supplies in the magazine of every gun, and in the cartridge box of every soldier in the whole Confederacy, but which shall trace every ounce of saltpetre in all of its various shapes, and hold to a rigid accountability every man who handles it from the moment that it is washed from the nitre bed until its use upon the battlefield. With indefatigable energy General Gorgas formed and put in motion this whole machinery, selecting his important subordinates with such excellent judgment that the efficiency of the ordnance service was not only always equal to the demand upon it but, in spite of continually increasing demands and decreasing resources, (from the gradual loss of blockade running facilities and of valuable territory) and in spite of serious interference with the skilled labor of the arsenals and workshops by continued conscription, its efficiency formed as long as there was an army to need them. It is true that the Confederate armies were never in condition to use ammunition as lavishly as the enemy frequently did, but the supply never failed to be equal to the actual emergency, and no disaster was ever to be attributed to its scantiness. Wherever insufficiency was apprehended and economy imposed, in fact the scarcity arose far more from the lack of transportation to carry it with the army than from inability of the arsenals to furnish it.
E. P. Alexander.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Southern Historical Society Papers.
Volume XII. Richmond, Va., January-February, 1884. Nos. 1-2.
Contributions to the History of the Confederate Ordnance Department.We have long desired to secure a series of papers on Confederate Ordnance -- the great obstacles with which our Government had to contend, the able and efficient means employed to overcome these obstacles, and the splendid results achieved in the face of difficulties which would have appalled men of less nerve and defeated officers of less skill.
Our gallant and accomplished friend, General I.M. St. John, who was so long the chief of the Nitre and Mining Bureau, had promised to secure us such a series of papers from those who were in position to know the facts, and was at work on it with his accustomed energy when death deprived us of his invaluable services.
General Gorgas, the able chief of the Department, had promised to make his contribution, when his lamented death ended a long and useful career.
We count ourselves, therefore, especially fortunate that the following paper from General Gorgas has been preserved -- that other interesting and valuable papers have been promised -- and that Colonel William Allan, the accomplished Chief of Ordnance of the old Second Corps Army Northern Virginia, has kindly consented to edit them for us.)
INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN.
McDonough, Md., January, 1884.
Probably no better illustration of the difficulties which lay in the way of organizing and supplying the large armies kept in the field by the Confederate Government, and of the skill and energy by which these difficulties were surmounted, is to be found than in the history of the Confederate Ordnance Department. A full account of its operations would constitute one of the most creditable and interesting chapters in the history of the Confederacy. Much of the data for such a narrative has perished, and what remains is widely scattered. It has been proposed to save what is left by means of a series of "Contributions to the History of the Confederate States Ordnance Department," to consist of such facts as surviving officers of that Department may be able to furnish.
It is greatly to be regretted that General Gorgas, to whose energy, zeal, and executive ability, more than to any other one cause, the remarkable efficiency of the Ordnance Department was due, did not prepare a full narrative of its operations. His lamented death prevented this, and deprives us of the further service he might thus have added to a most honorable and useful career. Among his papers were found, however, the following most valuable historical memoranda. Mrs. Gorgas has kindly consented to the publication of this paper, with the statement that these notes were informal, and not intended by General Gorgas for publication in their present unfinished shape.
We believe that even in its present shape this paper contains the best and most reliable sketch of the work of the Confederate Ordnance Department that is now attainable. It is offered as the first of the "Contributions," with the hope and expectation that subsequent papers may supplement and fill out subjects too briefly touched upon by General Gorgas.
W. Allan.
continued
Paper 1.
(Found among the papers of the late General Josiah Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance of the Confederate States.)
Notes on the Ordnance Department of the Confederate Government.
SMALL ARMS.
At the formation of the government, or at the beginning of the war, the arms at command were distributed as follows, as nearly as I can recollect:
Rifles. Muskets.
At Richmond, Va. (about) 4,000
Fayetteville Arsenal, North Carolina (about) 2,000 25,000
Charleston Arsenal, South Carolina (about) 2,000 20,000
Augusta Arsenal, Georgia (about) 3,000 28,000
Mount Vernon Arsenal, Alabama 2,000 20,000
Baton Rouge Arsenal, Louisiana 2,000 27,000
15,000 120,000
There were at Richmond about 60,000 old, worthless flint muskets, and at Baton Rouge about 10,000 old Hall's rifles and carbines.
Besides the foregoing, there were at Little Rock, Ark., a few thousand stands, and some few at the Texas arsenals, increasing the aggregate of serviceable arms to, say 143,000. To these must be added the arms owned by the several States and by military organizations throughout the country, giving, say, 150,000 in all for the use of the armies of the Confederacy. The rifles were of the calibre 54, known as Mississippi rifles, except those at Richmond, taken from Harper's Ferry, which were calibre 58; the muskets were the old flintlock, calibre 69, altered to percussion. Of sabres there were a few boxes at each arsenal, and some short artillery swords. A few hundred holster pistols were scattered here and there. There were no revolvers.
AMMUNITION, POWDER AND LEAD.
There was little ammunition of any kind, or powder, at the arsenal in the South, and that little relics of the Mexican war, stored principally at Baton Rouge and Mount Vernon arsenals. I doubt whether there were a million rounds of small arm cartridges in the Confederacy. Lead there was none in store. Of powder the chief supply was that captured at Norfolk, though there was a small quantity at each of the Southern arsenals, say 60,000 pounds in all, chiefly old cannon powder. The stock of percussion caps could not have exceeded one quarter of a million.
ARTILLERY.
There were no batteries of serviceable field artillery at any of the Southern arsenals. A few old iron guns, mounted on Gribeaural carriages, fabricated about the time of the war of 1812, composed nearly the entire park which the Confederate States fell heir to. There were some serviceable batteries belonging to the States, and some which belonged to volunteer companies. There were neither harness, saddles, bridles, blankets, nor other artillery or cavalry equipments.
Thus to furnish 150,000 men on both sides of the Mississippi, on say the 1st of May, 1861, there were on hand no infantry accoutrements, no cavalry arms or equipments -- no artillery and, above all, no ammunition; nothing save small arms, and these almost wholly smoothbore, altered from flint to percussion. Let us see what means we had for producing these supplies.
ARSENALS, WORKSHOPS, FOUNDRIES, ETC.
Within the limits of the Confederate States, there were no arsenals at which any of the material of war was constructed. No arsenal, except that at Fayetteville, N.C., had a single machine above a foot lathe. Such arsenals as there were, had been used only as depots. All the work of preparation of material had been carried on at the North; not an arm,(*) not a gun, not a gun carriage, and except during the Mexican war -- scarcely a round of ammunition had, for fifty years, been prepared in the Confederate States. There were consequently no workmen, or very few of them, skilled in these arts. No powder, save perhaps for blasting, had been made at the South; and there was no saltpetre in store at any point; it was stored wholly at the North. There was no lead nor any mines of it, except on the Northern limit of the Confederacy, in Virginia, and the situation of that made its product precarious. Only one cannon foundry existed: at Richmond. Copper, so necessary for field artillery and for percussion caps, was just being produced in East Tennessee. There was no rolling mill for bar iron south of Richmond; and but few blast furnaces, and these small, and with trifling exceptions in the border States of Virginia and Tennessee.
Such were the supplies and such the situation when I took charge of the Ordnance Department on the 8th of April, 1861.
The first thing to be attended to was the supply of powder. Large orders had been sent to the North, both by the Confederate Government and some of the States, and these were being rapidly filled at the date of the attack on Fort Sumter. The entire product of one large Northern mill was being received at a Southern port. Of course all the ports were soon sealed to such importations from the North. Attention was at once turned to the production of nitre in North Alabama and in Tennessee -- in the latter State under the energetic supervision of its Ordnance Department. An adequate supply of sulphur was found in New Orleans, where large quantities were in store to be used in sugar refining. The entire stock was secured, amounting to some four or five hundred tons.
The erection of a large powder mill was early pressed by President Davis, and about the middle of June, 1861, he directed me to detail an officer to select a site and begin the work. The day after this order was given Colonel G.W. Rains, a graduate of West Point, in every way qualified for this service, arrived in Richmond, through the blockade, and at once set out under written instructions from me to carry out the President's wishes. He, however, went first to East Tennessee to supervise and systematize the operations of two small private mills, which were then at work for the State of Tennessee.
Thus, in respect to powder and our means of making it, we had, perhaps, at this time (June 1st, 1861,) 250,000 pounds, chiefly cannon, at Norfolk and in Georgia, and as much more nitre (mainly imported by the State of Georgia). We had no powder mills, except the two rude ones just referred to, and no experience in making powder or in getting nitre. All had to be learned.
As to a further supply of arms, steps had been taken by the President to import these and other ordnance stores from Europe; and Major Caleb Huse, a graduate of West Point, and at that moment professor in the University of Alabama, was selected to go abroad and secure them. He left Montgomery under instructions early in April, with a credit of pound 10,000 (!) from Mr. Memminger. The appointment proved a happy one; for he succeeded, with a very little money, in buying a good supply, and in running the Ordnance Department into debt for nearly half a million sterling -- the very best proof of his fitness for his place, and of a financial ability which supplemented the narrowness of Mr. Memminger's purse.
Before this, and immediately upon the formation of the Confederate Government, Admiral Semmes had been sent to the North by President Davis as purchasing agent of arms and other ordnance stores, and succeeded in making contracts for, and purchases of, powder, percussion caps, cap machinery (never delivered), revolvers, &c. He also procured drawings for a bullet pressing machine, and other valuable information.
The sets of machinery for making the rifle with sword bayonet, and the rifle musket model of 1855, had been seized at Harper's Ferry by the State of Virginia. That for the rifle musket was being transferred by the State to her ancient armory at Richmond, under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Burton, an officer in the service of Virginia, whose experience in the armories of the United States and in the erection of the works at Enfield, near London, qualified him above all for the work. The other set of machines was sent to Fayetteville, N.C., by consent of the State of Virginia, to be there re-erected, as there was at that point an arsenal with steam power, and some good buildings, which had heretofore never been put to any use. These two sets of machinery -- capable, if worked with put one set of hands to each, of producing 2,000 to 2,500 stands per month in all -- were the only prospective resources at home. With additional workmen, and some extension of the machinery, much larger results could be obtained. But the workmen were not to be had. As it was, it would take many months to put it in working order. Parts were missing, and some injury done in the hasty transfer (partly under fire(*)) from Harper's Ferry. There were no private armories at the South; nor was there any inducement, prior to the war, to turn capital in that direction. Thus, the class of skilled operatives needed were unknown to this region. In New Orleans the Brothers Cook were embarking in the business of making small arms, assisted by the purses and encouraged by the sympathy of patriotic citizens.
In field artillery the production was confined almost entirely to the Tredegar Works, in Richmond. Some castings were made in New Orleans, and foundries were rapidly acquiring the necessary experience to produce good bronze castings. The Ordnance Department of Tennessee was also turning its attention to the manufacture of field and siege artillery at Nashville. At Rome, Ga., a foundry -- Noble & Son -- was induced to undertake the casting of three inch rifles, after drawings furnished at Montgomery; but the progress made was necessarily slow. The State of Virginia possessed a number of old four pounder iron guns, which were reamed out to get a good bore,
(*) The saving of this machinery from the flames, was due to the heroic conduct of the operatives themselves, headed by Mr. Ball, the master armorer, who clung to his machinery, and by the greatest efforts, continued often under fire, saved almost the entire "plant." The names of Mr. Copeland and Major W.S. Downer are also mentioned in this connection. The older brother, Frederick, was a most competent mechanic, and a man of decided administrative ability. He was almost the only one who succeeded in producing a good service arm. He was finally killed in the trenches at Savannah, fighting with a command composed of his own operatives.
and were rifled with three grooves, after the manner of Parrott. The army in observation at Harper's Ferry, and that at Manassas, were supplied with old batteries of six pounder guns and twelve pounder Howitzers. A few Parrott guns purchased by the State of Virginia were with Magruder at Big Bethel.
For the ammunition and equipments required for the infantry and artillery a good laboratory and shops had been established at Richmond by the State, but none of the Southern arsenals were yet in a condition to do much work. The arsenal at Augusta, Ga., was directed to organize for the preparation of ammunition and the making of knapsacks, of which there were none wherewith to equip the troops now daily taking the field. The arsenal at Charleston and the depot at Savannah were occupied chiefly with local work. The arsenal at Baton Rouge was rapidly getting under way; and that at Mt. Vernon, Ala., was also being prepared for work. None of them had had facilities for the work usually done at an arsenal. Fayetteville, N.C. was in the hands of that State, and was occupied chiefly in repairing some arms, and in making up a small amount of small arm ammunition. Little artillery ammunition was being made up, except for local purposes, save at Richmond.
Such was the general condition of supplies when the Government, quitting Montgomery, established itself at Richmond.
PROGRESS OF MANUFACTURE.
Colonel Rains, in the course of the Summer of 1861, established a refinery of saltpetre at or near Nashville, and to this point chiefly were sent the nitre, obtained from the State of Georgia, and that derived from caves in East and Middle Tennessee. He supplied the two powder mills in that State with nitre, properly refined, and good powder was thus produced. A small portion of the Georgia nitre was sent to two small mills in South Carolina, -- at Pendleton and Walhalla -- and a powder produced, inferior at first, but afterwards improved. The State of North Carolina established a mill near Raleigh, under contract with certain parties to whom the State was to furnish the nitre, of which a great part was derived from caves in Georgia. A stamping mill was also put up near New Orleans, and powder produced before the fall of the city. Small quantities of powder were also received though the blockade from Wilmington to Galveston, some of it of very inferior quality. The great quantity of artillery placed in position from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, required a vast supply of powder (there was no immediate want of projectiles) to furnish even the scant allowance of fifty rounds to each gun. I think we may safely estimate that on the 1st of January, 1862, there were 1,500 sea coast guns of various calibres in position, from Evansport on the Potomac to Fort Brown on the Rio Grande. If we average their calibre at thirty two pounders, and the charge at five pounds, it will at forty rounds per gun, give us 600,000 pounds of powder for these. The field artillery -- say 300 guns -- with 200 rounds to the piece, would require, say 125,000 pounds, and the small arm cartridges, 10,000,000, would consume 125,000 pounds more -- making in all 850,000 pounds. If we deduct 250,000 pounds, supposed to be on hand, in various shapes, at the beginning of the war, we have an increment of 600,000 pounds. Of this, perhaps 200,000 pounds had been made at the Tennessee and other mills, leaving 400,000 to have been supplied through the blockade, and before the commencement of actual hostilities.
continued
(Found among the papers of the late General Josiah Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance of the Confederate States.)
Notes on the Ordnance Department of the Confederate Government.
SMALL ARMS.
At the formation of the government, or at the beginning of the war, the arms at command were distributed as follows, as nearly as I can recollect:
Rifles. Muskets.
At Richmond, Va. (about) 4,000
Fayetteville Arsenal, North Carolina (about) 2,000 25,000
Charleston Arsenal, South Carolina (about) 2,000 20,000
Augusta Arsenal, Georgia (about) 3,000 28,000
Mount Vernon Arsenal, Alabama 2,000 20,000
Baton Rouge Arsenal, Louisiana 2,000 27,000
15,000 120,000
There were at Richmond about 60,000 old, worthless flint muskets, and at Baton Rouge about 10,000 old Hall's rifles and carbines.
Besides the foregoing, there were at Little Rock, Ark., a few thousand stands, and some few at the Texas arsenals, increasing the aggregate of serviceable arms to, say 143,000. To these must be added the arms owned by the several States and by military organizations throughout the country, giving, say, 150,000 in all for the use of the armies of the Confederacy. The rifles were of the calibre 54, known as Mississippi rifles, except those at Richmond, taken from Harper's Ferry, which were calibre 58; the muskets were the old flintlock, calibre 69, altered to percussion. Of sabres there were a few boxes at each arsenal, and some short artillery swords. A few hundred holster pistols were scattered here and there. There were no revolvers.
AMMUNITION, POWDER AND LEAD.
There was little ammunition of any kind, or powder, at the arsenal in the South, and that little relics of the Mexican war, stored principally at Baton Rouge and Mount Vernon arsenals. I doubt whether there were a million rounds of small arm cartridges in the Confederacy. Lead there was none in store. Of powder the chief supply was that captured at Norfolk, though there was a small quantity at each of the Southern arsenals, say 60,000 pounds in all, chiefly old cannon powder. The stock of percussion caps could not have exceeded one quarter of a million.
ARTILLERY.
There were no batteries of serviceable field artillery at any of the Southern arsenals. A few old iron guns, mounted on Gribeaural carriages, fabricated about the time of the war of 1812, composed nearly the entire park which the Confederate States fell heir to. There were some serviceable batteries belonging to the States, and some which belonged to volunteer companies. There were neither harness, saddles, bridles, blankets, nor other artillery or cavalry equipments.
Thus to furnish 150,000 men on both sides of the Mississippi, on say the 1st of May, 1861, there were on hand no infantry accoutrements, no cavalry arms or equipments -- no artillery and, above all, no ammunition; nothing save small arms, and these almost wholly smoothbore, altered from flint to percussion. Let us see what means we had for producing these supplies.
ARSENALS, WORKSHOPS, FOUNDRIES, ETC.
Within the limits of the Confederate States, there were no arsenals at which any of the material of war was constructed. No arsenal, except that at Fayetteville, N.C., had a single machine above a foot lathe. Such arsenals as there were, had been used only as depots. All the work of preparation of material had been carried on at the North; not an arm,(*) not a gun, not a gun carriage, and except during the Mexican war -- scarcely a round of ammunition had, for fifty years, been prepared in the Confederate States. There were consequently no workmen, or very few of them, skilled in these arts. No powder, save perhaps for blasting, had been made at the South; and there was no saltpetre in store at any point; it was stored wholly at the North. There was no lead nor any mines of it, except on the Northern limit of the Confederacy, in Virginia, and the situation of that made its product precarious. Only one cannon foundry existed: at Richmond. Copper, so necessary for field artillery and for percussion caps, was just being produced in East Tennessee. There was no rolling mill for bar iron south of Richmond; and but few blast furnaces, and these small, and with trifling exceptions in the border States of Virginia and Tennessee.
Such were the supplies and such the situation when I took charge of the Ordnance Department on the 8th of April, 1861.
The first thing to be attended to was the supply of powder. Large orders had been sent to the North, both by the Confederate Government and some of the States, and these were being rapidly filled at the date of the attack on Fort Sumter. The entire product of one large Northern mill was being received at a Southern port. Of course all the ports were soon sealed to such importations from the North. Attention was at once turned to the production of nitre in North Alabama and in Tennessee -- in the latter State under the energetic supervision of its Ordnance Department. An adequate supply of sulphur was found in New Orleans, where large quantities were in store to be used in sugar refining. The entire stock was secured, amounting to some four or five hundred tons.
The erection of a large powder mill was early pressed by President Davis, and about the middle of June, 1861, he directed me to detail an officer to select a site and begin the work. The day after this order was given Colonel G.W. Rains, a graduate of West Point, in every way qualified for this service, arrived in Richmond, through the blockade, and at once set out under written instructions from me to carry out the President's wishes. He, however, went first to East Tennessee to supervise and systematize the operations of two small private mills, which were then at work for the State of Tennessee.
Thus, in respect to powder and our means of making it, we had, perhaps, at this time (June 1st, 1861,) 250,000 pounds, chiefly cannon, at Norfolk and in Georgia, and as much more nitre (mainly imported by the State of Georgia). We had no powder mills, except the two rude ones just referred to, and no experience in making powder or in getting nitre. All had to be learned.
As to a further supply of arms, steps had been taken by the President to import these and other ordnance stores from Europe; and Major Caleb Huse, a graduate of West Point, and at that moment professor in the University of Alabama, was selected to go abroad and secure them. He left Montgomery under instructions early in April, with a credit of pound 10,000 (!) from Mr. Memminger. The appointment proved a happy one; for he succeeded, with a very little money, in buying a good supply, and in running the Ordnance Department into debt for nearly half a million sterling -- the very best proof of his fitness for his place, and of a financial ability which supplemented the narrowness of Mr. Memminger's purse.
Before this, and immediately upon the formation of the Confederate Government, Admiral Semmes had been sent to the North by President Davis as purchasing agent of arms and other ordnance stores, and succeeded in making contracts for, and purchases of, powder, percussion caps, cap machinery (never delivered), revolvers, &c. He also procured drawings for a bullet pressing machine, and other valuable information.
The sets of machinery for making the rifle with sword bayonet, and the rifle musket model of 1855, had been seized at Harper's Ferry by the State of Virginia. That for the rifle musket was being transferred by the State to her ancient armory at Richmond, under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Burton, an officer in the service of Virginia, whose experience in the armories of the United States and in the erection of the works at Enfield, near London, qualified him above all for the work. The other set of machines was sent to Fayetteville, N.C., by consent of the State of Virginia, to be there re-erected, as there was at that point an arsenal with steam power, and some good buildings, which had heretofore never been put to any use. These two sets of machinery -- capable, if worked with put one set of hands to each, of producing 2,000 to 2,500 stands per month in all -- were the only prospective resources at home. With additional workmen, and some extension of the machinery, much larger results could be obtained. But the workmen were not to be had. As it was, it would take many months to put it in working order. Parts were missing, and some injury done in the hasty transfer (partly under fire(*)) from Harper's Ferry. There were no private armories at the South; nor was there any inducement, prior to the war, to turn capital in that direction. Thus, the class of skilled operatives needed were unknown to this region. In New Orleans the Brothers Cook were embarking in the business of making small arms, assisted by the purses and encouraged by the sympathy of patriotic citizens.
In field artillery the production was confined almost entirely to the Tredegar Works, in Richmond. Some castings were made in New Orleans, and foundries were rapidly acquiring the necessary experience to produce good bronze castings. The Ordnance Department of Tennessee was also turning its attention to the manufacture of field and siege artillery at Nashville. At Rome, Ga., a foundry -- Noble & Son -- was induced to undertake the casting of three inch rifles, after drawings furnished at Montgomery; but the progress made was necessarily slow. The State of Virginia possessed a number of old four pounder iron guns, which were reamed out to get a good bore,
(*) The saving of this machinery from the flames, was due to the heroic conduct of the operatives themselves, headed by Mr. Ball, the master armorer, who clung to his machinery, and by the greatest efforts, continued often under fire, saved almost the entire "plant." The names of Mr. Copeland and Major W.S. Downer are also mentioned in this connection. The older brother, Frederick, was a most competent mechanic, and a man of decided administrative ability. He was almost the only one who succeeded in producing a good service arm. He was finally killed in the trenches at Savannah, fighting with a command composed of his own operatives.
and were rifled with three grooves, after the manner of Parrott. The army in observation at Harper's Ferry, and that at Manassas, were supplied with old batteries of six pounder guns and twelve pounder Howitzers. A few Parrott guns purchased by the State of Virginia were with Magruder at Big Bethel.
For the ammunition and equipments required for the infantry and artillery a good laboratory and shops had been established at Richmond by the State, but none of the Southern arsenals were yet in a condition to do much work. The arsenal at Augusta, Ga., was directed to organize for the preparation of ammunition and the making of knapsacks, of which there were none wherewith to equip the troops now daily taking the field. The arsenal at Charleston and the depot at Savannah were occupied chiefly with local work. The arsenal at Baton Rouge was rapidly getting under way; and that at Mt. Vernon, Ala., was also being prepared for work. None of them had had facilities for the work usually done at an arsenal. Fayetteville, N.C. was in the hands of that State, and was occupied chiefly in repairing some arms, and in making up a small amount of small arm ammunition. Little artillery ammunition was being made up, except for local purposes, save at Richmond.
Such was the general condition of supplies when the Government, quitting Montgomery, established itself at Richmond.
PROGRESS OF MANUFACTURE.
Colonel Rains, in the course of the Summer of 1861, established a refinery of saltpetre at or near Nashville, and to this point chiefly were sent the nitre, obtained from the State of Georgia, and that derived from caves in East and Middle Tennessee. He supplied the two powder mills in that State with nitre, properly refined, and good powder was thus produced. A small portion of the Georgia nitre was sent to two small mills in South Carolina, -- at Pendleton and Walhalla -- and a powder produced, inferior at first, but afterwards improved. The State of North Carolina established a mill near Raleigh, under contract with certain parties to whom the State was to furnish the nitre, of which a great part was derived from caves in Georgia. A stamping mill was also put up near New Orleans, and powder produced before the fall of the city. Small quantities of powder were also received though the blockade from Wilmington to Galveston, some of it of very inferior quality. The great quantity of artillery placed in position from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, required a vast supply of powder (there was no immediate want of projectiles) to furnish even the scant allowance of fifty rounds to each gun. I think we may safely estimate that on the 1st of January, 1862, there were 1,500 sea coast guns of various calibres in position, from Evansport on the Potomac to Fort Brown on the Rio Grande. If we average their calibre at thirty two pounders, and the charge at five pounds, it will at forty rounds per gun, give us 600,000 pounds of powder for these. The field artillery -- say 300 guns -- with 200 rounds to the piece, would require, say 125,000 pounds, and the small arm cartridges, 10,000,000, would consume 125,000 pounds more -- making in all 850,000 pounds. If we deduct 250,000 pounds, supposed to be on hand, in various shapes, at the beginning of the war, we have an increment of 600,000 pounds. Of this, perhaps 200,000 pounds had been made at the Tennessee and other mills, leaving 400,000 to have been supplied through the blockade, and before the commencement of actual hostilities.
continued
The site of the Government Powder Mills was fixed at Augusta, Georgia, on the report of Colonel Rains, and progress was made on the work in this year. There were two large buildings, in the Norman (castellated) style of architecture; one contained the refinery and storerooms -- the other being the mills, twelve in number. They were arranged in the best way on the canal which supplied water power to Augusta. This canal served as the means of transport for the material from point to point of its manufacture, though the mills were driven by steam. All the machinery, including the very heavy rollers, was made in the Confederate States. The various qualities of powder purchased, captured and produced were sources of irregularity in the ranges of our artillery and small arms -- unavoidably so of course. We were only too glad to take any sort of powder; and we bought some brought into Florida, the best range of which scarcely exceeded one hundred and sixty yards with the eprouvette.
Contracts were made abroad for the delivery of nitre through the blockade, and for producing it at home from caves. The amount of the latter delivered by contracts was considerable -- chiefly in Tennessee.
The consumption of lead was in part met by the Virginia lead mines (Wytheville), the yield from which was from 100,000 to 150,000 pounds per months. A laboratory for the smelting of other ores, from the Silver Hill mines, North Carolina, and Jonesboro, East Tennessee, was put up at Petersburg, under the direction of Dr. Piggott, of Baltimore. It was very well constructed; was capable of smelting a good many thousand pounds per day, and was in operation before midsummer of 1862. Mines were opened on account of Government in East Tennessee, near the State line of Virginia. They were never valuable, and were soon abandoned. Lead was collected in considerable quantities throughout the country by the laborious exertions of agents employed for this purpose. The battlefield of Bull Run was fully gleaned, and much lead collected.
By the close of 1861 the following arsenals and depots were at work, having been supplied with some machinery and facilities, and were producing the various munitions and equipments required: Augusta, Ga.; Charleston, S.C.; Fayetteville, N.C.; Richmond, Va.; Savannah, Ga.; Nashville, Tenn.; Memphis, Tenn.; Mount Vernon, Ala.; Baton Rouge, La.; Montgomery, Ala.; Little Rock, Ark.; and San Antonio, Texas -- altogether eight arsenals and four depots. It would, of course, have been better, had it been practicable, to have condensed our work and to have had fewer places of manufacture; but the country was deficient in the transportation which would have been required to place the raw material at a few arsenals. In this way only could we avail ourselves of local resources, both of labor and material. Thus by the close of 1861 a good deal had been done in the way of organization to produce the material of war needed by an army, as far as our means permitted. The old smoothbore musket was still the principal weapon of the infantry; the artillery had the six pounder gun and twelve pounder howitzer chiefly; and the cavalry were armed with anything they could get -- sabres, horse pistols, revolvers, Sharp's carbines, musketoons, short Enfield rifles, hale's carbines (a wretched apology), muskets cut off, etc., etc. Equipments were in many cases made of stout domestic, stitched in triple folds and covered with paint or rubber, varnished.
But poor as were our arms, we had not enough of these to equip the troops which were pressing to the front in July and August, 1861. In the winter of 1861-'2, while McClellan was preparing his great army near Alexandria, we resorted to the making of pikes for the infantry and lances for the cavalry; many thousands of the former were made at the various arsenals, but were little used. No access of enthusiasm could induce our people to rush to the field armed with pikes. I remember a formidable weapon, which was invented at this time, in the shape of a stout wooden sheath containing a two edged straight sword some two feet long. The sheath or truncheon could be levelled, and the sword, liberated from the compression of a strong spring by touching a trigger, leaped out with sufficient force to transfix an opponent. About December, 1861, arms began to come in through the purchases of Major Huse, and we had a good many Enfield rifles in the hands of our troops at Shiloh, which were received in time for use there through the blockade. Major Huse had found the market pretty well cleaned of arms by the late war in Europe, but he had succeeded in making contracts with private manufactures, of which these arms were the result.
I will not attempt to trace the development of our work in its order, as I at first intended, but will note simply what I can recollect, paying some attention to the succession of events.The winter of 1861-'2 was the darkest period of my department. Powder was called for on every hand -- Bragg, at Pensacola, for his big ten inch Columbiads: Lovell, at New Orleans, for his extended defences, and especially for his inadequate artillery at Fort Jackson and St. Phillips; Polk, at Columbus, Kentucky; Johnston, for his numerous batteries on the Potomac; Magruder, at Yorktown. All these were deemed most important points. Then came Wilmington, Georgetown, Port Royal, and Fernandina. Not a few of these places sent representatives to press their claims -- Mr. Yulee from Fernandina, and Colonel Gonzales from Charleston. Heavy guns, too, were called for in all directions -- the largest guns for the smallest places.
The abandonment of the line of the Potomac, and of the upper Mississippi from Columbus to Memphis; the evacuation of the works below Pensacola, and of Yorktown, somewhat relieved us from the pressure for heavy artillery; and after the powder mills at Augusta went into operation in the fall of 1862, we had little trouble in supplying ammunition.
To obtain the iron needed for cannon and projectiles, it became necessary to stimulate its production in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. To this end, contracts were made with iron masters in these States on liberal terms, and advances of money made to them, to be refunded in products. These contracts were difficult to arrange, as so much had to be done for the contractor. He must have details from the army and the privilege of transport of provisions and other supplies over the railroads. And then the question of the currency was a continually recurring problem. Mr. Benjamin, who succeeded Mr. Walker in the War Department, gave me great assistance in the matter of making contracts, and seemed quite at home in arranging these details. His power of work was amazing to me; and he appeared as fresh at 12 o'clock at night, after a hard day's work, as he had been at 9 o'clock in the morning.
About May, 1862, finding that the production of nitre and of iron must be systematically pursued, and to this end thoroughly organized, I sought for the right person to place in charge of this vital duty. My choice fell on Colonel I.M. St. John (afterwards Commissary General of Subsistence), and was eminently fortunate. He had the gift of organization, and I placed him in charge of the whole subject of producing nitre from caves and from other sources, and of the formation of nitre beds, which had already been begun in Richmond. Under his supervision beds were instituted at Columbia S.C., Charleston, Savannah, Augusta, Mobile, Selma, and various other points. We never extracted nitre from these beds, except for trial; but they were carefully attended to, enriched and extended, and were becoming quite valuable. At the close of 1864 we had, according to General St. John, 2,800,000 cubic feet of earth collected and in various stages of nitrification, of which a large proportion was prepared to yield one and a half pounds of nitre per foot of earth, including all the nitre beds from Richmond to Florida.
continued
Contracts were made abroad for the delivery of nitre through the blockade, and for producing it at home from caves. The amount of the latter delivered by contracts was considerable -- chiefly in Tennessee.
The consumption of lead was in part met by the Virginia lead mines (Wytheville), the yield from which was from 100,000 to 150,000 pounds per months. A laboratory for the smelting of other ores, from the Silver Hill mines, North Carolina, and Jonesboro, East Tennessee, was put up at Petersburg, under the direction of Dr. Piggott, of Baltimore. It was very well constructed; was capable of smelting a good many thousand pounds per day, and was in operation before midsummer of 1862. Mines were opened on account of Government in East Tennessee, near the State line of Virginia. They were never valuable, and were soon abandoned. Lead was collected in considerable quantities throughout the country by the laborious exertions of agents employed for this purpose. The battlefield of Bull Run was fully gleaned, and much lead collected.
By the close of 1861 the following arsenals and depots were at work, having been supplied with some machinery and facilities, and were producing the various munitions and equipments required: Augusta, Ga.; Charleston, S.C.; Fayetteville, N.C.; Richmond, Va.; Savannah, Ga.; Nashville, Tenn.; Memphis, Tenn.; Mount Vernon, Ala.; Baton Rouge, La.; Montgomery, Ala.; Little Rock, Ark.; and San Antonio, Texas -- altogether eight arsenals and four depots. It would, of course, have been better, had it been practicable, to have condensed our work and to have had fewer places of manufacture; but the country was deficient in the transportation which would have been required to place the raw material at a few arsenals. In this way only could we avail ourselves of local resources, both of labor and material. Thus by the close of 1861 a good deal had been done in the way of organization to produce the material of war needed by an army, as far as our means permitted. The old smoothbore musket was still the principal weapon of the infantry; the artillery had the six pounder gun and twelve pounder howitzer chiefly; and the cavalry were armed with anything they could get -- sabres, horse pistols, revolvers, Sharp's carbines, musketoons, short Enfield rifles, hale's carbines (a wretched apology), muskets cut off, etc., etc. Equipments were in many cases made of stout domestic, stitched in triple folds and covered with paint or rubber, varnished.
But poor as were our arms, we had not enough of these to equip the troops which were pressing to the front in July and August, 1861. In the winter of 1861-'2, while McClellan was preparing his great army near Alexandria, we resorted to the making of pikes for the infantry and lances for the cavalry; many thousands of the former were made at the various arsenals, but were little used. No access of enthusiasm could induce our people to rush to the field armed with pikes. I remember a formidable weapon, which was invented at this time, in the shape of a stout wooden sheath containing a two edged straight sword some two feet long. The sheath or truncheon could be levelled, and the sword, liberated from the compression of a strong spring by touching a trigger, leaped out with sufficient force to transfix an opponent. About December, 1861, arms began to come in through the purchases of Major Huse, and we had a good many Enfield rifles in the hands of our troops at Shiloh, which were received in time for use there through the blockade. Major Huse had found the market pretty well cleaned of arms by the late war in Europe, but he had succeeded in making contracts with private manufactures, of which these arms were the result.
I will not attempt to trace the development of our work in its order, as I at first intended, but will note simply what I can recollect, paying some attention to the succession of events.The winter of 1861-'2 was the darkest period of my department. Powder was called for on every hand -- Bragg, at Pensacola, for his big ten inch Columbiads: Lovell, at New Orleans, for his extended defences, and especially for his inadequate artillery at Fort Jackson and St. Phillips; Polk, at Columbus, Kentucky; Johnston, for his numerous batteries on the Potomac; Magruder, at Yorktown. All these were deemed most important points. Then came Wilmington, Georgetown, Port Royal, and Fernandina. Not a few of these places sent representatives to press their claims -- Mr. Yulee from Fernandina, and Colonel Gonzales from Charleston. Heavy guns, too, were called for in all directions -- the largest guns for the smallest places.
The abandonment of the line of the Potomac, and of the upper Mississippi from Columbus to Memphis; the evacuation of the works below Pensacola, and of Yorktown, somewhat relieved us from the pressure for heavy artillery; and after the powder mills at Augusta went into operation in the fall of 1862, we had little trouble in supplying ammunition.
To obtain the iron needed for cannon and projectiles, it became necessary to stimulate its production in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. To this end, contracts were made with iron masters in these States on liberal terms, and advances of money made to them, to be refunded in products. These contracts were difficult to arrange, as so much had to be done for the contractor. He must have details from the army and the privilege of transport of provisions and other supplies over the railroads. And then the question of the currency was a continually recurring problem. Mr. Benjamin, who succeeded Mr. Walker in the War Department, gave me great assistance in the matter of making contracts, and seemed quite at home in arranging these details. His power of work was amazing to me; and he appeared as fresh at 12 o'clock at night, after a hard day's work, as he had been at 9 o'clock in the morning.
About May, 1862, finding that the production of nitre and of iron must be systematically pursued, and to this end thoroughly organized, I sought for the right person to place in charge of this vital duty. My choice fell on Colonel I.M. St. John (afterwards Commissary General of Subsistence), and was eminently fortunate. He had the gift of organization, and I placed him in charge of the whole subject of producing nitre from caves and from other sources, and of the formation of nitre beds, which had already been begun in Richmond. Under his supervision beds were instituted at Columbia S.C., Charleston, Savannah, Augusta, Mobile, Selma, and various other points. We never extracted nitre from these beds, except for trial; but they were carefully attended to, enriched and extended, and were becoming quite valuable. At the close of 1864 we had, according to General St. John, 2,800,000 cubic feet of earth collected and in various stages of nitrification, of which a large proportion was prepared to yield one and a half pounds of nitre per foot of earth, including all the nitre beds from Richmond to Florida.
continued
Through Colonel St. John, the whole nitre bearing area of country was laid off into districts; each district in charge of an officer, who made his monthly reports to the office at Richmond. These officers procured details of workmen, generally from those subject to military duty in the mountain regions where disaffection existed, and carried on extended works in their several districts. In this way we brought up the nitre production, in the course of a year, to something like half our total consumption of nitre. It was a rude, wild sort of service; and the officers in charge of these districts, especially in East Tennessee, North Carolina, and North Alabama, had to show much firmness in their dealings with the turbulent people among whom, and by whose aid, they worked. It is a curious fact that the district on which we could rely for the most constant yield of nitre, having its headquarters at Greensboro', N.C., had no nitre caves in it. The nitre was produced by the lixiviation of nitrous earth dug from under old houses, barns, &c.
The nitre production thus organized, there was added to the Nitre Bureau the duty of supervising the production of iron, lead, copper, and, in fine, all the minerals which needed development, including the making of sulphuric and nitric acids; which latter we had to manufacture to insure a supply of fulmirate of mercury for our percussion caps. To give an idea of the extent of the duty thus performed: Colonel Morton, Chief of the Nitre and Mining Bureau, after the transfer of General St. John, writes: "We were aiding and managing some twenty to thirty furnaces, with an annual yield of 50,000 tons or more of pig metal. We had erected lead and copper smelting furnaces (at Petersburg, before referred to) with a capacity sufficient for all our wants, and had succeeded in smelting zinc of good quality at the same place." The Chemical Works were placed at Charlotte, N.C., where a pretty large leaden chamber for sulphuric acid was put up. Our chief supply of chemicals continued to come, however, from abroad, through the blockade, and these works, as well as our nitraries, were as much preparation against the day when the blockade might seal all foreign supply, as for present use. These constituted our reserves, for final conflict.
We had not omitted to have a pretty thorough, though general exploration of the mountain regions from Virginia to Alabama, with the hope of finding new deposits of lead. One of the earliest of these searches was made by Dr. Maupin, of the University of Virginia. No favorable results came from it. I remember an anecdote he told touching one of his researches. An old settler showed the Doctor a small lump of lead which he had extracted from ore like some he had in his possession. There was the lead and here was the ore, but it was not an ore of lead. The Doctor cross examined: "Did he smelt it himself?" "Yes." "What in?" "An iron ladle," such as is used for running lead balls. "Was there nothing in the ladle but this sort of ore?" "No, nothing." "Nothing at all? No addition -- no flux?" "No, nothing but a little handful of common shot, thrown in to make it melt more easy!"
Much of the nitre region was close to the lines of the enemy, and here and there along its great extent became debatable ground. Not seldom the whole working force had to be suddenly withdrawn on the approach of the enemy, the "plant" hurried off, to be again returned and work resumed when the enemy had retired. Much of the work, too, lay in "Union" districts, where our cause was unpopular and where obstacles of all kinds had to be encountered and overcome. It was no holiday duty, this nitre digging, although the service was a good deal decried by such as knew nothing of its nature.
MANUFACTURE OF INFANTRY, ARTILLERY AND CAVALRY EQUIPMENTS.
In equipping the armies first sent into the field the supply of these accessories was amazingly scant; and these deficiencies were felt more keenly, perhaps than the more important want of arms. We had arms, such as they were, for over 100,000 men; but we had no accoutrements nor equipments; and these had to be extemporized in a great measure. In time, knapsacks were little thought of by the troops and we at last contented ourselves with supplying haversacks, which the women (Heaven reward their labors) could make, and for which we could get cotton cloth. But cartridge boxes we must have: and as leather was also needed for artillery harness and for cavalry saddles, we had to divide the stock of leather the country could produce, among these much needed articles. But soldier's shoes were even more needed than some of these; so that as all could not be fully provided, a scale of preference was established. Shoes and cartridge boxes were most needed, and then saddles and bridles. The President, whose practical sagacity was rarely at fault, early reduced these interests to logical sequence. He said, "for the infantry, men must first be fed, next armed, and even clothing must follow these; for if they are fed and have arms and ammunition they can fight." Thus the Subsistence Department had in a general way, a preference for its requisitions on the Treasury; my department came next, and the Quartermaster's followed. Of course the Medical Department had in some things the lead of all, for its duties referred to the men themselves, and it was necessary first of all to keep the hospitals empty and the ranks full.
To economize leather, the cartridge boxes and waist belts were made of prepared cotton cloth, stitched in three or four thicknesses. Bridle reins were also so made, and even cartridge boxes covered with it, except the flap. Saddle skirts, too, were sometimes made in this way, heavily stitched. An ardent admirer of the South came over from Washington to offer his patent for making soldiers' shoes with no leather except the soles. The shoes were approved by all except those who wore them. The soldiers exchanged them with the first prostrate enemy who no longer needed his leathern articles. To get leather, each Department bargained for its own hides -- made contracts with the tanner -- procured hands for him by exemption from the army -- got transportation over the railroads for the hides and for supplies -- and finally, assisted the tanner to procure food for his hands, and other supplies for his tannery. One can readily see from this instance how the labors of the heads of the departments became extended. Nothing but thorough organization could accomplish these multiplied and varied duties. We even established a fishery on the Cape Fear river to get oil for mechanical purposes, getting from the sturgeon beef at the same time for our workmen.
In cavalry equipments, the main thing was to get a good saddle -- one that did not ruin the back of the horse; for that, and not the rider's seat is the point to be achieved. The rider soon accommodates himself to the set provided for him. Not so the animal's back, which suffers from a bad saddle. We adopted Jenifer's tree, which did very well while the horses were in good condition, and was praised by that prince of cavalrymen, General J.E.B. Stuart; but it came down on the horses backbone and withers as soon as the cushion of fat and muscle dwindled. The McClellan tree did better on the whole, and we finally succeeded in making a pretty good saddle of that kind -- comfortable enough, but not as durable as the Federal article. In this branch of the service, one of the most difficult wants to supply was the horseshoe for cavalry and artillery. The want of iron and labor both were felt. Of course such a thing as a horseshoe machine, to turn out thousands an hour, was not to be dreamed of; besides, we would have had little store of iron wherewith to feed it. Nor could we set up such machinery without much prevision; for to concentrate all work on one machine required the transportation of the iron to one point, and the distribution of the shoes from it to all the armies. But the railroads were greatly overtasked, and we were compelled to consider this point. Thus we were led to employ every wayside blacksmith shop accessible, especially those in and near the theatre of operations. These, again, had to be looked after, supplied with material, and exempted from service.
continued
The nitre production thus organized, there was added to the Nitre Bureau the duty of supervising the production of iron, lead, copper, and, in fine, all the minerals which needed development, including the making of sulphuric and nitric acids; which latter we had to manufacture to insure a supply of fulmirate of mercury for our percussion caps. To give an idea of the extent of the duty thus performed: Colonel Morton, Chief of the Nitre and Mining Bureau, after the transfer of General St. John, writes: "We were aiding and managing some twenty to thirty furnaces, with an annual yield of 50,000 tons or more of pig metal. We had erected lead and copper smelting furnaces (at Petersburg, before referred to) with a capacity sufficient for all our wants, and had succeeded in smelting zinc of good quality at the same place." The Chemical Works were placed at Charlotte, N.C., where a pretty large leaden chamber for sulphuric acid was put up. Our chief supply of chemicals continued to come, however, from abroad, through the blockade, and these works, as well as our nitraries, were as much preparation against the day when the blockade might seal all foreign supply, as for present use. These constituted our reserves, for final conflict.
We had not omitted to have a pretty thorough, though general exploration of the mountain regions from Virginia to Alabama, with the hope of finding new deposits of lead. One of the earliest of these searches was made by Dr. Maupin, of the University of Virginia. No favorable results came from it. I remember an anecdote he told touching one of his researches. An old settler showed the Doctor a small lump of lead which he had extracted from ore like some he had in his possession. There was the lead and here was the ore, but it was not an ore of lead. The Doctor cross examined: "Did he smelt it himself?" "Yes." "What in?" "An iron ladle," such as is used for running lead balls. "Was there nothing in the ladle but this sort of ore?" "No, nothing." "Nothing at all? No addition -- no flux?" "No, nothing but a little handful of common shot, thrown in to make it melt more easy!"
Much of the nitre region was close to the lines of the enemy, and here and there along its great extent became debatable ground. Not seldom the whole working force had to be suddenly withdrawn on the approach of the enemy, the "plant" hurried off, to be again returned and work resumed when the enemy had retired. Much of the work, too, lay in "Union" districts, where our cause was unpopular and where obstacles of all kinds had to be encountered and overcome. It was no holiday duty, this nitre digging, although the service was a good deal decried by such as knew nothing of its nature.
MANUFACTURE OF INFANTRY, ARTILLERY AND CAVALRY EQUIPMENTS.
In equipping the armies first sent into the field the supply of these accessories was amazingly scant; and these deficiencies were felt more keenly, perhaps than the more important want of arms. We had arms, such as they were, for over 100,000 men; but we had no accoutrements nor equipments; and these had to be extemporized in a great measure. In time, knapsacks were little thought of by the troops and we at last contented ourselves with supplying haversacks, which the women (Heaven reward their labors) could make, and for which we could get cotton cloth. But cartridge boxes we must have: and as leather was also needed for artillery harness and for cavalry saddles, we had to divide the stock of leather the country could produce, among these much needed articles. But soldier's shoes were even more needed than some of these; so that as all could not be fully provided, a scale of preference was established. Shoes and cartridge boxes were most needed, and then saddles and bridles. The President, whose practical sagacity was rarely at fault, early reduced these interests to logical sequence. He said, "for the infantry, men must first be fed, next armed, and even clothing must follow these; for if they are fed and have arms and ammunition they can fight." Thus the Subsistence Department had in a general way, a preference for its requisitions on the Treasury; my department came next, and the Quartermaster's followed. Of course the Medical Department had in some things the lead of all, for its duties referred to the men themselves, and it was necessary first of all to keep the hospitals empty and the ranks full.
To economize leather, the cartridge boxes and waist belts were made of prepared cotton cloth, stitched in three or four thicknesses. Bridle reins were also so made, and even cartridge boxes covered with it, except the flap. Saddle skirts, too, were sometimes made in this way, heavily stitched. An ardent admirer of the South came over from Washington to offer his patent for making soldiers' shoes with no leather except the soles. The shoes were approved by all except those who wore them. The soldiers exchanged them with the first prostrate enemy who no longer needed his leathern articles. To get leather, each Department bargained for its own hides -- made contracts with the tanner -- procured hands for him by exemption from the army -- got transportation over the railroads for the hides and for supplies -- and finally, assisted the tanner to procure food for his hands, and other supplies for his tannery. One can readily see from this instance how the labors of the heads of the departments became extended. Nothing but thorough organization could accomplish these multiplied and varied duties. We even established a fishery on the Cape Fear river to get oil for mechanical purposes, getting from the sturgeon beef at the same time for our workmen.
In cavalry equipments, the main thing was to get a good saddle -- one that did not ruin the back of the horse; for that, and not the rider's seat is the point to be achieved. The rider soon accommodates himself to the set provided for him. Not so the animal's back, which suffers from a bad saddle. We adopted Jenifer's tree, which did very well while the horses were in good condition, and was praised by that prince of cavalrymen, General J.E.B. Stuart; but it came down on the horses backbone and withers as soon as the cushion of fat and muscle dwindled. The McClellan tree did better on the whole, and we finally succeeded in making a pretty good saddle of that kind -- comfortable enough, but not as durable as the Federal article. In this branch of the service, one of the most difficult wants to supply was the horseshoe for cavalry and artillery. The want of iron and labor both were felt. Of course such a thing as a horseshoe machine, to turn out thousands an hour, was not to be dreamed of; besides, we would have had little store of iron wherewith to feed it. Nor could we set up such machinery without much prevision; for to concentrate all work on one machine required the transportation of the iron to one point, and the distribution of the shoes from it to all the armies. But the railroads were greatly overtasked, and we were compelled to consider this point. Thus we were led to employ every wayside blacksmith shop accessible, especially those in and near the theatre of operations. These, again, had to be looked after, supplied with material, and exempted from service.
continued
BUREAU OF FOREIGN SUPPLIES.
It soon became obvious that in the Ordnance Department we must rely greatly on the introduction of articles of prime necessity through the blockade ports. As before stated, President Davis early saw this, and had an officer detailed to go abroad as the agent of the department. To systematize the introduction of the purchases, it was soon found advisable to own and run our own steamers. Major Huse made the suggestion also from that side of the water. Accordingly, he purchased and sent in the Robert E. Lee at a cost of 30,000 pounds, a vessel capable of stowing six hundred and fifty bales of cotton. This vessel was kept running between Bermuda and Wilmington, and made some fifteen to eighteen successive trips before she was finally captured -- the first twelve with the regularity of a packet. She was commanded first by Captain Wilkinson, of the navy. Soon the Cornubia, named the Lady Davis, was added, and ran as successfully as the R.E. Lee. She had the capacity of about four hundred and fifty bales, and was during the latter part of her career commanded also by a former navy officer, Captain R.H. Gayle. These vessels were long, low and rather narrow, built for swiftness, and with their lights out and with fuel that made little smoke they contrived to slip in and out of Wilmington at pleasure, in spite of a cordon of Federal cruisers eager for the spoils of a blockade runner. Other vessels -- the Eugenia, a beautiful ship, the Stag, and several others were added, all devoted to carrying ordnance supplies, and finally general supplies. To supervise shipments at Bermuda, to which point they were brought by neutrals, either by steam or sail, Major Norman Walker was sent there by Mr. Secretary Randolph about midsummer, 1862. Later, an army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Smith Stansbury, was detached to take charge of the stores accumulated there. Depots were likewise made at Nassau and Havana. Thus much of the foreign organization.
But the organization of the business outside of our own soil was much the simplest part of the service. The home administration involved a variety of work so foreign to my other duties that I soon looked about for the proper person to discharge them in the most effective manner by exclusive devotion to them; and I had Lieutenant Colonel Bayne detailed to my office for this duty. He had been wounded at Shiloh, and on his recovery joined me about September, 1862.
It was soon found necessary, in order that the vessels coming in through the blockade might have their lading promptly on their arrival, that the Bureau should undertake the procuring and shipment of cotton to Wilmington, Charleston, and other points, for we had vessels arriving at half a dozen ports, from Wilmington to Galveston. This necessitated the establishment of a steam compress at Wilmington, and, affiliated with it, agents to procure the cotton in the interior and see it to its destination; for the railroads were now so overtasked that it was only by placing positive orders from the Secretary of War in the hands of a selected agent that the cotton could be certainly forwarded over the various roads. The steam press was kept fully at work, in charge of Captain James M. Seixas (Washington artillery). The necessity for transportation over the railroads brought us in contact with them, and gave them claim on us for assistance in the matter of supplies, such as steel, iron, copper, &c., and especially for work at the various foundries and machine shops, in which precedence was of course claimed for army work, and which were therefore in great part controlled by the Ordnance Department. The foreign supplies were not all conveyed through steamers. Contracts were out for supplies through Texas from Mexico.
Finding that the other departments of the Government would naturally claim a share in this avenue for supplies, which had been opened chiefly through my Bureau, it was detached at my own instance, but remained in charge of Colonel Bayne, with a good staff of officers and agents as a separate Bureau.
Thus the Ordnance Department consisted of a Bureau proper of Ordnance having its officers in the field and at the arsenals and depots; of the Nitre and Mining Bureau, and of the Bureau of Foreign Supplies.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARSENALS, ARMORIES AND OTHER PLACES OF MANUFACTURE OF ORDNANCE STORES.
The arsenal at Richmond soon grew into very large dimensions, and produced all the ordnance stores that an army may require, except cannon and small arms in quantities sufficient to supply the forces in that part of the field. I have by accident preserved a copy of the last number of the Richmond Enquirer, published under Confederate rule. It is dated April 1st, 1865, and contains the following "Statement of the principal issues from the Richmond arsenal, from July 1st, 1861, to January 1st, 1865:" 341 Columbiads and seige guns (these were made at the Tredegar works, but issued from the arsenal); 1,306 field pieces, made chiefly at Tredegar works or captured; 1,375 gun carriages; 875 caissons; 152 forges; 6,852 sets of artillery harness; 921,441 rounds field, seige, and seacoast ammunition; 1,456,190 friction primer; 1,110,966 fuzes; 17,423 port fires; 3,985 rockets; 323,231 infantry arms (most of these were turned in from the army, from battlefields and from the Richmond armory); 34,067 cavalry arms (same remark); 44,877 swords and sabres (from army, battlefield and contractors); 375,510 sets of infantry and cavalry accoutrements; 180,181 knapsacks; 328,977 canteens and straps; 72,413,854 small arm cartridges; 115,087 gun and carbine slings; 146,901,250 percussion caps; 69,418 cavalry saddles; 85,139 cavalry bridles; 75,611 cavalry halters; 35,464 saddle blankets; 59,624 pairs spurs; 42,285 horse brushes; 56,903 curry combs.
This "statement" appears as an editorial, but the items were furnished from the office of the arsenal, and may be relied on. Its Commandant at this time was Lieutenant Colonel LeRoy Broun, of Virginia. In the items of cavalry saddles, bridles, harness, infantry accoutrements, canteens and other articles of this character much assistance was received from contractors. A small part of the percussion caps also came from other arsenals. When we reflect that the arsenal grew to these great dimensions in a little over two years, it must be confessed that good use was made of the time. The laboratory attached to the arsenal was well conducted and did much work. It covered the island known as Green Island, which was connected with the shore by a bridge, built by the Engineer Department, especially for the service of this laboratory.
Besides the cap machinery, which was a very large and improved plant, machinery for pressing balls, for driving time fuzes, for drawing friction primers and metallic cartridges, and other labor saving machines were invented, made and used with effect. In all respects the establishment, though extemporized, and lodged in a cluster of tobacco warehouses, was equal to the first class arsenals of the United States in extent and facilities.
The arsenal of Augusta, Ga., was in great part organized in the city, where suitable buildings were obtained, and did much the same class of work done at Richmond, though on a smaller scale. It was very serviceable to the armies serving in the South and West, and turned out a good deal of field artillery complete, the castings being excellent. Colonel George W. Rains, in charge of arsenal and powder works, found that the fusion of a small per cent. of iron with the copper and tin improved the strength of the bronze castings very much.
The powder mills at Augusta, Ga., which I have already mentioned as the direct result of the order of President Davis, were wonderfully successful and never met with serious accident -- a safe indication of the goodness of its arrangements. It showed, too, that under able direction the resources of Southern workshops and the skill of its artisans had already become equal to the execution of great enterprises involving high mechanical skill.
The arsenal and workshops at Charleston were also enlarged, steam introduced, and good work done in various departments.
The arsenal at Mount Vernon, now furnished with steam power and having a good deal of machinery, was considered out of position after the fall of New Orleans, and was moved to Selma, Ala., where it grew into a large, well ordered arsenal of the best class, under the charge of Lieutenant Colonel White. It was relied on to a great extent for the equipment of the troops and fortifications in the southern part of the Confederacy.
Attracted by the deposits of fine ore immediately north of Selma, made accessible by the Selma, Rome and Dalton Railroad, the War Department accepted the proposition of Mr. Colin McRae to undertake the erection at Selma of a large foundry for the casting of cannon of the heaviest calibre. A large contract was made with him and advances of money made from time to time as the work progressed. After a time Mr. McRae was called on by President Davis to go abroad in connection with Confederate finances. He made it a condition that he should be relieved of his works and contract at Selma without pecuniary loss to himself. The works were thereupon assumed by the War and Navy Departments jointly, and placed at first under the charge of Colonel Rains as general superintendent, while an officer of less rank took immediate charge. Subsequently it was agreed by the War Department that the Navy should take sole charge and use the works for its own purposes. It was here that Commander Brooke made many of his formidable banded and rifled guns.
The foundry and rolling mills then grew into large proportions, supplied by the iron and coal of that region. Had the Confederacy survived, Selma bid fair to become the Pittsburgh of the South. The iron obtained from the brown haematite at the furnaces in Bibb county (Brierfield), and from the Shelby Works, was admirable, the former being of unusual strength.
Mount Vernon Arsenal was still continued, after being in a great measure dismantled, and was utilized to get lumber and timber for use elsewhere, and to gather and prepare moss for making saddle blankets.
At Montgomery shops were kept up for the repair of small arms, and for the manufacture of articles of leather, of which some supplies were obtained in that region.
There were many other small establishments and depots, some of them connected immediately with the army, as at Dublin, Southwest Va.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Jackson, Miss. Some shops at Lynchburg, Va., were moved to Danville, near the south line of Virginia, and it grew into a place of some value for repairs, &c.
The Ordnance shops at Nashville had been hurriedly transferred to Atlanta, Ga., on the fall of Fort Donelson; and when Atlanta was seriously threatened by the operations of Sherman the Arsenal there, which had become very important, was moved to Columbus, Ga., where there was the nucleus of an Ordnance establishment. Colonel M.H. Wright soon made this nearly as valuable as his arsenal at Atlanta had been.
continued
It soon became obvious that in the Ordnance Department we must rely greatly on the introduction of articles of prime necessity through the blockade ports. As before stated, President Davis early saw this, and had an officer detailed to go abroad as the agent of the department. To systematize the introduction of the purchases, it was soon found advisable to own and run our own steamers. Major Huse made the suggestion also from that side of the water. Accordingly, he purchased and sent in the Robert E. Lee at a cost of 30,000 pounds, a vessel capable of stowing six hundred and fifty bales of cotton. This vessel was kept running between Bermuda and Wilmington, and made some fifteen to eighteen successive trips before she was finally captured -- the first twelve with the regularity of a packet. She was commanded first by Captain Wilkinson, of the navy. Soon the Cornubia, named the Lady Davis, was added, and ran as successfully as the R.E. Lee. She had the capacity of about four hundred and fifty bales, and was during the latter part of her career commanded also by a former navy officer, Captain R.H. Gayle. These vessels were long, low and rather narrow, built for swiftness, and with their lights out and with fuel that made little smoke they contrived to slip in and out of Wilmington at pleasure, in spite of a cordon of Federal cruisers eager for the spoils of a blockade runner. Other vessels -- the Eugenia, a beautiful ship, the Stag, and several others were added, all devoted to carrying ordnance supplies, and finally general supplies. To supervise shipments at Bermuda, to which point they were brought by neutrals, either by steam or sail, Major Norman Walker was sent there by Mr. Secretary Randolph about midsummer, 1862. Later, an army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Smith Stansbury, was detached to take charge of the stores accumulated there. Depots were likewise made at Nassau and Havana. Thus much of the foreign organization.
But the organization of the business outside of our own soil was much the simplest part of the service. The home administration involved a variety of work so foreign to my other duties that I soon looked about for the proper person to discharge them in the most effective manner by exclusive devotion to them; and I had Lieutenant Colonel Bayne detailed to my office for this duty. He had been wounded at Shiloh, and on his recovery joined me about September, 1862.
It was soon found necessary, in order that the vessels coming in through the blockade might have their lading promptly on their arrival, that the Bureau should undertake the procuring and shipment of cotton to Wilmington, Charleston, and other points, for we had vessels arriving at half a dozen ports, from Wilmington to Galveston. This necessitated the establishment of a steam compress at Wilmington, and, affiliated with it, agents to procure the cotton in the interior and see it to its destination; for the railroads were now so overtasked that it was only by placing positive orders from the Secretary of War in the hands of a selected agent that the cotton could be certainly forwarded over the various roads. The steam press was kept fully at work, in charge of Captain James M. Seixas (Washington artillery). The necessity for transportation over the railroads brought us in contact with them, and gave them claim on us for assistance in the matter of supplies, such as steel, iron, copper, &c., and especially for work at the various foundries and machine shops, in which precedence was of course claimed for army work, and which were therefore in great part controlled by the Ordnance Department. The foreign supplies were not all conveyed through steamers. Contracts were out for supplies through Texas from Mexico.
Finding that the other departments of the Government would naturally claim a share in this avenue for supplies, which had been opened chiefly through my Bureau, it was detached at my own instance, but remained in charge of Colonel Bayne, with a good staff of officers and agents as a separate Bureau.
Thus the Ordnance Department consisted of a Bureau proper of Ordnance having its officers in the field and at the arsenals and depots; of the Nitre and Mining Bureau, and of the Bureau of Foreign Supplies.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARSENALS, ARMORIES AND OTHER PLACES OF MANUFACTURE OF ORDNANCE STORES.
The arsenal at Richmond soon grew into very large dimensions, and produced all the ordnance stores that an army may require, except cannon and small arms in quantities sufficient to supply the forces in that part of the field. I have by accident preserved a copy of the last number of the Richmond Enquirer, published under Confederate rule. It is dated April 1st, 1865, and contains the following "Statement of the principal issues from the Richmond arsenal, from July 1st, 1861, to January 1st, 1865:" 341 Columbiads and seige guns (these were made at the Tredegar works, but issued from the arsenal); 1,306 field pieces, made chiefly at Tredegar works or captured; 1,375 gun carriages; 875 caissons; 152 forges; 6,852 sets of artillery harness; 921,441 rounds field, seige, and seacoast ammunition; 1,456,190 friction primer; 1,110,966 fuzes; 17,423 port fires; 3,985 rockets; 323,231 infantry arms (most of these were turned in from the army, from battlefields and from the Richmond armory); 34,067 cavalry arms (same remark); 44,877 swords and sabres (from army, battlefield and contractors); 375,510 sets of infantry and cavalry accoutrements; 180,181 knapsacks; 328,977 canteens and straps; 72,413,854 small arm cartridges; 115,087 gun and carbine slings; 146,901,250 percussion caps; 69,418 cavalry saddles; 85,139 cavalry bridles; 75,611 cavalry halters; 35,464 saddle blankets; 59,624 pairs spurs; 42,285 horse brushes; 56,903 curry combs.
This "statement" appears as an editorial, but the items were furnished from the office of the arsenal, and may be relied on. Its Commandant at this time was Lieutenant Colonel LeRoy Broun, of Virginia. In the items of cavalry saddles, bridles, harness, infantry accoutrements, canteens and other articles of this character much assistance was received from contractors. A small part of the percussion caps also came from other arsenals. When we reflect that the arsenal grew to these great dimensions in a little over two years, it must be confessed that good use was made of the time. The laboratory attached to the arsenal was well conducted and did much work. It covered the island known as Green Island, which was connected with the shore by a bridge, built by the Engineer Department, especially for the service of this laboratory.
Besides the cap machinery, which was a very large and improved plant, machinery for pressing balls, for driving time fuzes, for drawing friction primers and metallic cartridges, and other labor saving machines were invented, made and used with effect. In all respects the establishment, though extemporized, and lodged in a cluster of tobacco warehouses, was equal to the first class arsenals of the United States in extent and facilities.
The arsenal of Augusta, Ga., was in great part organized in the city, where suitable buildings were obtained, and did much the same class of work done at Richmond, though on a smaller scale. It was very serviceable to the armies serving in the South and West, and turned out a good deal of field artillery complete, the castings being excellent. Colonel George W. Rains, in charge of arsenal and powder works, found that the fusion of a small per cent. of iron with the copper and tin improved the strength of the bronze castings very much.
The powder mills at Augusta, Ga., which I have already mentioned as the direct result of the order of President Davis, were wonderfully successful and never met with serious accident -- a safe indication of the goodness of its arrangements. It showed, too, that under able direction the resources of Southern workshops and the skill of its artisans had already become equal to the execution of great enterprises involving high mechanical skill.
The arsenal and workshops at Charleston were also enlarged, steam introduced, and good work done in various departments.
The arsenal at Mount Vernon, now furnished with steam power and having a good deal of machinery, was considered out of position after the fall of New Orleans, and was moved to Selma, Ala., where it grew into a large, well ordered arsenal of the best class, under the charge of Lieutenant Colonel White. It was relied on to a great extent for the equipment of the troops and fortifications in the southern part of the Confederacy.
Attracted by the deposits of fine ore immediately north of Selma, made accessible by the Selma, Rome and Dalton Railroad, the War Department accepted the proposition of Mr. Colin McRae to undertake the erection at Selma of a large foundry for the casting of cannon of the heaviest calibre. A large contract was made with him and advances of money made from time to time as the work progressed. After a time Mr. McRae was called on by President Davis to go abroad in connection with Confederate finances. He made it a condition that he should be relieved of his works and contract at Selma without pecuniary loss to himself. The works were thereupon assumed by the War and Navy Departments jointly, and placed at first under the charge of Colonel Rains as general superintendent, while an officer of less rank took immediate charge. Subsequently it was agreed by the War Department that the Navy should take sole charge and use the works for its own purposes. It was here that Commander Brooke made many of his formidable banded and rifled guns.
The foundry and rolling mills then grew into large proportions, supplied by the iron and coal of that region. Had the Confederacy survived, Selma bid fair to become the Pittsburgh of the South. The iron obtained from the brown haematite at the furnaces in Bibb county (Brierfield), and from the Shelby Works, was admirable, the former being of unusual strength.
Mount Vernon Arsenal was still continued, after being in a great measure dismantled, and was utilized to get lumber and timber for use elsewhere, and to gather and prepare moss for making saddle blankets.
At Montgomery shops were kept up for the repair of small arms, and for the manufacture of articles of leather, of which some supplies were obtained in that region.
There were many other small establishments and depots, some of them connected immediately with the army, as at Dublin, Southwest Va.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Jackson, Miss. Some shops at Lynchburg, Va., were moved to Danville, near the south line of Virginia, and it grew into a place of some value for repairs, &c.
The Ordnance shops at Nashville had been hurriedly transferred to Atlanta, Ga., on the fall of Fort Donelson; and when Atlanta was seriously threatened by the operations of Sherman the Arsenal there, which had become very important, was moved to Columbus, Ga., where there was the nucleus of an Ordnance establishment. Colonel M.H. Wright soon made this nearly as valuable as his arsenal at Atlanta had been.
continued
RMORIES AND SMALL ARMS.
Besides the Arsenals, a brief account of which has just been given, we had the armories at Richmond and Fayetteville, N.C.; and arms were also made at other points. <shv12_84> The State of Virginia claimed all the machinery captured at Harper's Ferry, and was bringing it all to Richmond. It was agreed, however, with the State of North Carolina, that part of the machinery which was specially adapted to make the Mississippi rifle (calibre 54) should go to Fayetteville, where there was an arsenal with good steam power, the machinery to be returned at the close of the war to the State of Virginia. Colonel Burton, an admirably educated machinist, superintended the re-erection of the works at Richmond. He was subsequently made Superintendent of Armories, and given full charge of the entire subject of manufacture of arms in the Confederacy. The machinery of the rifle musket (calibre 58), retained at Richmond, got to work as early as September, 1861. If we had possessed the necessary number of workmen this "plant" could have been so filled in as to have easily produced 5000 stands per month, working night and day. As it was, I don't think it ever turned out more than 1,500 in any one month. Fayetteville did not get to work until the spring of 1862, and did not average 400 per month, for want of hands.
o supplement this scarcity of operatives, Colonel Huse was authorized to engage for us a number of skilled workmen, used to work on small arms, and to pay their passage over. They came in through the blockade at Wilmington without difficulty, but we could do nothing with them. They had been engaged to be paid in gold, which meantime had risen to such a price as to make their pay enormous, and would have produced utter disintegration among our own operatives. I offered to pay one half of the wages promised them in gold, to their families in England, if they would take the remainder in Confederate money, which would support them here. I brought the British Consul to confer with them. But they stood upon their bond; and, foreseeing that their presence would do more harm than good, I simply, with their consent, reshipped them by the next steamer, and paid their passage back. The experiment cost us something like 2,000 pounds in gold, and made us shy of foreign workmen, especially English. I think the Treasury Department did succeed in getting engravers and printers for their purposes at Columbia, S.C., to some extent, by importation; but my impression is they were not English. Of all obstinate animals I have ever come in contact with, these English workmen were the most unreasonable.
The Cook Brothers had, as heretofore stated, undertaken the making of rifle muskets in New Orleans at the very commencement of the war. On the fall of New Orleans their machinery was hurriedly taken off by boats up the Mississippi. They finally selected Athens, Georgia, as their point of manufacture, and under a contract with me, and assisted with funds under that contract, proceeded to reorganize and extend their "plant." They were reasonably successful.
The want of cavalry arms caused me to make a contract with parties in Richmond to make the Sharp's carbine -- at that time the best cavalry arm we had. A set of machinery capable of turning out one hundred arms a day was driven to completion in less than a year, nearly all the machinery being built up "from the stumps." The arms were never perfect, chiefly for want of nice workmanship about the "cut off." It was not gas tight. We soon bought out the establishment, and converted it into a manufactory of rifle carbines, calibre 58, as the best arm our skill would enable us to supply to the cavalry.
Recognizing the necessity of some great central establishment for the production of small arms, plans of buildings and estimates of machinery were made for such an one, to be built at Macon, Georgia -- a point of easy access and near to a fertile corn region, out of the way of the enemy. Colonel Burton went to England and easily negotiated for the machinery, which was to have been of sufficient capacity to turn out about 10,000 arms per month. Buildings were immediately obtained for some machinery for pistols, which was transferred there; and Colonel Burton had made good progress in erecting ample buildings for the new machinery, part of which had arrived at Bermuda and Nassau when the Confederacy fell. But about six months before the close of the war, finding that the blockade had become so stringent that the introduction of machinery would be very difficult, and reflecting, too, that as long as the war continued this extended machinery would be of but little use to us for want of workmen, I got the authority of the Secretary of War to set it up at some point abroad and bring in the arms, which would be less difficult than to bring in the machinery and train the workmen. Colonel Burton was abroad on this duty when the war closed. Had the war been prolonged, we should in twelve months have been making our own arms in a foreign land, under the sanction of a private name. After the war it was proposed to transfer the entire "plant" to the buildings which were in course of construction for it at Macon. Peace would have then found us in possession of a great armory, which I much desired.
One of the earliest difficulties forced upon us in the manufacture of arms was to find an iron fit for the barrels. The "skelps" found at Harper's Ferry served for awhile, and when these were exhausted Colonel Burton selected an iron produced at a forge in Patrick county, Va., and by placing a skilled workman over the rolling process at the Tredegar Works he soon produced "skelps" with which he was satisfied. We found that almost any of the good brown haematite ores produced an iron of ample strength for the purpose, and the even grain and toughness could be attained by careful re-rolling.
Besides the larger armories at Richmond and Fayetteville, Ala., establishments grew up at Asheville, N.C., and at Tallassee, Ala. The former was the development of a private enterprise undertaken to repair and fit up old arms, by a citizen (Mr. Pullem) resident there, and afterwards as a matter of necessity assumed by the Confederate Government. Most of the machinery was moved before the close of the war to Columbia, S.C., whither, as a place of safety, other arms manufacturing machinery was moved from other points. Tallassee was selected as a good manufacturing point, a large building having been offered to us by the proprietors of the cotton mills there, and some machinery for making pistols moved thither from Columbus, Georgia.
continued
Besides the Arsenals, a brief account of which has just been given, we had the armories at Richmond and Fayetteville, N.C.; and arms were also made at other points. <shv12_84> The State of Virginia claimed all the machinery captured at Harper's Ferry, and was bringing it all to Richmond. It was agreed, however, with the State of North Carolina, that part of the machinery which was specially adapted to make the Mississippi rifle (calibre 54) should go to Fayetteville, where there was an arsenal with good steam power, the machinery to be returned at the close of the war to the State of Virginia. Colonel Burton, an admirably educated machinist, superintended the re-erection of the works at Richmond. He was subsequently made Superintendent of Armories, and given full charge of the entire subject of manufacture of arms in the Confederacy. The machinery of the rifle musket (calibre 58), retained at Richmond, got to work as early as September, 1861. If we had possessed the necessary number of workmen this "plant" could have been so filled in as to have easily produced 5000 stands per month, working night and day. As it was, I don't think it ever turned out more than 1,500 in any one month. Fayetteville did not get to work until the spring of 1862, and did not average 400 per month, for want of hands.
o supplement this scarcity of operatives, Colonel Huse was authorized to engage for us a number of skilled workmen, used to work on small arms, and to pay their passage over. They came in through the blockade at Wilmington without difficulty, but we could do nothing with them. They had been engaged to be paid in gold, which meantime had risen to such a price as to make their pay enormous, and would have produced utter disintegration among our own operatives. I offered to pay one half of the wages promised them in gold, to their families in England, if they would take the remainder in Confederate money, which would support them here. I brought the British Consul to confer with them. But they stood upon their bond; and, foreseeing that their presence would do more harm than good, I simply, with their consent, reshipped them by the next steamer, and paid their passage back. The experiment cost us something like 2,000 pounds in gold, and made us shy of foreign workmen, especially English. I think the Treasury Department did succeed in getting engravers and printers for their purposes at Columbia, S.C., to some extent, by importation; but my impression is they were not English. Of all obstinate animals I have ever come in contact with, these English workmen were the most unreasonable.
The Cook Brothers had, as heretofore stated, undertaken the making of rifle muskets in New Orleans at the very commencement of the war. On the fall of New Orleans their machinery was hurriedly taken off by boats up the Mississippi. They finally selected Athens, Georgia, as their point of manufacture, and under a contract with me, and assisted with funds under that contract, proceeded to reorganize and extend their "plant." They were reasonably successful.
The want of cavalry arms caused me to make a contract with parties in Richmond to make the Sharp's carbine -- at that time the best cavalry arm we had. A set of machinery capable of turning out one hundred arms a day was driven to completion in less than a year, nearly all the machinery being built up "from the stumps." The arms were never perfect, chiefly for want of nice workmanship about the "cut off." It was not gas tight. We soon bought out the establishment, and converted it into a manufactory of rifle carbines, calibre 58, as the best arm our skill would enable us to supply to the cavalry.
Recognizing the necessity of some great central establishment for the production of small arms, plans of buildings and estimates of machinery were made for such an one, to be built at Macon, Georgia -- a point of easy access and near to a fertile corn region, out of the way of the enemy. Colonel Burton went to England and easily negotiated for the machinery, which was to have been of sufficient capacity to turn out about 10,000 arms per month. Buildings were immediately obtained for some machinery for pistols, which was transferred there; and Colonel Burton had made good progress in erecting ample buildings for the new machinery, part of which had arrived at Bermuda and Nassau when the Confederacy fell. But about six months before the close of the war, finding that the blockade had become so stringent that the introduction of machinery would be very difficult, and reflecting, too, that as long as the war continued this extended machinery would be of but little use to us for want of workmen, I got the authority of the Secretary of War to set it up at some point abroad and bring in the arms, which would be less difficult than to bring in the machinery and train the workmen. Colonel Burton was abroad on this duty when the war closed. Had the war been prolonged, we should in twelve months have been making our own arms in a foreign land, under the sanction of a private name. After the war it was proposed to transfer the entire "plant" to the buildings which were in course of construction for it at Macon. Peace would have then found us in possession of a great armory, which I much desired.
One of the earliest difficulties forced upon us in the manufacture of arms was to find an iron fit for the barrels. The "skelps" found at Harper's Ferry served for awhile, and when these were exhausted Colonel Burton selected an iron produced at a forge in Patrick county, Va., and by placing a skilled workman over the rolling process at the Tredegar Works he soon produced "skelps" with which he was satisfied. We found that almost any of the good brown haematite ores produced an iron of ample strength for the purpose, and the even grain and toughness could be attained by careful re-rolling.
Besides the larger armories at Richmond and Fayetteville, Ala., establishments grew up at Asheville, N.C., and at Tallassee, Ala. The former was the development of a private enterprise undertaken to repair and fit up old arms, by a citizen (Mr. Pullem) resident there, and afterwards as a matter of necessity assumed by the Confederate Government. Most of the machinery was moved before the close of the war to Columbia, S.C., whither, as a place of safety, other arms manufacturing machinery was moved from other points. Tallassee was selected as a good manufacturing point, a large building having been offered to us by the proprietors of the cotton mills there, and some machinery for making pistols moved thither from Columbus, Georgia.
continued
A great part of the work of our armories consisted in repairing arms brought in from the battlefield or sent in from the armies in too damaged a condition to be effectually repaired at the arsenals. In this way only could we utilize all the gleanings of the battlefields. My recollection is that we saved nearly ten thousand stands of arms from the field of Bull Run, and that the battlefields about Richmond in 1862 gave us about twenty five thousand excellent arms through the labors of the armory at Richmond.
The original stock of arms it will be remembered, consisted almost wholly of smooth bore muskets, altered from flint to percussion, using ounce balls (cal. 69). There were some 15,000 to 20,000 Mississippi rifles; and then some irregular arms, like Hall's rifles and carbines -- some short carbines smooth bore; and there were even some of the old flint lock muskets. All this original stock disappeared almost wholly from our armies in the first two years of the war, and were replaced by a better class of arms, rifled and percussioned. It is pretty safe to assume that we had altogether, east and west of the Mississippi, 300,000 infantry, pretty well armed, by the middle of 1863. We must therefore have procured at least that number for our troops. But we must also have supplied the inevitable waste of two years of active warfare. Placing the good arms thus lost at the moderate estimate of 100,000, we must have received from various sources 400,000 stands of infantry arms in the two years of fighting, ending July 1st, 1863. I can only estimate from memory the several sources from which this supply was derived, as follows:
Good rifled arms on hand at the beginning of the war (this includes the arms in the hands of volunteer companies) 25,000
New arms manufactured in the Confederacy and in private establishments 40,000
Arms received from the battlefields and put in good order (this includes the great number of arms picked up by the soldiers 150,000
Imported from January 1st, 1862, to July 1st, 1863 185,000
Total 400,000
This estimate does not include pistols and sabres, of which a small supply was improved.
To account for the very large number obtained from the enemy (rather an under than an over estimate), it must be remembered that in some fights, where our troops were not finally successful, they were so at first; and swept over the camps and positions of the enemy. Whenever a Confederate soldier saw a weapon better than his own, he took it and left his inferior arm; and although he may have been finally driven back, he kept his improved musket. So, too, on every field there were partial successes which in the early part of the war resulted in improved weapons; and although on another part of the field there may have been a reverse; the enemy had not the same advantage; the Confederate arms being generally inferior to those of their adversaries. The difference of arms was not so marked at a later day except in cavalry arms, in which we were always at a disadvantage, the celebrated Spencer carbine being generally in the hands of the enemy's cavalry during the last two years of the war.
A CENTRAL LABORATORY.
The unavoidable variation in the ammunition made at the different arsenals pointed out, early in the war, that there should be a general superintendent of all the laboratories, invested with authority to inspect and supervise their manipulations and materials. To this end Lieutenant Colonel Mallet, a chemist and scientist of distinction, who had for some years been professor in the University of Alabama, was selected and placed in charge of this delicate and important duty. I attribute much of the improvement in our ammunition to this happy selection. A more earnest and capable officer I cannot imagine. What a set of men we would have had after the war out of which to form an Ordnance Department, had we been successful! Rains, St. John, Mallet, Burton, Wright, White, Baldwin, Rhett, Ellicott, Andrews, Childs, DeLagnel, Hutter, and others, who would have remained in the service. Then there were some no less admirable, like LeRoy Broun, Allan, Wiley Browne, Morton, Colston, Bayne, Cuyler, E.B. Smith, &c., who would doubtless have returned to their civil avocations.
Among the obvious necessities of a well regulated service, was one large, central laboratory, where all ammunition should be made -- thus securing absolute uniformity where uniformity was vital. The policy of dissemination so necessary to husband our transportation, and to utilize the labor of non combatants, must here yield to the greater necessity of obtaining our ammunition uniform in quality and in dimensions. Authority was, therefore, obtained from the War Department to concentrate this species of work at some central laboratory. Macon, Ga., was selected, and Colonel Mallet placed in charge of the Central Laboratory, as Burton was later placed in charge of a National Armory. Plans of the buildings and of the machinery required were submitted to the Secretary of War, approved, and the work begun with energy. This pile of buildings had a facade of 600 feet, was designed with taste, and comprehended every possible appliance for good and well organized work. The buildings were nearly ready for occupation at the close of the war, and some of the machinery had arrived at Bermuda. In point of time, this project preceded that of the National Armory, and was much nearer completion. These, with our admirable powder mills at Augusta, would have completed a set of works for the Ordnance Department; and in them we would have been in condition to supply arms and munitions to 300,000 men. To these would have been added a foundry for heavy guns at Selma or Brierfield, Ala.; at which latter place the strongest cast iron in the country was produced, and where we had already purchased and were carrying on a furnace for the production of cold blast charcoal pig for this special purpose. All these establishments were in the heart of the country, not readily reached by the enemy; and were, in fact, never reached by them until just at the close of the war. Being in or near an excellent agricultural region, they would have had the advantage of cheap living for operatives; and they had all sufficient facilities for transportation, being situated on main lines of railroad.
SUMMARY.
I have thus, from memory, faintly traced the development of the means and resources by which our large armies were supplied with arms and ammunition. This involved manufacturing, mining and importation. The last two were confided in time to sub bureaus created ex necessitate, which were subsequently detached. The first was carried on by the armories, arsenals, laboratories and depots above mentioned. We began in April, 1861, without an arsenal, laboratory or powder mill of any capacity, and with no foundry or rolling mill, except at Richmond, and before the close of 1863, in little over two years, we had built up, during all the harassments of war, holding our own in the field defiantly and successfully against a powerful and determined enemy. Crippled as we were by a depreciated currency; throttled with a blockade that deprived us of nearly all means of getting material or workmen; obliged to send almost every able bodied man to the field; unable to use the slave labor with which we were abundantly supplied, except in the most unskilled departments of production; hampered by want of transportation even of the commonest supplies of food; with no stock on hand even of the articles, such as steel, copper, lead, iron, leather, which we must have to build up our establishments; and in spite of these deficiencies we persevered at home as determinedly as did our troops in the field against a more tangible opposition, and in a little over two years created, almost literally out of the ground, foundries and rolling mills (at Selma, Richmond, Atlanta, and Macon), smelting works (at Petersburg), chemical works (at Charlotte, N.C.), a powder mill far superior to any in the United States and unsurpassed by any across the ocean, and a chain of arsenals, armories and laboratories equal in their capacity and their improved appointments to the best of those in the United States, stretching link by link from Virginia to Alabama. Our people are justly proud of the valor and constancy of the troops which bore their banners bravely in the front of the enemy; but they will also reflect that these creations of skill and labor were the monuments which represented the patience, industry and perseverance of the devoted and patriotic citizens; for of the success which attended the operations of any department of the Confederate Government the larger moiety was due to the cooperation of the body of the people -- a cooperation founded in their hearty sympathy with and their faith in the cause which that government represented.
ORGANIZATION.
The Ordnance Bureau, as finally organized, consisted of one Brigadier General, one Colonel, and of such additional number of field officers, Captains, and First Lieutenants as the service required. They were artillery officers on ordnance duty. Appointments to these positions were at first made by selection, on nomination by the Ordnance Bureau; but about October, 1862, Congress created fifty officers of artillery especially for ordnance duty, to which two hundred more were subsequently added. As selection for these officers involved much political contrivance, I obtained the order of the Secretary of War to hold examinations for appointment to the grade of Captain and First Lieutenant. This plan succeeded entirely, and relieved us from a thousand personal solicitations. The first examination was held at Richmond. Of some five hundred applications found on file for ordnance officers, less than one hundred came to the examination, and of these only some forty or fifty passed. The examination for Captain involved a fair knowledge of a college course of mathematics, and none, I believe, passed this except the M.A.'s of the University of Virginia. That for First Lieutenant embraced only an ordinary English education, with a full examination on the Ordnance Manual. This gave us an excellent set of officers -- educated men; and although a few of them were, as was said, "Virginia school masters," and cannot be said to have distinguished themselves professionally, yet they were all respectable on account of their education; and I am sure there never were in any a better class of such officers.
These examinations were extended, and were held at the headquarters of each army in the field by a commission, of which Lieutenant Colonel Le Roy Broun and Lieutenant Colonel S. Stansbury, Colonel T.A. Rhett and Major J. Wilcox Browne were the chief members. These, or one of them, went to an army and associated with themselves one or more officers detailed by the General at headquarters. In order to provide for that class of valuable officers distinguished for excellent qualities developed by service on the field, but not prepared for a somewhat technical examination, each General of an army designated one or two of this class, who were appointed on his recommendation alone.
Officers in the field were distributed as follows: To each army a "chief ordnance officer," with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel; to each army corps, an ordnance officer with the rank of Major; to each division a Captain, and to each brigade a First Lieutenant: all these attached to the staff of their respective Generals, but reporting also, directly if necessary, to the ordnance officer, through his superior, in the field, and receiving instructions as to special duties through the same channel. Every regiment had an ordnance Sergeant, charged with the care of the ordnance wagon, which contained the spare arms and the ammunition of each regiment. The officers in command of the greater ordnance establishments -- such as Richmond and Augusta, &c. -- had the grade of Lieutenant Colonel, like the "chief ordnance officers" of armies in the field, while at the lesser establishments the officers had rank according to the gravity of the duties devolving on them.
The Superintendent of Armories, Lieutenant Colonel Burton, and the Superintendent of Laboratories, Lieutenant Colonel Mallet, had also the grade of the higher officers on duty in the field.
continued
The original stock of arms it will be remembered, consisted almost wholly of smooth bore muskets, altered from flint to percussion, using ounce balls (cal. 69). There were some 15,000 to 20,000 Mississippi rifles; and then some irregular arms, like Hall's rifles and carbines -- some short carbines smooth bore; and there were even some of the old flint lock muskets. All this original stock disappeared almost wholly from our armies in the first two years of the war, and were replaced by a better class of arms, rifled and percussioned. It is pretty safe to assume that we had altogether, east and west of the Mississippi, 300,000 infantry, pretty well armed, by the middle of 1863. We must therefore have procured at least that number for our troops. But we must also have supplied the inevitable waste of two years of active warfare. Placing the good arms thus lost at the moderate estimate of 100,000, we must have received from various sources 400,000 stands of infantry arms in the two years of fighting, ending July 1st, 1863. I can only estimate from memory the several sources from which this supply was derived, as follows:
Good rifled arms on hand at the beginning of the war (this includes the arms in the hands of volunteer companies) 25,000
New arms manufactured in the Confederacy and in private establishments 40,000
Arms received from the battlefields and put in good order (this includes the great number of arms picked up by the soldiers 150,000
Imported from January 1st, 1862, to July 1st, 1863 185,000
Total 400,000
This estimate does not include pistols and sabres, of which a small supply was improved.
To account for the very large number obtained from the enemy (rather an under than an over estimate), it must be remembered that in some fights, where our troops were not finally successful, they were so at first; and swept over the camps and positions of the enemy. Whenever a Confederate soldier saw a weapon better than his own, he took it and left his inferior arm; and although he may have been finally driven back, he kept his improved musket. So, too, on every field there were partial successes which in the early part of the war resulted in improved weapons; and although on another part of the field there may have been a reverse; the enemy had not the same advantage; the Confederate arms being generally inferior to those of their adversaries. The difference of arms was not so marked at a later day except in cavalry arms, in which we were always at a disadvantage, the celebrated Spencer carbine being generally in the hands of the enemy's cavalry during the last two years of the war.
A CENTRAL LABORATORY.
The unavoidable variation in the ammunition made at the different arsenals pointed out, early in the war, that there should be a general superintendent of all the laboratories, invested with authority to inspect and supervise their manipulations and materials. To this end Lieutenant Colonel Mallet, a chemist and scientist of distinction, who had for some years been professor in the University of Alabama, was selected and placed in charge of this delicate and important duty. I attribute much of the improvement in our ammunition to this happy selection. A more earnest and capable officer I cannot imagine. What a set of men we would have had after the war out of which to form an Ordnance Department, had we been successful! Rains, St. John, Mallet, Burton, Wright, White, Baldwin, Rhett, Ellicott, Andrews, Childs, DeLagnel, Hutter, and others, who would have remained in the service. Then there were some no less admirable, like LeRoy Broun, Allan, Wiley Browne, Morton, Colston, Bayne, Cuyler, E.B. Smith, &c., who would doubtless have returned to their civil avocations.
Among the obvious necessities of a well regulated service, was one large, central laboratory, where all ammunition should be made -- thus securing absolute uniformity where uniformity was vital. The policy of dissemination so necessary to husband our transportation, and to utilize the labor of non combatants, must here yield to the greater necessity of obtaining our ammunition uniform in quality and in dimensions. Authority was, therefore, obtained from the War Department to concentrate this species of work at some central laboratory. Macon, Ga., was selected, and Colonel Mallet placed in charge of the Central Laboratory, as Burton was later placed in charge of a National Armory. Plans of the buildings and of the machinery required were submitted to the Secretary of War, approved, and the work begun with energy. This pile of buildings had a facade of 600 feet, was designed with taste, and comprehended every possible appliance for good and well organized work. The buildings were nearly ready for occupation at the close of the war, and some of the machinery had arrived at Bermuda. In point of time, this project preceded that of the National Armory, and was much nearer completion. These, with our admirable powder mills at Augusta, would have completed a set of works for the Ordnance Department; and in them we would have been in condition to supply arms and munitions to 300,000 men. To these would have been added a foundry for heavy guns at Selma or Brierfield, Ala.; at which latter place the strongest cast iron in the country was produced, and where we had already purchased and were carrying on a furnace for the production of cold blast charcoal pig for this special purpose. All these establishments were in the heart of the country, not readily reached by the enemy; and were, in fact, never reached by them until just at the close of the war. Being in or near an excellent agricultural region, they would have had the advantage of cheap living for operatives; and they had all sufficient facilities for transportation, being situated on main lines of railroad.
SUMMARY.
I have thus, from memory, faintly traced the development of the means and resources by which our large armies were supplied with arms and ammunition. This involved manufacturing, mining and importation. The last two were confided in time to sub bureaus created ex necessitate, which were subsequently detached. The first was carried on by the armories, arsenals, laboratories and depots above mentioned. We began in April, 1861, without an arsenal, laboratory or powder mill of any capacity, and with no foundry or rolling mill, except at Richmond, and before the close of 1863, in little over two years, we had built up, during all the harassments of war, holding our own in the field defiantly and successfully against a powerful and determined enemy. Crippled as we were by a depreciated currency; throttled with a blockade that deprived us of nearly all means of getting material or workmen; obliged to send almost every able bodied man to the field; unable to use the slave labor with which we were abundantly supplied, except in the most unskilled departments of production; hampered by want of transportation even of the commonest supplies of food; with no stock on hand even of the articles, such as steel, copper, lead, iron, leather, which we must have to build up our establishments; and in spite of these deficiencies we persevered at home as determinedly as did our troops in the field against a more tangible opposition, and in a little over two years created, almost literally out of the ground, foundries and rolling mills (at Selma, Richmond, Atlanta, and Macon), smelting works (at Petersburg), chemical works (at Charlotte, N.C.), a powder mill far superior to any in the United States and unsurpassed by any across the ocean, and a chain of arsenals, armories and laboratories equal in their capacity and their improved appointments to the best of those in the United States, stretching link by link from Virginia to Alabama. Our people are justly proud of the valor and constancy of the troops which bore their banners bravely in the front of the enemy; but they will also reflect that these creations of skill and labor were the monuments which represented the patience, industry and perseverance of the devoted and patriotic citizens; for of the success which attended the operations of any department of the Confederate Government the larger moiety was due to the cooperation of the body of the people -- a cooperation founded in their hearty sympathy with and their faith in the cause which that government represented.
ORGANIZATION.
The Ordnance Bureau, as finally organized, consisted of one Brigadier General, one Colonel, and of such additional number of field officers, Captains, and First Lieutenants as the service required. They were artillery officers on ordnance duty. Appointments to these positions were at first made by selection, on nomination by the Ordnance Bureau; but about October, 1862, Congress created fifty officers of artillery especially for ordnance duty, to which two hundred more were subsequently added. As selection for these officers involved much political contrivance, I obtained the order of the Secretary of War to hold examinations for appointment to the grade of Captain and First Lieutenant. This plan succeeded entirely, and relieved us from a thousand personal solicitations. The first examination was held at Richmond. Of some five hundred applications found on file for ordnance officers, less than one hundred came to the examination, and of these only some forty or fifty passed. The examination for Captain involved a fair knowledge of a college course of mathematics, and none, I believe, passed this except the M.A.'s of the University of Virginia. That for First Lieutenant embraced only an ordinary English education, with a full examination on the Ordnance Manual. This gave us an excellent set of officers -- educated men; and although a few of them were, as was said, "Virginia school masters," and cannot be said to have distinguished themselves professionally, yet they were all respectable on account of their education; and I am sure there never were in any a better class of such officers.
These examinations were extended, and were held at the headquarters of each army in the field by a commission, of which Lieutenant Colonel Le Roy Broun and Lieutenant Colonel S. Stansbury, Colonel T.A. Rhett and Major J. Wilcox Browne were the chief members. These, or one of them, went to an army and associated with themselves one or more officers detailed by the General at headquarters. In order to provide for that class of valuable officers distinguished for excellent qualities developed by service on the field, but not prepared for a somewhat technical examination, each General of an army designated one or two of this class, who were appointed on his recommendation alone.
Officers in the field were distributed as follows: To each army a "chief ordnance officer," with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel; to each army corps, an ordnance officer with the rank of Major; to each division a Captain, and to each brigade a First Lieutenant: all these attached to the staff of their respective Generals, but reporting also, directly if necessary, to the ordnance officer, through his superior, in the field, and receiving instructions as to special duties through the same channel. Every regiment had an ordnance Sergeant, charged with the care of the ordnance wagon, which contained the spare arms and the ammunition of each regiment. The officers in command of the greater ordnance establishments -- such as Richmond and Augusta, &c. -- had the grade of Lieutenant Colonel, like the "chief ordnance officers" of armies in the field, while at the lesser establishments the officers had rank according to the gravity of the duties devolving on them.
The Superintendent of Armories, Lieutenant Colonel Burton, and the Superintendent of Laboratories, Lieutenant Colonel Mallet, had also the grade of the higher officers on duty in the field.
continued
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