Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/90

 80 Southern Historical Society Papers.

out and with fuel that made little smoke they contrived to slip in and out of Wilmington at pleasure, in spite of a cordon of Federal cruisers eager for the spoils of a blockade-runner. Other vessels — the Eugenia, a beautiful ship, the Stag, and several others were added, all devoted to carrying ordnance supplies, and finally general suplies. To supervise shipments at Bermuda, to which point they were brought by neutrals, either by steam or sail, Major Norman Walker was sent there by Mr. Secretary Randolph about midsum- mer, 1862. Later, an army officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Smith Stans- bury, was detached to take charge of the stores accumulated there. Depots were likewise made at Nassau and Havana. Thus much of the foreign organization.

But the organization of the business outside of our own soil was much the simplest part of the service. The home administration in- volved a variety of work so foreign to my other duties that I soon looked about for the proper person to discharge them in the most effective manner by exclusive devotion to them ; and I had Lieu- tenant-Colonel Bayne detailed to my office for this duty. He had been wounded at Shiloh, and on his recovery joined me about Sep- tember, 1862.

It was soon found necessary, in order that the vessels coming in through the blockade might have their lading promptly on their arrival, that the Bureau should undertake the procuring and shipment of cotton to Wilmington, Charleston, and other points, for we had vessels arriving at half-a-dozen ports, from Wilmington to Galveston. This necessitated the establishment of a steam compress at Wilming- ton, and, affiliated with it, agents to procure the cotton in the interior and see it to its destination ; for the railroads were now so overtasked that it was only by placing positive orders from the Secretary of War in the hands of a selected agent that the cotton could be certainly for- warded over the various roads. The steam press was kept fully at work, in charge of Captain James M. Seixas (Washington artillery). The necessity for transportation over the railroads brought us ir con- tact with them, and gave them claim on us for assistance in the matter of supplies, such as steel, iron, copper, &c., and especially for work at the various foundries and machine-shops, in which precedence was of course claimed for army work, and which were therefore in great part controlled by the Ordnance Department. The foreign supplies were not all conveyed through steamers. Contracts were out for supplies through Texas from Mexico.

Finding that the other departments of the Government would nat- urally claim a share in this avenue for supplies, which had been opened