The
major-quartermasters and the acting quartermaster-generals (during the illness
or absence of Gen. Lawton) are buffeting the project some of us set on foot to obtain
wood at cost, $8, instead of paying the extortioners $40 per cord. All the
wagons and teams of Longstreet's corps are here idle, while the corps itself is
with Bragg — and the horses are fed by the government of course. These wagons
and teams might bring into the city thousands of cords of wood. The
quartermasters at first said there were no drivers; but I pointed out the free
Yankee negroes in the prisons, who beg employment. Now Col. Cole, the quartermaster
in charge of transportation, says there is a prospect of getting teamsters — but
that hauling should be done exclusively for the army — and the
quartermaster-general (acting) indorses on the paper that if the Secretary will
designate the class of clerks to be benefited, some little wood might be
delivered them. This concession was obtained, because the Secretary himself
sent my second paper to the quartermaster-general — the first never
having been seen by him, having passed from the hands of the Assistant Secretary
to the file-tomb.
Another paper I
addressed to the President, suggesting the opening of government stores for the
sale of perishable tithes, — being a blow at the extortioners, and a measure of
relief to the nonproducers, and calculated to prevent a riot in the city, — was
referred by him yesterday to the Secretary of War, for his special notice, and
for conference, which may result in good, if they adopt the plan
submitted. That paper the Assistant Secretary cannot withhold, having
the President's mark on it.
SOURCE: John
Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate
States Capital, Volume 2, p. 61-2
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