Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/13

Rh of special machinery for making-percussion caps, friction primers, pressed bullets, etc., etc., and for several large steam engines to furnish motive power. A large installment of this machinery, including the largest pair of engines, had reached Bermuda when blockade running practically came to an end, near the close of the war.

The third permanent establishment projected was a large central armory, which was to be equipped with a thoroughly modern plant of machinery for making small arms, and to which would have been removed the machinery temporarily in operation at Richmond and Fayetteville. This was put in charge of Lieut.-Col. J. H. Burton, who had had experience at the government factory at Enfield, in England. It was determined to place this armory also at Macon, Ga., where one of the temporary arsenals had already been established. The buildings were begun in 1863, and they were pushed forward, but they were not nearly as far advanced as those of the laboratory when arrested by the end of the war. Col. Burton went abroad to contract for the necessary machinery, chiefly with the firm of Greenwood and Batley, at Leeds, England, and a good deal of work had been done towards filling the large contracts.

The work of preparing ordnance supplies for the immediate demands of the armies in the field had to be scattered at a number of different places throughout the South. The railroads were not very amply equipped at the outbreak of the war, and were grievously over-burdened in operation, so that it would have been impossible to transport material to any single point from great distances or to secure like transportation over long lines for finished products. It was, moreover, uncertain how far any particular place could be counted upon as secure from molestation by the enemy. And there was not time for the removal of machinery and appliances from the places at which they were to be found. Hence the various temporary ordnance works grew up about existing foundries, machine shops, railroad repair shops, etc., and at the few small U. S. arsenals and ordnance depots. The chief of these in the early part of the war were at Richmond, Va., Fayetteville, N. C, Charleston, S. C, Augusta, Savannah and Macon, Ga., Nashville and