Today in History:

1220 Series I Volume XLVI-II Serial 96 - Appomattox Campaign Part II

Page 1220 N. AND SE. VA., W. VA., MD., AND PA. Chapter LVIII.

[Inclosure Numbers 6.] AUGUSTA, GA., February 7, 1865.

Colonel L. B. NORTHROP:

Shipments not allowed on South Carolina road. Sending stores to Washington. As I have no means to shipping I will reduce prices down to the schedule soon. Leave to-day for Washington to arrange warehouse room. Return here Wednesday. I have no idea that Lee's army can get anything from here.

R. J. MOSES,

Major and Chief Commissary of Subsistence for Georgia.

[Indorsement.]

SUBSISTENCE BUREAU,

February 13, 1865.

This paper is respectfully referred for the information of the Secretary of War, in connection with report of the Commissary-General of 9th instant.

L. B. NORTHROP,

Commissary-General of Subsistence.

[Inclosure Numbers 7.] OFFICE CHIEF COMMISSARY FOR ALABAMA, Mobile, January 25, 1865.

Colonel L. B. NORTHROP,

Commissary-General, Richmond, Va.:

COLONEL: On the 15th of December Major French dispatched me that the Secretary of War had authorized payment of local value for all supplies delivered before the 1st of February, and that money would be forwarded. On the authority of this dispatch I issued an appeal to the planters, urging immediate delivery of their surplus, promising that the first deliveries should be first paid, and stating that I had the highest official assurance that the funds would be promptly remitted. The appeal failed to produce any effect, because the people did not believe it. they no longer credit any promises made by Government officials, and I regret to say that that this effort only confirmed their incredulity, as the funds were not forwarded. I am fully aware that you have done all in your power to procure funds, and I dislike to annoy you on the subject, but the district commissaries urge the matter so strongly upon me that I again call your attention to the helpless condition in which we are placed for want of funds. To show how much we have lost in the past and how hopeless is the prospect for the future without funds, I make the following extract of a letter just received from Major Guy, at Montgomery:

Our present indebtedness is not less than $2,000,000. I am entirely destitute of credit, and therefore can procure nothing without money, as the fruitlessness of the recent appeal to the planters, as suggested by you, fully testifies, and I am now without a dollar for hospital or any other purposes; cannot even pay off the employed of the office, and believe that my receipts of stores in the last six months have been cut short, say, 200,000 pounds bacon, 1,5-00 head beeves, 10,000 bushels wheat, and other articles in proportion, to say nothing of 12,000 head pork hogs, which, I think, could have been procured for slaughter in the district if I had been furnished with money. The new bacon crop will be large, but cannot be controlled without money. There is now about $4,000,000 due on my requisitions for the two last quarters of 1864, and my estimate for the present quarter has not yet been acknowledged.


Page 1220 N. AND SE. VA., W. VA., MD., AND PA. Chapter LVIII.