[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 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.
To 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 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,
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
Official reports of actions with Federal
gunboats
,
Ironclads
and vessels of the
U. S. Navy
, during the war between the
States
, by officers of
field Artillery
P. A. C. S.
Agreement between the
United States Government
and
South Carolina
as to
preserving the status
of the
Forts
at
Charleston
.
The last chapter in the history of Reconstruction in
South Carolina
— administration of
D.
H.
Chamberlain
.
The last chapter in the history of Reconstruction in
South Carolina
—Administration of
D.
H.
Chamberlain
.
Is the,
Eclectic history of the
United States
,
written by
Miss
Thalheimer
and published by
Van
Antwerp
,
Bragg
& Co.
,
Cincinnati
, a fit book to be used in our schools?
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