| Executive Department |
| Montgomery, Ala. |
| May 18, 1863 |
| |
| Brig. Gen. W. W. Mackall |
| Chief of Staff |
| Tullahoma, Tenn. |
| |
| Sir, |
| ***** |
| Coming over the mountains you visit Tuscaloosa, where are located a large cotton factory, and tannery, and shoe
establishment, and iron foundry. Here is our State
University, with its numerous and expensive buildings, library, and apparatus.
It is a military institute. The corps of cadets numbers about 150,
and are thoroughly drilled, armed, and equipped for infantry
service. I have furnished the corps with a section [of] artillery,
iron guns, cast in Tuscaloosa, and they have a good supply of ammunition, and are held ready for
field service at any moment. |
| Leaving
Tuscaloosa
, and proceeding south upon the western line of Bibb
County, you come upon the Bibb
County
factory, one of the largest in the State. Proceeding in a western
and southwestern direction from the factory, you make the towns of Gainesville
and Demopolis, about fifty to sixty or seventy miles, respectively,
from the factory. From Gainesville, as well as from Demopolis, there is a railroad connection at
Meridian
{on the Mobile & Ohio RR} in Mississippi. At
Gainesville
{on the Mississippi, Gainesville &
Tuscaloosa RR} the Confederate Government has a hospital, work-shops, and valuable
stores, and at Demopolis {on the Alabama &
Mississippi Rivers RR} there are a large quantity of supplies of
ordnance and other Government property. Demopolis is connected by
railroad with Selma. Here the investments by the Government are immense. Besides the
Alabama Arsenal, removed to this city from Vernon, the Government has established there an extensive naval foundry,
where it hopes very soon to cast the heaviest ordnance. Quantities
of shot and shell are already being turned out there, and before a
great while it is expected to roll there heavy iron-plating for our
men of-war. Besides these important works, the State is now
establishing there a manufactory of spinning cards, cotton and
woolen, and there are various private shops and enterprises which
are all essential and contributing articles for the use of the Army.
Montgomery
is about sixty miles by land from Selma. Here is our State Capitol, arsenal, and military stores, such as
remain to us. Here are extensive hospitals and purveyor's depot of
medical supplies, quartermaster's and commissary and ordnance stores
of the Confederacy, and also naval stores of immense value, which if
destroyed could not be replaced in the Confederacy. Here, moreover,
are the buildings and fixtures of the Alabama Arms Manufacturing
Company, which contain machinery for the manufacture of the Enfield
rifle, not excelled in value and completeness by any in the
Confederacy. Both in this city and in Selma
there are railroad depots and machine shops for manufacturing cars
and repairing engines. Above Montgomery sixteen miles, at Wetumpka,
on the north, is the State penitentiary, containing 225 convicts, 25
of whom I received about ten days since from Governor Pettus,
forwarded from the penitentiary of Mississippi at Jackson, on
account of their open defiance and treasonable purposes. West of
Montgomery, in the county
of Autauga, and on the old mail route to Selma, are the flourishing villages of Autaugaville and
Prattville, known all over the State for their extensive cotton and woolen
mills. East of Montgomery, and few miles north of the Montgomery
& West Point Railroad, and on the Tallapoosa River, is Tallassee,
another manufacturing town from which the Confederate Government is
drawing all the tent cloth manufactured into tents at the State
penitentiary, and from which the State has received the greatest
quantity of the material for clothing her troops in the Confederate
service. |
| From Tallahassee
to West Point
is about sixty-five or seventy miles. Here are railroad depots and
shops, and a long bridge across the Chattahoochee
River. Returning to Selma
we find a railroad extending up by Montevallo and Columbiana, and
crossing the Coosa
River
over magnificent bridge passes through the town of
Talladega
and up into Calhoun
County, terminating not many miles from Jacksonville. The company are working rapidly for its extension to
Rome, Ga. Along the line of this Alabama & Tennessee
River Railroad
are located some of the most valuable iron establishments in the
Confederacy. They are in the counties of Bibb, Shelby, and Calhoun. They supply the iron for the shops at
Selma, Montgomery, and Mobile
. With the establishment at Rome, Ga., and their importance to the Confederacy, you are perhaps better
advised than I am. |
| ***** |
| And sincerely hoping that my reasonable expectations
as to its future disposition may not be disappointed, I am, dear
sir, your obedient servant, |
| Jno. Gill Shorter |
| Governor of Alabama |
|