June 25, 1863, The Charleston Mercury
Early last winter the people of the Confederate States were horrified at the miserable plight into which our brave troops had fallen for the want of clothes, and shoes, and blankets. A little foresight and enterprise in the Quartermaster department at Richmond might readily have avoided such a condition of things. But, we believe, an agent was sent abroad by the Government to buy, and the shoes, cloth and blankets were not early or sufficiently imported. So soon as the disgraceful fact of the army’s necessities became known by publication in the newspapers, the people made desperate efforts to meet the soldiers’ wants, and private mercantile firms, by importations, remedied the evil. A few cargoes sufficed.
We call these facts to mind now, not with a view to find fault with the Government or its officers, but that the same thing may not again occur. We trust that the Quartermaster-General will this year exercise more forecast, and see in time that clothes, shoes and blankets are ready to give out on the approach of cold weather. We call attention to the matter because this is the season to make provision.
We also venture to suggest for the Commissary General, that the wheat crop is now harvesting and abut to be harvested, and that it would be a good plan to engage and purchase the crops for the Government from the planters or their factors, at fair prices, before they pass into the hands of speculators. In vain, last year, did we urge this policy. The Commissary Department and its agents either would not buy at all, or would not pay reasonable prices, until private parties got a considerable portion of it in their hands. Then the competition of speculators, the necessities of commissary agents and the wants of large communities ran up prices to a most extravagant figure, followed by the illegal attempt to seize food on their own terms, and attended by tenfold expense to the short-sighted Government. We trust this course of feeding the army from hand to mouth, and attempting to take advantage of planters and beat down corn and rice and wheat to unremunerative prices, will not be attempted again. If the Commissary Department will only employ ordinary business forecast and energy in obtaining grain, and the Quartermaster department will only employ system and energy in using their transportation for grain obtained, the armies of the Confederacy will have the most abundant supplies. Now is the time to look after these things.