Executive Department
| Milledgeville, Ga., February 10, 1864 |
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| General Joseph E. Johnston |
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| General, |
| By a letter from Major-General Walker
my attention is again called to the importance of proper provision
for your transportation. I have already advised you of the heavy
losses which the State road has sustained by the loss and
destruction of its rolling-stock while on other roads under the
command of Confederate officers. You have been so kind as to offer
to do all in your power to have part of our engines and cars
returned to the road. In this I trust you may succeed. I also hope
you will continue to insist that the cars and engines belonging to
the Tennessee roads be returned and placed in the service for the
supply of your army.
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| I have written the President demanding the
immediate return to the State road of two good engines and forty
good cars, which is less than one-fourth of the number of which the
road has been deprived by the Confederate Government. I have
received no reply to this request, and fear that from some cause the
President may neglect to comply with this reasonable request. One of
my objects in addressing you this letter is to beg you to urge upon
the President's consideration the importance of this subject.
Justice to the State of Georgia, to you, and to your gallant army
requires that Mr. Davis shall neither disregard nor neglect this
requirement. When the spring campaign opens, if you are re-enforced,
as you should be and as the country have a right to expect, it will
not be in the power of the officers of the State road to transport
all your necessary supplies without more rolling-stock. Again,
suppose the fortunes of war turn in your favor, as I pray God they
may, and you should be able to advance into Tennessee, it will be
utterly impossible with our present limited number of cars and
engines to furnish you the stock to run on either of the Tennessee
reads.
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| At the commencement of the war no road in the
Confederacy had a better outfit of rolling-stock than the State
road, but on account of its locality and its immediate connection
with the Western roads, which had more limited capacity, constant
calls were made upon us for engines and cars. We always responded to
every call. The result has been our heavy losses above mentioned.
And now, without pretending to return even part of the rolling stock
of which they have deprived us, there is a willingness at Richmond
to cast all the blame upon the State authorities, if there is any
defect in the transportation. If Mr. Davis will return half of what
he has taken from us we can transport any and everything that may be
offered to be carried over the State road. If he deprives us of what
we have and refuses to return any portion of it on demand, you see
at once the impossibility of our meeting the heavy drafts likely to
be made upon us. It may be thought that the State should have
replaced the rolling-stock taken by the Confederate Government by
having new engines and cars made. You will readily see the
impossibility of this when you reflect that we have been unable to
import such heavy material through the blockade and that the
Confederate Government has had control of all the iron mills and
almost all the foundries in the Confederacy. The officers of that
Government, however, refused to let us get a supply of iron from the
Etowah Works near the road for our ordinary repairs when we were
hauling all the coal that kept the works going, and it has been with
great difficulty that we could secure the supply. Indeed, we must
have failed had it not been for the action of General G. W. Smith,
whose sense of justice in this, as in other matters, caused him to
determine to serve the road and the State which properly had the
highest claim upon the works of which he was president. But I will
not trouble you by further remarks upon this subject. I will only
add that it is a matter of imperative necessity that the
rolling-stock on the road be increased before the spring campaign
opens, and that the Tennessee rolling-stock be returned before any
advance movement is attempted. I receive daily reports from the
officers of the road, and they ship regularly all that your officers
offer.
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| Renewing the assurance of my determination to
do all in my power to serve you, and of my high esteem, I am, your
obedient servant,
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| Joseph E. Brown |
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