[Civil War]. [Confederate Army]. [South Carolina]. Witherspoon, J.D.

[Carbon Letter Copybook Kept by J.D. Witherspoon, Captain of the Commissary Office of the Confederate Army in South Carolina During the Civil War]

Columbia, S.C. 1864-1865. Approximately [270]pp. of carbon entries on onionskin paper. Contemporary quarter black cloth and red paper-covered boards. Some chipping to spine ends, spine split vertically but holding, moderate edge wear, soiling, and staining to boards. Occasional chipping, splitting, or minor loss to text, frequent fading and rubbing to ink rendering some text indecipherable, while much of the text is sharp and highly readable. Good. Item #3646

A treasure trove of correspondence, reportage, and information issued forth from the Confederate Commissary Office at Columbia, South Carolina during the last year-and-a-half of the Civil War. The book was maintained by Captain J.D. Witherspoon from June 8, 1864 to February 13, 1865, and consists of carbon copies of his letters, reports, lists, and so forth, sent out to various officers of the Confederate Army and agents, with each communication taking up a single page of the copybook in most cases, with a few longer examples. The letters and other communiques contain much information on the financial aspects of the Confederate military, the nature and amount of supplies (including bacon, flour, corn, peas, molasses, whiskey, brandy, and so much more), the movement of supplies (including by wagon and railroad), Witherspoon's requests for information so that he may provide supplies, the organization and deployment of commissary agents in Charlotte, Greenville, and other locations, corrections to earlier actions, the conveyance of invoices and receipts, and much more. In a particularly interesting letter from June 24, 1864, Witherspoon writes to clarify how he should be correctly issuing bacon rations to "the negroes in Government employ."

A fascinating artifact of the Confederate Army providing an informative peek into the inner workings of a traditionally-overlooked but notable department of the Confederate military in South Carolina. The information included here is likely available by other means, but scattered widely amongst manuscript and printed archives, private collections, and other locations; it is synthesized here in one copybook. The text itself is a prime candidate for preservation, with a wealth of information waiting to be discerned and employed as a research tool for scholars of the Civil War in South Carolina.

Price: $1,750.00