OR, Series 1, Vol. 46, Part 2, Page 1211

Subsistence Department, C. S. A.
Richmond, February 9, 1865
 
Hon. John C. Breckinridge
Secretary of War
 
Sir,
   In response to your circular of 7th instant, received yesterday, I have the honor to submit for your consideration the papers herewith inclosed, with the following remarks:
   During the past fifteen months it has been my duty to make many and most urgent representations to the War Department of the danger of want impending over the troops of the Army of Northern Virginia, and also of the stringent necessity (for the safety of Richmond, of the State of Virginia, and probably of the Confederacy) that accumulations of supplies should be made in this city. The obstacles in the way of this and the plans to surmount those obstacles have been pressed repeatedly and the needed requirements urged. In my communications and indorsements to the Secretaries of War and the Treasury, and to others, I have fully set forth these difficulties as indicated by circumstances and urged with pertinacity the adoption of measures to overcome them. The arguments used by me have been, in my judgment, incontrovertible, but have had but little effect, and the Army of Virginia has for several months suffered the consequence of their non-adoption, during which period it has been living literally "from hand to mouth." The other armies of the Confederacy have been differently circumstanced, and do not, for the present, so much suffer from local deficiency or insufficient means of transportation. During the whole of the year 1864 consumption has been much more rapid than collection, and accumulations already made, instead of being increased, were consumed. During the first three months of that year a larger amount of money (in old issue) was turned into the Treasury by the officers of the commissariat than was issued by it to them in the new, and since that time only a part of what was due has been paid. As a consequence, their indebtedness has become overwhelming, until everywhere credit was lost, and supplies which might have been obtained for the subsistence of the army passed into other hands.
   The same state of affairs, to even a greater extent, exists now in the period of collection, and, as a consequence of the lack of money and credit, not one-fifth of the hogs which could have been secured have been or will be obtained for the army. Supplies which had been purchased at the islands to bridge over to the incoming crop of meat have not been brought in and are now not available. Repeated orders for their shipment were without effect, and plans proposed by this bureau to secure that object have not been permitted or have been frustrated by circumstances beyond the control of the bureau.
   The retention of many thousand of prisoners of war in this city caused the consumption of our reserve of flour, deficient transportation preventing their entire subsistence on corn from the south, as had been intended. The supply of the Army of Northern Virginia requires special consideration, for the ravages of the enemy in the country in which it operates have left not a full supply even for the non-combatants; hence its basis of supply are very remote, and that supply must be con-tin gent on the means of collecting in those remote localities an excess over the wants of the troops there operating. This army is also sustained by various contrivances to draw supplies from beyond our lines by barter and by secret arrangements with the enemy, turning on their anxiety to get cotton. For both these purposes funds and credit are both necessary; hence it is obvious that the subsistence of the army rests on a most precarious foundation. The instant passage of the amendment to the Tithe bill, and its active execution; the exercise of authority to impress teams along the line of roads to bring supplies forward; the furnishing of some coin and of sufficient funds to purchase articles of barter and to pay for 4,000 bales of cotton immediately, and to purchase supplies throughout the land, are all indispensable at this juncture.

   It is also necessary that the management of the Danville and Piedmont Railroad shall be rendered efficient, and that we shall hold the southwestern counties of Virginia and those in North Carolina lying adjacent. In that section of country arrangements have been instituted by Major Shelby to send forward supplies to this army. This is especially important since the loss of East Tennessee, where operations had been set on foot of a most promising character.

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   The ravages of the enemy destroying the fruits of the earth, the appliances for production, and stock animals persisted in by them, in order to starve us and to exclude us from all territory entered by them, is an impediment to subsistence which I have (from their first experiment to test our endurance on this point) represented to be fatal if permitted, but which can always be stopped by that side when the necessity to check it becomes stronger than the stimulus to the atrocity. The worst feature of the condition here is the deficiency of breadstuffs, which is due to the failure of the War Department to enforce firmly a suggestion often made by me for two years past to stop all travel and private freight and continue that expedient until our supplies were forwarded. This was promised by the Secretary in January, 1864, but not tried until March, when it was eminently successful. Had this been fully carried out, an accumulation of corn in Georgia ready for shipment could have been stored here. Repeatedly has this been urged in vain, until now the connection being broken by Sherman places that supply beyond our reach. From the beginning of the war this bureau has had policy in reference to the main principles necessary to effect the objects for which it was created:
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   Second. As this war would be necessarily conducted on and along railroad lines, these should be harmonized and kept up to their highest point of efficiency and capacity of repairs in road-bed and rolling-stock. I therefore proposed a plan and expedients for obtaining this end. This subject requires instant attention.
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   Time and repeated Congressional investigations (on several subjects) have in every case vindicated the policy of this bureau. I therefore claim to be competent to speak with information well based, and to affirm that, unless suitable men, unembarrassed by fears of removal (except for inefficiency), ample funds, and (for the present) coin in sufficient quantity to keep the Army of Virginia in beeves (which, being at present driven from beyond our lines, can be obtained by coin alone), are furnished, and the means of transportation from the south increased, this bureau cannot perform its functions. And this brings me finally to the inquiry you make--as to the ability of a chief of this bureau to effect the purposes for which it was created. I observe, then, that, in my judgment, it cannot be done, except under an administration of the other branches of service (whose operations underlie those of this bureau) different from the past. The Treasury must supply funds as needed; transportation must be found, both wagon and rail. Over neither of these subjects can this bureau exercise any control, except by application to the Treasury for the one and to the Quartermaster's Department for the other. This latter has its own supplies of forage to gather, and, as controlling transportation, its officers naturally serve that department first, especially in wagon transportation for hauling in from the country. The Secretary of War must be a center of unity to all the subordinate branches of his department. Had this been effectually acted on, it is probable that the supplies of this bureau, now at the islands, would have been brought in. Without the appliances to buy, fabricate, and transport, necessary results cannot be achieved; and where these appliances are not furnished in a measure commensurate with requirements, the essentials of food must be first sought, and when the means to procure even these are not adequately supplied, then the distribution of that which is procurable must be proportionately restricted.
   I illustrate by stating that the adherence of this bureau (under the embarrassments referred to) to the reduction of the meat ration, notwithstanding the urgent applications of General Lee, has alone enabled it to furnish meat thus far; and foreseeing the inevitable deficiency ahead, I asked the Secretary eight months ago to put the bread rations at one pound. He refused, and I did it on my own responsibility. This continued for some months, and General Lee at length urgently applied for increase; the Secretary of War also pressed it. I refused, unless positively ordered, in the face of my declaration that it was absolutely necessary to keep it at that point without due funds and improved transportation from the south. On 14th of December I recommended the reduction by general order, and he then reluctantly assented. Without this proceeding on my part this army would absolutely have been destitute. I mention this fact to exhibit the straits to which this bureau was driven under the embarrassment referred to above.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
L. B. Northrop
Commissary-General of Subsistence

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