Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/662

622 Isaac Munroe St. John, commissary-general of the Confederate States during the closing days of the conflict, was a native of Augusta, Georgia, born November 19, 1827. He took a degree at Yale in 1845, studied law at New York city, and became an editor of the Baltimore Patriot in 1847. Then settling upon the profession of engineering he was engaged in railroad work, which brought him back to Georgia. At the outbreak of the war he entered the engineer corps, and was assigned to duty under General Magruder in Virginia, where he rendered valued service preparing the fortifications to oppose McClellan s first campaign. In May, 1862, he was made major and chief of the mining and nitre bureau, the sole reliance of our armies for gunpowder material. He was promoted through a colonelcy to the rank of brigadier-general, and was made commissary-general in 1865, in which position he established a system by which the supplies for the army were collected directly from the people and placed in depots for immediate transportation. After peace was restored he resumed engineering in Kentucky, was chief engineer of the Louisville, Cincinnati and Lexington railroad, built the Short Line to Cincinnati, was city engineer of Louisville, and from 1871 was chief engineer of the Lexington and Big Sandy railroad until his death, which occurred in West Virginia, April 7, 1880.

Josiah Gorgas, distinguished as chief of ordnance of the Confederate States, was born in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, July 1, 1818. He was graduated at West Point as No. 6 in the class of 1841, and was assigned to the ordnance department of the United States army. In 1845-46 he was in Europe on leave of absence for the study of his profession in foreign lands, and in the year following his return he went into active service in the Mexican war. March 3, 1847, he was promoted first-lieutenant. He served with distinction in the siege of Vera