Executive Department
| Milledgeville,
Ga., February 10, 1864 |
| |
| General
Joseph E. Johnston |
| |
| General, |
| By a letter from Major-General Walker my
attention is again called to the importance of proper provision for
your transportation. I have already advised you of the heavy losses
which the State road {Western & Atlantic
RR} has sustained by the loss and destruction of its
rolling-stock while on other roads under the command of Confederate
officers. You have been so kind as to offer to do all in your power
to have part of our engines and cars returned to the road. In this I
trust you may succeed. I also hope you will continue to insist that
the cars and engines belonging to the Tennessee roads be returned
and placed in the service for the supply of your army. |
|
I have written the President demanding
the immediate return to the State road of two good engines and forty
good cars, which is less than one-fourth of the number of which the
road has been deprived by the Confederate Government. I have
received no reply to this request, and fear that from some cause the
President may neglect to comply with this reasonable request. One of
my objects in addressing you this letter is to beg you to urge upon
the President's consideration the importance of this subject.
Justice to the State of Georgia, to you, and to your gallant army
requires that Mr. Davis shall neither disregard nor neglect this
requirement. When the spring campaign opens, if you are re-enforced,
as you should be and as the country have a right to expect, it will
not be in the power of the officers of the State road to transport
all your necessary supplies without more rolling-stock. Again,
suppose the fortunes of war turn in your favor, as I pray God they
may, and you should be able to advance into Tennessee, it will be
utterly impossible with our present limited number of cars and
engines to furnish you the stock to run on either of the Tennessee
reads.
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| At the commencement of the war no road
in the Confederacy had a better outfit of rolling-stock than the
State road, but on account of its locality and its immediate
connection with the Western roads, which had more limited capacity,
constant calls were made upon us for engines and cars. We always
responded to every call. The result has been our heavy losses above
mentioned. And now, without pretending to return even part of the
rolling stock of which they have deprived us, there is a willingness
at Richmond to cast all the blame upon the State authorities, if
there is any defect in the transportation. If Mr. Davis will return
half of what he has taken from us we can transport any and
everything that may be offered to be carried over the State road. If
he deprives us of what we have and refuses to return any portion of
it on demand, you see at once the impossibility of our meeting the
heavy drafts likely to be made upon us. It may be thought that the
State should have replaced the rolling-stock taken by the
Confederate Government by having new engines and cars made. You will
readily see the impossibility of this when you reflect that we have
been unable to import such heavy material through the blockade and
that the Confederate Government has had control of all the iron
mills and almost all the foundries in the Confederacy. The officers
of that Government, however, refused to let us get a supply of iron
from the Etowah Works near the road for our ordinary repairs when we
were hauling all the coal that kept the works going, and it has been
with great difficulty that we could secure the supply. Indeed, we
must have failed had it not been for the action of General G. W.
Smith, whose sense of justice in this, as in other matters, caused
him to determine to serve the road and the State which properly had
the highest claim upon the works of which he was president. But I
will not trouble you by further remarks upon this subject. I will
only add that it is a matter of imperative necessity that the
rolling-stock on the road be increased before the spring campaign
opens, and that the Tennessee rolling-stock be returned before any
advance movement is attempted. I receive daily reports from the
officers of the road, and they ship regularly all that your officers
offer. |
| Renewing the assurance of my determination to do all
in my power to serve you, and of my high esteem, I am, your obedient
servant, |
| Joseph E. Brown |
|