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Lucius Ballinger Northrup,
commissary-general of the
Confederacy, was born at
Charleston, South Carolina, September 8, 1811.
He pursued the career of a soldier, was graduated at
West Point in 1829, and was stationed in the
West for eight years with rank of secondlieuten-ant.
On account of a wound he returned to
Charleston on sick leave, and did not resume active service, though during the administration of the war department by
Jefferson Davis, under
President Pierce, he was reinstated and promoted to the rank of captain.
This commission he was quick to resign at the call of his State, and after the provisional government was organized he accepted the office of commissary-general at the hands of
President Davis, his class-mate at
West Point.
The first and probably the only problem incapable of solution by the
Confederacy was the food supply for its armies during protracted war. The importance of rations for an army appears in consideration that an army without food for forty-eight hours becomes incapacitated by physical weakness for marching or fighting in organized battle.
Mr. Northrup's commissary department was more onerous to him and important to the
Confederacy than the department of state.
The want of arms to fight with was the first felt by the
Confederates, for in the beginning the food supply was sufficient and transportation was good.
The energies of the new government were therefore directed chiefly to arm the regiments which were crowding to the field, while attention to the even more important matter of rations waited to be awakened by the reports from the field that the brave armies were on the verge of starvation.
These reports aroused the people as well as the government, and by the usual assistance of captures of stores from
General Banks and other involuntary purveyors for the
Confederacy, the
Confederate troops were sustained until the wear of railroads and the restriction of production and territory finally caused the most painful straits.
The Federal authorities perceived
