Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/101

 Confederate Ordnance Department. 91

The officers in command of the greater ordnance establishments — such as Richmond and Augusta, &c. — had the grade of Lieutenant- Colonel, like the " chief ordnance officers" of armies in the field, while at the lesser establishments the officers had rank according to the gravity of tlie duties devolving on them.

The Superintendent of Armories, Lieutenant-Colonel Burton, and the Superintendent of Laboratories, Lieutenant Colonel Mallet, had also the grade of the higher officers on duty in the field.

The labors and responsibilities of my department closed practically at Charlotte, North Carolina, on the 26th of April, when the Presi- dent left that place with an escort for the trans -Mississippi. My last stated official duty, that I can recall, was to examine a cadet in the Confederate service for promotion to commissioned officer. On the afternoon of the 25th of April I received due formal notice from the Adjutant-General's office that General Lawton, Quartermaster-Gene- ral, General Gilmer, Chief Engineer, and I were constituted a Board

of Examiners on Cadet. We met a little before sundown, in

the ample upper story of a warehouse in Charlotte, North Carolina, and by the waning light of the last day of the Confederate Govern- ment, we went through all the stages of an examination of an expec- tant Lieutenant of the Confederate armies. Lawton, I think, took him on geography and history, Gilmer on the mathematics, while I pro- bably tested his English grammar. He passed the ordeal in triumph and got his commission, which I dare say he prizes very highly, as he ought to do, considering the august body that signed the certificate which pronounced him qualified for it. Altogether there is no little incident in my Confederate career that I have mused over oftener than that twilight examination of the last Confederate cadet.

DETACHED OBSERVATIONS.

Consumpiion of Small- Ann Cartridges.

It appears that the Richmond laboratory made 72,000,000 cart- ridges in three and a-half years, say one thousand working days. As this laboratory made nearly as much as all the others combined, we may safely place the entire production at 150,000,000, or 150,000 per day. As our reserves remained nearly the same, being but slightly increased toward the latter part of the war, there must have been only a little less than this consumption in the field, say half a cartridge per man per day for the average force of 300,000 men, to cover all the accidents and expenditures of service in the field. An average, then.