Southern Telegraph 1864 from J. Gorgas, Brig Genl (not his signature)

Verso of telegram with docketing

JOSIAH GORGAS: Two Gorgas items. 1) Manuscript Letter Signed on CSA War Department, Ordnance Office, Richmond, August 2nd 1861 dated imprinted letterhead to Gen’l Ira R. Foster, Quartermaster Gen’l State of Geo[rgia] Atlanta. Richmond, Va., July 21, 1861. (7.5” x 10”) in which Gorgas requests a lot of artillery haversacks, cap pouches and port-fin cases to be made for his troops. Letter, in the hand of a clerk, is signed “J. Gorgas” as Major & Chief of Ord[nance]. In 1864, he was promoted to Brigadier General. 2) Southern Telegraph Companies telegram (4 ¼” x 8”) dated Richmond, Va., December 26, 1864, from Brig. Genl. J. Gorgas to Gen. G. T. Beauregard in which he requests ammunition be supplied Wilmington until he can replace same. Both Gorgas items came from the collection of the late Judge Harry J. Lemley. A wonderful and scarce Gorgas duo. $1,200. Listed in both Miscellaneous-1 and Imprints, Section 2 LL

Josiah Gorgas (1818 – 1883) was born in Pennsylvania. He entered West Point in 1837 and graduated sixth in his class. He was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant of ordnance and served at the Watervliet (N.Y.) and Detroit arsenals. Gorgas served in the Mexican War under General Winfield Scott. He was transferred to Mobile, Alabama, where he met Amelia Gayle, the sister of the arsenal’s surgeon and daughter of a former Alabama governor. Her family played a major role in his political and social thought, but he resigned his commission in the regular army as much for personal feelings as political leanings. While friends encouraged him, his wife recommended against joining the Confederate army. His final decision to join marked a permanent break with his family in Pennsylvania. On General P.G.T. Beauregard’s recommendation, Jefferson Davis appointed Gorgas Chief of Ordnance. He set to work to rectify the huge disparity of arms and industrial production in the South. At the beginning of the war, 90% of the South’s arms were imported. Gorgas’s programs to build armories, iron foundries, and powder works, along with railroad improvements, general salvage and resource recovery allowed the South to literally turn “plowshares into swords.” By 1863, the South was self-sufficient in military hardware. "He created the ordnance department out of nothing," was the brief and comprehensive verdict of General J. E. Johnston.  After the practical dissolution of the Confederate government at Charlotte, N. C., in the spring of 1865, he returned to Alabama, and promptly turned his activity into industrial channels as superintendent of the Briarfield Iron Works. After the war, Gorgas served briefly as president of the University of Alabama. Josiah’s son, William C. Gorgas, was a U.S. Army physician and 22nd Surgeon General of the U.S. Army. He is best known for his work in Florida, Havana and at the Panama Canal in abating the transmission of yellow fever and malaria by controlling the mosquitoes that carry these diseases.