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Date Posted: 15:00:22 02/06/03 Thu
Author: John Schwarz
Subject: For Danny (long)

Danny,

I have been unable to unearth my "Red River Campaign" file from our event in 2000, but I did run accross a couple of documents relating to uniforms for the 15th TX Inf and Mansfield, if you're interested. I need you to e-mail me your contact info again, and I'll mail these to you ASAP. Drop me a line, and I'll make sure you haven't already got them...
Cheers!
John

Transplated from the FGLHA board in case you're interested:
Guys,

I got a new item on ILL yesterday that knocked my socks off: Wm. Royston Geise, "The Confederate Military Forces in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1861-1865: A Study in Command," (Ph.d dissertation, University of Texas, 1974).

Although an old work, it was never published, but in my opinion, this makes the best starting point for any study of the Trans-Mississippi West (Yes, it beats the hell out of James Kerby's old book by far). I never bothered to look at it until now because I was under the impression that it was strictly traditional military and political history--as the title would suggest--but I was pleasantly surprised; this has all of the who commanded what department and district when crap, but it is much less complex than Kerby. In addition, Geise covers a lot of other topics--albeit briefly--that are more interesting to us--like supply, morale, and statistics. Yes, Kerby has all of this too, but his tome is much more detailed where it shouldn't be, and so makes a boring read for anyone not into military history. Here are just a few tidbits we have discussed recently on this board, addressed in Geise:

"In August (1864) a consolidated report of the field transportation available in the Department showed 2,106 horses, 14,637 mules, 2,879 wagons, 189 ambulances, and 1,590 oxen. West Louisiana had more horses and mules than did either Arkansas or Texas, both of which employed large numbers of oxen. Indian Territory, comparatively smaller, had rather less than half as much transportation as any of the others. Hill reported that both the transport shops and the animal infirmaries were generally giving good service, the latter at that time treating about 1,500 animals." --p.179.

Considering also the figures I quoted about Indian Territory from the CHarles B. Johnson papers, University of Texas, this helps address the question our friends in the RR Batt'l had about the use of oxen to pull wagons in the TMD.

Also, " 'Paralyzation' was perhaps too strong a word to describe the Clothing Bureau's condition during 1864, as issues to Walker's Division serve to show. From February, 1864, to February 1865, this division received 3,069 hats, 915 jackets, 1,101 pairs of pants, 2,622 shirts, 1,950 pairs of drawers, 5,643 pairs of shoes, 1,000 blankets, 1,227 yards of gray cloth, 1,156 yards of brown cloth, 916 yards of osnaburg, and various other items. Probably the establishment by late 1864, of additional textile and clothing manufactoring facilities, mostly in east Texas, had contributed to the totals, but these quantities were, of course, inadequate for a division of perhaps 8,000 men (is this the amount documented as present for duty at this time, or does it not consider absenteism?), and Haynes remained dissatisfied."
"After December, 1864, Haynes made few issues direct to the units such as Walker's division. By then, procedures for handling clothing as well as other quartermaster supplies had been more or less standardized. General depots, controlled by the Department Chief Quartermaster, had been established at Shreveport, Houston, and Bonham, Texas. Requisitions from units in each district were consolidated by their district quartermasters and submitted to the Department Chief Quartermaster who filled them from the nearest general depot having available the neccesary supplies. The general depots, in turn, were replenished from two sources. Quartermaster goods coming from abroad were funneled directly to the depots. Domestic supplies, on the other hand, were obtained by requisition of the Department Chief Quartermaster on Colonel O'Bannon, Chief of the Quartermaster Bureau at Marshall. Haynes was responsible to O'Bannon alone, his clothing Bureau suppling o'Bannon's Marshall Bureau with clothing from domestic sources. Some representative prices which the Clothing Bureau paid in the fall of 1864, for this clothing, were $25.00 for overcoats, $10.00 for blankets, $15.00 for jackets, $4.50 for woolen shirts, $3.00 for cotton drawers, and $6.00 for a pair of shoes."--pp.176-177.

This simple passage helps to explain why we have conflicting reports of the army's uniformity in the spring of 1864: Yes, we have several accounts of "dark uniforms" worn in the Camden and Red River Campaigns (AKA Tom E's ancestor's account from the 26th AR Inf in Arkansas and Tom A's account from the 29th WI Inf that says the Texans accross the field from him at Mansfield had "dark uniforms".) Also, it is interesting to see what prices the government was paying for homespun at the depots; Tom A has a document in his collection that also shows that the Houston depot was trading imported goods like fine calicos for homespun to use for the army. This is indeed more documentation for such an interesting situation. I'm sure more can be found in the volume of RG 109 and the Guy Bryan papers from where Geise cited his information...now we know specifically where to resume the dig...

Another topic I am interested in is the instance of absenteism in the TMD. I'm currently working on a journal article about Confederate morale in the Indian Territory after the defeat at Honey Springs, and Geise had a table of figures that helps me with numbers of desertions for the Indian Territory. 74.8% of the troops in the Indian Territory were absent in 1864! The other states in the TMD weren't quite so bad--Texas in the lowest at 32 %, but I'd like to compare this with numbers from the Cis-Mississippi. Can someone provide some concrete figures on this for the Army of Tennessee, ANV, or other commands for 1864 and other times?

More later...

John Schwarz

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