Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

Chapter 12:

• Supply of arms at the beginning of the war; of powder; of batteries; of other Articles
-- contents of arsenals -- other stores, mills, etc. -- first efforts to obtain powder, niter, and sulphur -- construction of mills commenced -- efforts to supply arms, machinery, field artillery, ammunition, equipment, and saltpeter -- results in 1862 -- Government powder mills; how organized -- success -- efforts to obtain lead -- smelting works -- troops, how armed -- winter of 1862 -- supplies -- niter and mining bureau -- equipment of first armies -- receipts by blockade Runners -- arsenal at Richmond -- armories at Richmond and Fayetteville -- a central laboratory built at Macon -- statement of General Gorgas -- Northern charge against General Floyd answered -- charge of Slowness against the President answered -- quantities of arms purchased that could not be shipped in 1861 -- letter of Huse.

There were at Richmond about sixty thousand old flint muskets, and at Baton Rouge about ten thousand old Hall's rifles and carbines. At Little Rock, Arkansas, there were a few thousand stands, and a few at the Texas Arsenal, increasing the aggregate of serviceable arms to about one hundred forty-three thousand. Add to these the arms owned by the several states and by military organizations, and it would make a total of one hundred fifty thousand for the use of the armies of the Confederacy. The rifles were of the caliber .54, known as Mississippi rifles, except those at Richmond taken from Harpers Ferry, which were of the new model caliber .58; the muskets were the old flintlock, caliber .69,