Before the pandemic forced a hiatus from the National Archives, I had several avenues of interest on my shortlist of topics to investigate, including finally looking at some of the Ordnance Department records. Shortly after the facility re-opened and while preparing a presentation on the Michigan Brigade after the Civil War, I read comments from several troopers complaining that the army had taken away their Spencer Carbines. To this old Michigander, the Michigan Brigade and Spencers go together like peanut butter and jelly. Why take them away and why replace them with an inferior single-shot weapon? I discussed some preliminary thoughts on the question here, and will soon offer some evidence and theories as to the reasons for the change. But while looking through the voluminous records, several unrelated items caught my eye. For the sake of a little light-hearted curiosity, I thought I would post a few of them and title the post Odds and Sods, as our friends across the pond would say.
Warren Fisher, treasurer for the Spencer Repeating Rifle Company, appears to have been the main correspondent between the company and the Ordnance Department. In July 1862, Fisher wrote a brief note to Gen. James Ripley, commanding the department. “On the 19th of June, I forwarded to you by mail the original duplicate, triplicate, and quadruplicate contracts for 7500 Spencer Breechloading Magazine Rifles filled out and signed agreeable to instructions received from you…”
I believe the letter refers to the first contract between the company and the army. While significant for that reason, I chuckled at the bureaucratic “duplicate, triplicate, and quadruplicate contracts” wording. In a letter of June 13, and regarding the same contract, Fisher had asked Ripley if he would alter certain wording “in the original duplicate and triplicate to correspond with the quadruplicate which was in the original contract.” Fisher asked Ripley to include seven words and probably kept an army of clerks busy for another day.
Francis Shunk, West Point, Class of 1849, had toiled for years as a lieutenant assigned to the Ordnance Department, finally receiving a promotion to captain in March 1863. In June 1862, he had been posted to Hilton Head, South Carolina, before being transferred to duty with Maj. Gen. John Pope’s Army of Virginia and then to the Army of the Potomac for the Maryland Campaign. I don’t know how busy he might have been at Hilton Head, but I feel certain his workload increased dramatically when he reached Virginia.
On October 1, and with the Army of the Potomac still near the Antietam Battlefield, Shunk wrote to General Ripley, asking, “For the purpose of securing arms taken from the battlefield by citizens, can I pay a small reward, say 50 cents per musket?” We Americans seem to be inveterate collectors and souvenir hunters, and Lieutenant Shunk must have been losing the battle to police the battlefield of useable equipment to the local populace. He did receive permission to pay a reward of 50 cents, though I suspect theft of government property from battlefields continued throughout the war.
Five days after the fighting ceased at Gettysburg, Brig. Gen. Rufus Ingalls, the quartermaster for the Army of the Potomac, told his superior in Washington, the provost guard “was ordered to remain at Gettysburg with a regiment of cavalry until relieved…I saw citizens carrying off arms and doubt not it will require coercive steps to recover them… The people there are doubtless loyal, but they seemed to be very simple and parsimonious and evidenced but little enthusiasm.”
The same day, another quartermaster on the battlefield complained, “I cannot get one of these citizens to work for love or money.” One might then wonder just how successful Lieutenant Shunk’s 50 cent reward proved to be and what Ingalls meant by coercive steps?
As one might suspect, the records I have seen are all official, and all appear to be addressed to the senior officer in charge of the department at the time, usually a general. Likewise, all outgoing correspondence is from the senior officer in charge. I have seen no evidence of personal mail. I doubt any would have been sent and certainly no personal mail would have been saved. Contracts, requests for arms and ammunition from the armies in the field, reports of problems with weapons or ammunition, and other official matters dominate the letters received. Thus, the following letter of November 9, 1863, from the Acting 3rd Assistant Postmaster General to Gen. George Ramsay, caught my eye.
“I…transmit herewith 102 letters and packages addressed to the Ordnance office, which have been sent to the Dead Letter Office because of non-compliance on the part of the writers or senders, with the requirements of the postal laws.
Your communication of October 12, in reply to mine of October 10, stated that ‘the officers of the Ordnance Department all duly endorsed the letters.’ I infer from this representation, that the packages daily forwarded through the Dead Letter Office to your address (a large number of which were sent on Saturday last) are not brought to your notice – hence the necessity of this special communication to accompany the letters and packages sent to you today.”
I do not know if the Acting 3rd Assistant Postmaster General outranks a brigadier general, but the tone of the letter certainly suggests so. Reading the letter, I could not help but think what critical requests had been dumped in the dead letter pile due to some bureaucratic snafu?
On December 2, the actual 3rd Assistant Postmaster General responded to a letter from General Ramsay on the matter. “In reference to your communication …transmitting letters received with the mail of the Ordnance Office, which were addressed to various parties elsewhere, I have to say that the error in question was probably made in the city post office. The attention of the postmaster has been called thereto, and his explanation requested.”
One of these days, I may find the letter that Ramsay wrote to the Acting 3rd Assistant, but the 3rd Assistant’s response suggests that the Acting 3rd Assistant had been out of line and forwarded mail for other parties along with his own snark. And if all these titles remind you of the ‘duplicate, triplicate and quadruplicate’ above, that was my intent.
Finally, I know ball and chain devices, employed as a means of restraint, existed but I have seldom, if ever, seen any official mention or depiction of them. Rather, I tend to think of them as depicted in old cartoons or Hollywood movies. Thus, the item of July 1864, from the quartermaster in New York to General Meigs in Washington, caught my eye.
“In the list of stores directed to be sent to Capt. C. H. Tompkins, AQM, there are 150 sets of Balls & Chains varying from 12 to 25 lbs. I am unable to find any shot or shell suitable for the purpose. Capt. Treadwell, US Ordnance at West Point has informed me that he has some suitable which he could turn over if so directed…” I wonder what might have prompted Meigs to inquire as to the availability of the restraints.
Sources:
Unpublished Documents from the National Archives
Small But Important Riots 