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Transfer of arms to the South.
It was a charge often repeated against
Governor Floyd that, as
Secretary of War, he had with traitorous intent abused his office by sending arms to the
South just before the secession of the States.
The transactions which gave rise to this accusation were in the ordinary course of an economical administration of the War Department.
After it had been determined to change the old flint-lock musket, which the
United States possessed, to percussion, it was deemed cheaper to bring all the flint-lock arms in store at Southern arsenals to the
Northern arsenals and armories for alteration, rather than to send the necessary machinery and workmen to the
South.
Consequently the
Southern arsenals were stripped of their deposits, which were sent to
Springfield, Watervelet,
Pittsburgh,
St. Louis,
Frankfort, Pa., and other points.
After the conversion had been completed the denuded Southern arsenals were again supplied with about the same numbers, perhaps slightly augmented, that had formerly been stored there.
The quota deposited at the
Charleston arsenal, where I was stationed in 1860, arrived there full a year before the opening of the war.
