Confederate Commissary Document – August 1864. SOLD

Description

Confederate Commissary Document – August 1864.

Printed on original blue “Office Chief Commissary” Letterhead, is this copy of a telegram relating to a shipment of sugar from Augusta, Ga. to Richmond, Va.  This is a true copy with the signature of George Lewis Cope, Capt. Ass’t Commissary of Subsistance, CSA.

Not the sexy document for arms, uniforms, etc. but in this period, and before and after, the common every day items were equally important to the soldier’s health, like sugar, coffee, other food stuffs, as well as paper and ink, postage, forage for animals, fuel items such as cords of wood, etc.  An army needs all these things, and can’t do without them.

250,000 pounds of sugar when divided up with all the regiments, and staffs in the Army of Northern Virginia area, divided by all the regiments, then dividing that by the rationing out to individuals, that is not as big a supply as it looks on paper.

Sugar was a major crop throughout the deep South all the way toward Louisiana to the westward. The Union army made many a raid, no only to deprive the Confederacy of sugar, but their own need for sugar for their troops.

 

Capt. Geo. L. Cope was born in Georgia in 1819, and is listed in the Confederate General Staff / C of S.

Major Seth B. French, was born in Virginia in 1833. CSA C of S.

Major Joseph L. Locke, from Georgia, CSA, C of S.  USMA  Class of 1828, U.S. Army service in artillery and ordnance.

 

The document is in very good condition with some little staining in the upper edge. Period ink and very legible.