Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

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[268] Confederate States, he was nominated to be brigadier general in the Confederate army, but was left for obvious reasons in command of the forces in Virginia. After the seat of government was removed from Montgomery to Richmond, the course of events on the Southern Atlantic coast induced me to direct General Lee to repair thither. Before leaving he said that, while he was serving in Virginia, he had never thought it needful to inquire about his rank; now, when about to go into other states and to meet officers with whom he had not been previously connected, he would like to be informed upon that point. Under recent laws, authorizing appointments to higher grades than that of his first commission, he had been appointed a full general; so wholly had his heart and his mind been consecrated to the public service that he had not remembered, if he ever knew, of his advancement.

In organizing the bureaus it was deemed advisable to select for the chief of each, officers possessing special knowledge of the duties to be performed. The best assurance of that qualification was believed to be service creditably rendered in the several departments of the United States army before resigning from it. Brevet Lieutenant Colonel A. C. Myers, who had held many important trusts in the United States Quartermaster's Department, was appointed quartermaster general of the Confederacy, with the rank of colonel.

Captain L. B. Northrop, a gallant officer of the United States Dragoons who, by reason of a wound disabling him to perform regimental duty, had been employed in the subsistence department, was, after resigning from the United States army, appointed commissary general of the Confederate States Army, with the rank of colonel. I have heretofore alluded to the difficult task thus imposed on him, and the success with which he performed it, and would be pleased here to enter into a fuller recital, but have not the needful information in regard to his administration of that department.

Surgeon L. P. Moore, an officer of recognized merit in the United States Medical Department, from which he had resigned to join the Confederacy, was appointed the surgeon general of the Confederate States army. As in the case of other departments, there was in this a want of the stores requisite, as well for the field as the hospital.

To supply medicines which were declared by the enemy to be contraband of war, our medical department had to seek in the forest for substitutes, and to add surgical instruments and appliances to the small stock on hand as best they could.

It would be quite beyond my power to do justice to the skill and