Ettenger & Edmond of Richmond — Confederate Citizens File
A worked transcription made for CivilWarArtillery.com to the same three-layer rule as the other files in this collection: diplomatic transcription (exactly what the page says), normalized data (searchable form, kept separate), and proposed identifications (external knowledge, flagged, never merged).
Source
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Repository | National Archives (NARA), Record Group 109 |
| Collection | Confederate Papers Relating to Citizens or Business Firms, compiled 1874–1899, documenting the period 1861–1865 |
| Microfilm publication | M346 |
| NARA catalog ID | 2133274 |
| Firm (Fold3 index) | Ettenger and Edmond |
| SHA-256 | ec15a661754356f0270aae61c622664228bb5cd3c9d7354a27615a232ada98ff |
| Page count | 71 (images 1–70 archival; image 71 = Fold3 source sheet, omitted) |
Machine OCR is worthless here and was not used. Every page is in cursive. Across all seventy images Tesseract finds the words carriage, cannon, gun, limber and caisson not once between them. Every page below was read by eye from the scan.
What this file is
Ettenger & Edmond were Richmond ironworkers, and this file is a gun-carriage order book turned inside out. Seventy sheets of orders, accounts, dockets and forwarding receipts, running from September 1861 to the spring of 1863, and between them they do something the ordnance literature rarely lets you do: follow particular carriages from the order that called for them, through the shop that built them, to the battery they were sent to.
The guns they carried are named on the page — 8-inch Columbiads above all, then 32-pounder barbette carriages, and once a 5.82-inch rifled Columbiad. So are the fittings: chassis, turning platforms, traverse circles and segments, tie plates, top plates, pintle plates and pins, elevating screws and tongues. So is the whole implement outfit that went out with a gun — sponges, rammers, manoeuvring and truck handspikes, eccentric wrenches, gunners' levels and gimlets, priming wires.
And the destinations are named, over and over, in the line itself or in the REMARKS column:
| Where the carriages went | |
|---|---|
| Yorktown, Virginia | to Gen. J. B. Magruder's Army of the Peninsula |
| Evansport | the Potomac batteries |
| Jamestown Island | |
| Mulberry Island | |
| Lowry's Point Battery | on the Rappahannock |
| Bowling Green | |
| the Richmond defences | |
| Columbus, Kentucky | to Gen. Leonidas Polk — the only consignment outside Virginia |
They were not only a carriage shop. The same firm built hot-shot furnaces — the ironwork that let a seacoast battery heat solid shot red to set wooden ships alight — itemised down to the long and short pipes, grates, washers, sills, ribs, ash-pit door irons and the doors themselves with their hinges, staples and latches, including one portable furnace. They made caissons for 12-pounder howitzers and 6-pounders, portable forges, siege-gun platforms, and pullies and shafting fitted at the Foundry at Rocketts. For the Engineer Bureau they turned out bolts and countersunk spikes for trestle bridges for "Genl Johnsons Army." For the Navy they made three wormers for large guns.
Three bureaus and a state government bought from this one shop, and the paperwork shows the improvisation of it. A good many sheets are Commonwealth of Virginia forms — "Coast, Harbor and River Defences" — and several were converted on the spot by striking out the printed Virginia heading and writing Confederate States above it. Josiah Gorgas signs the orders as Lieutenant Colonel and Chief of Ordnance; Lardner Gibbon, Smith Stansbury, Thomas S. Rhett, Briscoe Baldwin, Andrew Talcott, Alfred L. Rives and Commander George Minor all pass through these pages.
Image 1 — Filing jacket / name slip, no place or date, bearing only the firm name
A tall narrow sheet photographed against a black backing, roughly twice as high as it is wide, and evidently a folded filing jacket or wrapper rather than a document. Three horizontal fold ridges cross it — one about a quarter of the way down, one near the middle, one about two-thirds down — and a long vertical fold runs a hand's breadth in from the left edge, so the sheet was originally folded down to a small packet. The paper is a plain unruled laid stock, light in tone, edged with darkening and grime along the outer margins where it was handled. The upper right corner is badly broken away: a triangular loss with a curling flap of paper hanging free, and a short tear running down from it. There is a smaller loss and a lifted flap on the left edge about a fifth of the way down. Several bright white filaments (loose fibres or a thread caught on the scanning glass) show against the dark ground at the left and upper right. Only one line of writing is present, at the head, in a large flowing brown-black iron-gall hand with heavy capital flourishes; the whole of the rest of the sheet is blank, and no handstamp, docket, number or endorsement appears anywhere on it.
Ettenger & Edmond
Checks: no figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: nothing. The name reads plainly as "Ettenger & Edmond" — the second capital is an E with a looped bowl, and the descender through "Edmond" is a flourish, not an "s"; there is no terminal "s" on "Edmond." The upper-right corner loss carries no text with it (the writing sits well clear of the break).
Image 2 — Docket (verso endorsement) of an account, "No 201," Ettenger & Edmond, Oct 23d 1861, $2575.00
The blank back of a large account sheet, photographed landscape and lying flat, so the writing on it reads across the short dimension of the picture. The paper is a heavy blue-grey wove, and it has been folded into vertical panels: three sharp vertical fold ridges divide the sheet into four roughly equal columns, and two or three softer horizontal creases cross them, so the account was folded down to a narrow packet with this panel outermost. The docket is written on the second panel from the left, in a small neat brown-black clerical hand quite different from the bold hand of the accounts themselves, four short lines stepped progressively to the right. Faint horizontal ruled lines and, at the upper right, reversed printed capitals reading through the paper from the other side (the billhead's "CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA" line) confirm this is the verso of a printed billhead account. Struck across the middle of the same panel, well below the docket, is the oval "REBEL ARCHIVES" handstamp of the postwar War Department, printed in a grey-black ink that has taken unevenly and is legible but faded, with a five-pointed star at each side between the two ovals. Below and to the right, in the third panel, a smear of ink shadow shows through from the writing on the recto — no letters of it can be made out. Two bright white thread-like filaments lie across the sheet, one running down through the word "Ettenger" and the date line. No other endorsement, number, or file mark appears.
No 201.
Ettenger & Edmond
Oct 23d 1861
$2575.00
Handstamp (oval, two concentric ovals, a star at each side):
RECORD DIVISION,
REBEL ARCHIVES,
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: the docket carries a single figure, $2575.00, and no arithmetic of its own to prove. Tested against its neighbour: the account filmed as image 3, which is dated Richmond, Oct. 23, 1861 and is footed $2575.00 — the docket's date and figure both match that sheet exactly, so this docket belongs to image 3 and was filmed ahead of it.
Flagged: the amount. The digits read "2 5 7 5 . 0 0"; the second digit is a single large left-opening loop finished with an upward flourish, which is this clerk's 5 and is plainly not the double-curve 3 he writes in "23d" on the line above, so I read $2575.00 and not $2375.00. There is a small round ink dot at the baseline between the 2 and the 5 which may be a comma ($2,575.00) or may be a stray touch of the pen; it is too small to decide. "No 201." is a file or voucher number written by the endorsing clerk, not a printed form number. The white filaments crossing the sheet are loose fibres on the scanner, not damage to the paper.
Image 3 — Printed billhead account, Confederate States of America To Ettenger & Edmond Dr., 16–22 October 1861, five heavy carriage items for Evansport, Yorktown and Bowling Green, footed $2575.00, certified by Lardner Gibbon and receipted at Richmond 23 October 1861
A large landscape sheet of good white wove paper, printed as a Confederate Ordnance Department billhead and filled in by hand. The printing is in black: a blackletter "Confederate States of America," at the upper left, a script-ruled "To ________ Dr." line beside it, "186" with a blank for the year at the left of a date column, "REMARKS." heading a wide column at the right, and at the foot the certificate and receipt formulas in roman with the names SMITH STANSBURY and RICHMOND in small capitals. The ruling is a full ledger grid — a horizontal rule under the heading, faint blue-grey body lines, and vertical rules dividing date, particulars, dollars, cents and remarks. Two vertical fold creases run down the sheet (one through the middle of the particulars column, one to the right of the money columns) and a horizontal crease crosses at about mid height; the folds match the packet folds seen on the docket. The manuscript is in a large, confident, right-sloping brown-black hand with long finishing flourishes, the same hand throughout the entries, the money columns and the receipt. The paper is clean and unstained, with no tears, no handstamp and no wormholes; the right and lower edges fall away into the black scanning ground. A manuscript "199." stands alone in the top right corner in a smaller, different hand. The REMARKS column is entirely blank, and the amount blank in the certificate ("amounting to ____") was never filled in.
199.
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond ___________ Dr.
186/. REMARKS.
Octo 16 One Gun Carriage Chassis platform & Implements (Evansport) 500 00
17 One 8 In Columbiad Carriage o & wrenches[?] (Yorktown) 500 00
22 One 32 Pdr o " 1/4 Circle & Implements (Bowling Green) 500 00
One o o o platform & o ( do ) 575 00
One 8 In Columbiad o o & o ( Yorktown ) 500 00
-------------
$2575 00
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
and that the property has been received and [accounted for — struck through] Sent as above
Lardner Gibbon Capt. Ordnance Duty
RICHMOND, Octo 23 186/. Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
C.S.
Two thousand five hundred and Seventy five dollars in ^ bonds
& Currency
in full of the above account. Ettenger & Edmond
Checks: proves exactly. The five extensions 500.00 + 500.00 + 500.00 + 575.00 + 500.00 = $2,575.00, which is the figure footed in the money columns ($2575 00). No quantities and rates are stated separately — each line is "One" article at a lump sum — so there is no extension to prove against a rate. The receipt spells the sum out as "Two thousand five hundred and Seventy five dollars," agreeing with the footing to the cent. The docket filmed as image 2 carries $2575.00 and the date Oct 23d 1861, and so matches this sheet exactly.
Flagged: (1) The fourth line's amount, 575, is written heavily over an earlier figure — the strokes are doubled and blotted and an underlying rounder figure shows through, and the cents "00" beside it is overwritten in the same way. I have transcribed what now stands, 575 00, without attempting to read what lies beneath; the footing was evidently made after the correction, since it agrees with 575. (2) The word after "&" on the 17 October line, transcribed wrenches[?], is the one genuinely doubtful reading on the sheet: it begins with the clerk's rounded w (the same form as the w of "Bowling"), carries a clear h loop before the final "es," and is plainly not the "Implements" he writes on the lines above and below. "Wrenches" fits the letter count and the stroke pattern, but I cannot prove it from this sheet alone. (3) "199." in the top right corner does not agree with the "No 201." on the docket; both are file marks added by clerks, and I do not know which series either belongs to — recorded as seen, not reconciled. (4) The printed certificate reads "and that the property has been received and accounted for"; a clerk struck "accounted for" through with heavy ink and wrote "Sent as above" after it, so the officer certified delivery rather than receipt into store. (5) "8 In" is written with "In" raised above the line as a superscript — 8-inch. "32 Pdr" is written with a looped capital P that could be mistaken for a figure 8 at a glance; the ordnance sense (32-pounder) is not in doubt. (6) The certificate's own blank, "amounting to ____," was left unfilled. (7) The "C.S." above "bonds" is a caret insertion written small above the line.
Image 4 — Printed voucher wrapper, "Commonwealth of Virginia — Coast, Harbor and River Defences," name panel filled in pencil for Ettenger & Edmond, voucher number, year and all money columns left blank
A large sheet, printed on one side only and folded so that it is photographed as three panels: a centre panel showing the printed docket face upright, and panels to left and right where we are looking at the back of the same sheet, so that the identical printing and the manuscript inside show through the paper in mirror image. The printing is black, the display lines in blackletter, the subordinate lines in italic and roman. The centre panel carries, from the top: the blackletter heading, a second blackletter line, an italic "Voucher No." with a dotted rule, a blank ruled line, a wide ruled line with the printed year stub "186" at its right, a further short rule, a "$" over a ruled money head, and then a boxed DISTRIBUTION table with the italic heading "For defensive works," and columns headed "$" and "C.", the column itself labelled vertically "Amount." The whole table is empty; not a figure has been entered anywhere on the sheet. Two entries only are in manuscript, both in soft grey pencil in a hand quite unlike the ink hands elsewhere in the file: the firm's name written across the wide ruled line, and a small "Va" low on the panel below the table. A large pencil check mark, a plain tick, is drawn across the upper left of the DISTRIBUTION box. The oval "REBEL ARCHIVES" handstamp is struck across the middle of the table in grey-black, partly over the printed rules, and is legible throughout. The paper is clean and sound — no tears, stains or losses — and the black scanning ground frames all four sides.
Commonwealth of Virginia,
Coast, Harbor and River Defences.
Voucher No. ...................
________________________________
Ettenger & Edmond 186
________________________________
$
____________________________________
$ | C.
DISTRIBUTION.
For defensive works,
____________________________________
[table blank throughout]
[pencil check mark]
Va
Handstamp (oval, struck across the table):
RECORD DIVISION,
REBEL ARCHIVES,
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: no figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The money columns, the DISTRIBUTION lines, the voucher number and the year are all blank.
Flagged: (1) This is a Commonwealth of Virginia form, not a Confederate one — it belongs to the state's "Coast, Harbor and River Defences" account, a different paymaster from the Confederate Ordnance Department that certified image 3. It is filed here because the firm's name is on it, but nothing on it ties it to any particular account in this file; it is a wrapper with the payee's name pencilled in and never completed. Recorded where it stands. (2) The printed "Voucher No." is a blank on the form and was never filled — there is no voucher number on this sheet at all. (3) "Va" at the foot is a pencilled filing note, presumably for Virginia; two letters only, with no stop visible. (4) The name is spelt "Ettenger & Edmond," agreeing with the jacket and the accounts. (5) The mirrored printing and mirrored script on the left and right panels are show-through from the other face and from the account folded inside; none of it can be read from this side and I have transcribed none of it. (6) The pencil tick is unexplained — a clerk's checking mark, with nothing to say what was checked.
Image 5 — Printed Virginia voucher converted by hand to a Confederate account, one item of 5 October 1861, "Putting new eye into Iron Block" charged to Yorktown, $5.00; approved by Edmd. T. D. Myers, Actg Chief Engineer, and receipted at Richmond 16 October 1861
An upright folio sheet of white wove paper, printed as a Commonwealth of Virginia voucher for the coast defences and afterwards adapted for a Confederate charge. The printing is black throughout: a heavy blackletter head, a second blackletter line, a ruled ledger body with columns for the date, the particulars, "$", "C." and "CHARGE TO", the printed word "Amount," at the foot of the particulars column, and below the table the approval and receipt formulas in italic and roman, ending with the small printed line "(Signed in duplicate.)". The dollar box at the lower left is a printed "$" reversed out of a tinted panel. The paper is lightly creased — a long vertical crease runs down the left third and there are slack horizontal folds across the lower half — and the sheet is otherwise sound, without tears or stains; the left margin shows mirrored printing and script bleeding through from the folded wrapper behind it. The manuscript is in two or three hands: a large sloping ink hand for the entry and the approval sum, a second hand for the receipt line, and the firm's own flourished signature at the foot. The blackletter head "The Commonwealth of Virginia," has been struck out with a set of parallel ruled ink lines, and "Confederate States of America —" written in over and beside it. Two small check marks in the money column, one beside the entry and one beside the footing, are in a lighter ink. The REMARKS-style "CHARGE TO" column is used, and every other line of the table is blank.
[The Commonwealth of Virginia,] <- printed, ruled through
Confederate States For Coast, Harbor and River Defences.
of America — To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
186/ $ | C. | CHARGE TO
Oct 5 Putting new eye into Iron Block 5 | 00 | Yorktown —
Amount, v 5 | 00 |
Approved for Five ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 100 Dollars,
Dec: 16th 1861
Edmd. T. D. Myers Actg Chief Engineer.
[$] 5 00/100 Received at Richmond October 16th 1861.
From 1st Lt James Maurice Actg Pay Mr. C.[?] of Va[?]
the sum of Five ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .00 Dollars.
in full payment of the above account.
(Signed in duplicate.) Ettenger & Edmond
Checks: proves exactly. One item at $5.00; the printed footing "Amount," carries 5 | 00, the approval is written out as "Five ... Dollars," the dollar box repeats "$5 00/100," and the receipt is "the sum of Five ... Dollars." Every statement of the sum on the sheet agrees at $5.00. There is no quantity and rate to multiply.
Flagged: (1) The two dates conflict. The approval is dated "Dec: 16th 1861" and the receipt "October 16th 1861" — the money is receipted two months before it was approved. The month in the approval is unmistakably D-e-c followed by a colon, and the receipt month is unmistakably "October"; I have recorded both as they stand and offer no correction. It may be that the approval was written in December on a receipt already signed in October, or that one writer wrote the wrong month, but the sheet does not say. (2) The end of the receipt's "From" line runs into the right edge of the sheet and the last words are crowded and partly cut by the edge of the scan. I read "Actg Pay Mr." with confidence; the capital that follows could be C or E, and the words after it appear to be "of Va" — both are marked doubtful and neither should be quoted as certain. (3) The printed Virginia heading was cancelled and "Confederate States of America" substituted in manuscript, so the sheet is a Virginia state form used for a Confederate charge — a point of some interest for how the two accounts were kept, but recorded here only as what the page shows. (4) The signature reads "Edmd. T. D. Myers," with a raised "d" after "Edm"; the middle initials are two, T and D. (5) "Putting new eye into Iron Block" is written plainly and is not doubtful, but note it is a repair charge, not a carriage — the only such item so far in this range.
Image 6 — Completed voucher wrapper, "Commonwealth of Virginia — Coast, Harbor and River Defences," Voucher No. 26, Ettenger & Edmond, December 8th 1861, iron work for a shot furnace, $287.60, distributed to Mulberry Ild. and certified No. 174
The same printed wrapper as image 4, this one filled in. It is a large sheet printed on one side and folded so that the docket panel stands upright in the middle of the picture with the back of the sheet showing to left and right, where the same blackletter heading and the manuscript of the enclosed voucher read through the paper in mirror image. The printing is black — blackletter display lines, an italic "Voucher No." with a dotted rule, ruled writing lines, and a boxed DISTRIBUTION table with the italic sub-head "For defensive works," and columns headed "$" and "C." The manuscript is all in one small, neat, sharply pointed ink hand except for the check marks: a plain tick beside the money total, a second, longer tick in the "$" column of the distribution table, and a third, larger stroke crossing the table lower down. A separate small figure "5" stands by itself in the white space between the two blackletter heading lines, in a lighter, blunter stroke than the rest. The oval "REBEL ARCHIVES" handstamp is struck low across the distribution table, faint and grey but readable throughout. The paper is clean and undamaged, its two vertical folds visible as pale bands; the black scanning ground surrounds the sheet on all four sides.
5
Commonwealth of Virginia,
Coast, Harbor and River Defences.
Voucher No. 26
Ettenger & Edmond
December 8 th 1861
Iron work for shot furnace
$287.60 v
$ | C.
DISTRIBUTION.
For defensive works,
v
Mulberry Ild. 287 | 60
[oval handstamp struck across the table]
Certified No. 174
Handstamp (oval):
RECORD DIVISION,
REBEL ARCHIVES,
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: proves exactly, so far as the sheet goes. The single distribution line, Mulberry Ild. 287 | 60, equals the summary figure $287.60 written above the table. There is nothing else to add and no rate to extend. Tested against its neighbour: the account filmed as image 7 is the voucher this wrapper belongs to — it is dated December 8, 1861, is footed $287.60, and its work is iron work for a shot furnace at Mulberry Island. Wrapper and account agree to the cent.
Flagged: (1) "Mulberry Ild." is written exactly so — capital I, then l, then d and a stop — the clerk's contraction for Mulberry Island, on the James below Richmond. I have kept his spelling. (2) "Certified No. 174" does not agree with "Voucher No. 26" at the head; the two are different numbers in different series (a voucher number for the state's coast-defence account and a certification number), both written by the same hand, and I have not reconciled them. (3) The stray "5" between the printed heading lines is unexplained — a filing or bundle mark, in a different, blunter stroke; it is a plain figure 5 with no other mark near it. (4) The word transcribed "Certified" is written with the letters closed up and may read "Certifid" as it stands on the page; the sense is not in doubt. (5) Unlike image 4, this wrapper carries no pencil "Va" and no pencilled name — everything on it is in ink.
Image 7 — Printed Virginia voucher, To Ettenger & Edmond Dr., 28 October 1861, one set of shot-furnace irons charged to Mulberry Iland, $287.60; approved 4 November 1861 over the signatures of Andrew Talcott and Alfd. L. Rives, and receipted at Richmond 8 December 1861
An upright folio of white wove paper, the same printed Commonwealth of Virginia voucher used for image 5 and here left unaltered — the blackletter head "The Commonwealth of Virginia," and "For Coast, Harbor and River Defences." both stand as printed, with no cancellation. The ledger body is ruled in the same way, with the year stub "186", columns for date and particulars, "$" and "C." money columns, a "CHARGE TO" column at the right, the printed word "Amount," at the foot, and beneath the table the approval and receipt formulas with the printed "Chief Engineer." and "(Signed in duplicate.)" lines and the tinted dollar box at the lower left. The manuscript is in a fine, small, sharply nibbed ink hand for the entry and the money, and in three further hands below — a large sloping hand for the approval sum and date, and two signatures. The paper is clean and unstained but has a distinct pale crease looping down the left side of the particulars column, and a long light crease crossing the receipt; the left margin carries mirrored printing and script bleeding through from the wrapper. Small check marks in a lighter ink stand beside each extension and beside the footing, and a short check-tick sits at the right of each money figure in the "CHARGE TO" column. Everything below the three entry lines in the table is blank. One line of the receipt has been wholly cancelled with a running row of crossed strokes and a fresh name written above it.
The Commonwealth of Virginia,
For Coast, Harbor and River Defences.
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
186/ $ | C. | CHARGE TO
Oct 28 | For 1 set Shot furnace irons v | |
| Cast Iron 4120 lb. @ .05 1/2 226 | 60 v| Mulberry
| Wrot " 448 " " .12 1/2 56 | 00 v| Iland
| 1 door complete v 5 | 00 v|
Amount, v 287 | 60 v
Approved for Two Hundred & Eighty Seven 60/100 Dollars,
Nov. 4th 1861
Andrew Talcott Chief Engineer.
Alfd L Rives Acting Chf. Eng Bu
[$] 287 60/100 Received at Richmond Dec 8 th 1861.
E. A. Deslonde Capt a q m[?]
From [a line of writing wholly cancelled with crossed strokes — illegible]
the sum of Two Hundred and Eighty Seven 60/100 Dollars.
in full payment of the above account.
(Signed in duplicate.) Ettenger & Edmond
Checks: proves exactly, quantity by rate and extensions against the footing. 4120 lb. at 5 1/2 cents = $226.60, which is the extension written. 448 lb. at 12 1/2 cents = $56.00, which is the extension written. The door at $5.00 needs no extension. 226.60 + 56.00 + 5.00 = $287.60, which is the figure at "Amount," in the dollar box, in the written-out approval ("Two Hundred & Eighty Seven 60/100 Dollars"), and in the written-out receipt. Every figure on the sheet agrees to the cent. Tested against its neighbour: the wrapper filmed as image 6 gives Voucher No. 26, December 8th 1861, "Iron work for shot furnace," $287.60, distributed to "Mulberry Ild." — the sum, the date of payment and the destination all match this account, so image 6 is this voucher's wrapper.
Flagged: (1) The second figure of "226" is written quickly and at first glance resembles a 7; it is a 2, written with the same flat foot as the neighbouring 2 and quite unlike the long uncrossed 7 in "287" at the footing, and the arithmetic (4120 x .055) confirms it. Recorded as 226 with that reasoning stated, not as a correction. (2) The destination is written "Mulberry Iland" — I-l-a-n-d, with no s — split over two lines in the CHARGE TO column and bracketing the first two entry lines. Kept as the clerk wrote it. (3) "Wrot" is the clerk's contraction for wrought iron, standing under "Cast Iron" with a ditto for the word "Iron." (4) The line after "From" in the receipt has been struck out completely with a continuous row of crossed pen strokes; nothing under it can be read, and "E. A. Deslonde" with his rank was written on the line above as the replacement. I make no attempt to recover the cancelled words. (5) Deslonde's rank is written small and crowded: "Capt" is certain, the three short words after it are not. They may be "a q m" for Assistant Quartermaster; that expansion is a proposal only and must be verified before it is quoted. (6) Two officers sign the approval — "Andrew Talcott" on the printed "Chief Engineer." line, and "Alfd L Rives Acting Chf. Eng Bu" written below and to the left, "Bu" being the contraction for Bureau. Both readings are firm as letters; neither name is doubtful. (7) The account is dated 28 October, approved 4 November, and paid 8 December 1861 — a consistent sequence, unlike the sheet at image 5.
Image 8 — Completed voucher wrapper, "Commonwealth of Virginia — Coast, Harbor and River Defences," Voucher No. 7, Ettenger & Edmond, paid December 3rd 1861, shot furnace castings &c., $287.60, distributed to Jamestown Island and certified No 201
The same printed wrapper as images 4 and 6, filled in and folded the same way: the docket panel upright in the centre of the picture, the back of the sheet to left and right with the heading and the enclosed account showing through in mirror image. The manuscript is in one large, free, well-formed ink hand with generous loops — a bigger and looser hand than the one on image 6 — and it runs across the ruled writing lines of the form. The oval "REBEL ARCHIVES" handstamp is struck low across the DISTRIBUTION table, grey and slightly uneven but wholly readable, with a star showing at each side. Two check marks in a lighter, finer ink: a short tick at the end of the summary amount, and a longer tick standing in the "$" column of the table below the entry. The paper is clean and undamaged; a soft horizontal crease runs across the sheet a little above the certification line, and the vertical panel folds show as pale bands. The table has one line of entry and is otherwise empty, and there is no pencil on the sheet.
Commonwealth of Virginia,
Coast, Harbor and River Defences.
Voucher No. 7
Ettenger & Edmond
paid December 3 d 1861
Shot Furnace
Castings &c
$287.60 v
$ | C.
DISTRIBUTION.
For defensive works,
v
Jamestown Island 287 | 60
[oval handstamp struck across the table]
Certified No 201
Handstamp (oval):
RECORD DIVISION,
REBEL ARCHIVES,
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: proves exactly, so far as the sheet goes. The one distribution line, Jamestown Island 287 | 60, equals the summary figure $287.60 above the table. No rate, no extension, nothing else to add.
Flagged: (1) This wrapper carries the same money as image 6 — $287.60 — for the same kind of work, shot-furnace castings, but it names a different destination (Jamestown Island, not Mulberry Island), a different payment date (December 3rd, not December 8th), a different voucher number (7, not 26) and a different certification number (201, not 174). Two separate accounts of identical amount are perfectly possible in a run of similar work, but the coincidence is close enough that it should be checked against the accounts themselves before either sheet is cited; the sheet at image 7 is the Mulberry Island account and answers image 6, and the Jamestown Island account belonging to this wrapper is not among the sheets so far in this range. Recorded as it stands, uncorrected. (2) "Certified No 201" is the same figure as the "No 201." endorsed on the docket at image 2, which belongs to the $2575.00 Confederate Ordnance account of 23 October 1861. The two are unrelated numbers in different series, one a Virginia certification and one a Confederate file endorsement; nothing on either sheet connects them, and I make no link between them. (3) The voucher number is a single figure 7, written across the top of the "E" of "Edmond" on the line below; the two strokes overlap and the number could be misread as 70 at speed, but the loop belongs to the E. (4) Here the clerk spells "Jamestown Island" out in full, with the s, where the other wrapper wrote "Mulberry Ild." (5) "paid" is written in lower case in front of the date, in the same hand and ink as the rest.
Image 9 — Printed Virginia voucher, To Ettenger & Edmond Dr., 7 November 1861, one set of castings for a hot-shot furnace charged to Jamestown Island, $287.60; approved 13 November 1861 by Andrew Talcott and Alfred L. Rives, and receipted at Richmond 3 December 1861
An upright folio of the same printed Commonwealth of Virginia voucher as images 5 and 7, here left as printed with no cancellation of the heading. The ruled ledger body carries the year stub "186", the date and particulars columns, "$" and "C." money columns, the "CHARGE TO" column at the right, "Amount," printed at the foot, and beneath it the approval and receipt formulas with the printed "Chief Engineer." and "(Signed in duplicate.)" lines and the tinted dollar box. The entries are in a large, open, round ink hand, freer and blunter than the fine hand of image 7, with the money figures in the same hand; the approval sum and date are in a third hand, and there are two officers' signatures below. The paper is clean but shows several slack horizontal creases across the lower third and a soft vertical crease down the left of the particulars column; the left margin carries mirrored printing and script showing through from the wrapper. Light check marks stand beside each extension, beside the footing, and at the right of each figure. One line of the receipt has been cancelled with a running row of crossed strokes and a substitute name written above it; unlike the corresponding line on image 7, enough of the cancelled writing survives between the strokes to be read. The table is otherwise blank below the three entry lines.
The Commonwealth of Virginia,
For Coast, Harbor and River Defences.
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
186/ $ | C. | CHARGE TO
Nobr. 7 | For One set. Castings for Hot shot | |
| furnace 4120 lbs a 5 1/2 c 226 | 60 v| Jamestown
| For One set. Wrot. Irons 448 lb. 12 1/2 c 56 | 00 v| Island
| " One Door. Hinges &C. 5 | 00 v|
Amount, v 287 | 60 v
Approved for Two Hundred & Eighty Seven ———— 60/100 Dollars,
Nov. 13th 1861
Andrew Talcott Chief Engineer.
Alfred L Rives Acting Chf. Eng Bu
[$] 287 60/100 Received at Richmond Dec 3 d 1861.
E. A. Deslonde Capt & A Q M[?]
From [1st Lt James Maurice A. P. M. Eng Dept — the whole line struck through]
the sum of Two Hundred and Eighty Seven ———— 60/100 Dollars.
in full payment of the above account.
(Signed in duplicate.) Ettenger & Edmond
Checks: proves exactly, quantity by rate and extensions against the footing. 4120 lbs at 5 1/2 cents = $226.60, the extension written. 448 lb. at 12 1/2 cents = $56.00, the extension written. The door with hinges at $5.00 carries no rate. 226.60 + 56.00 + 5.00 = $287.60, which is the figure at "Amount," in the dollar box, in the written-out approval and in the written-out receipt. Every statement of the sum agrees to the cent. Tested against its neighbour: the wrapper at image 8 gives Voucher No. 7, paid December 3rd 1861, "Shot Furnace / Castings &c," $287.60, distributed to Jamestown Island — date, sum and destination all match this account, so image 8 is this voucher's wrapper.
Flagged: (1) The cancelled line under "From" can be read here despite the crossing strokes: "1st Lt James Maurice" followed by initials that read A. P. M. and then "Eng Dept" — the same James Maurice who receipted the account at image 5 as "Actg Pay Mr." The initials are struck across and the reading of "A. P. M." is probable rather than certain. "E. A. Deslonde" was written above the cancellation as the officer who actually paid. This also gives the likely sense of the wholly illegible cancelled line on image 7, which is in the same position on the same form and was replaced by the same name — but that is a proposal from this sheet, not something readable on image 7, and it must not be transcribed there. (2) Deslonde's rank is written small: "Capt" is plain, and the three characters after it read as an ampersand followed by A, Q and M, the standard form "Capt. & A.Q.M." for an assistant quartermaster. Marked doubtful because the letters are crowded and partly crossed by the cancellation strokes below. (3) The date in the date column is written "Nobr." — the third letter is a full looped ascender, a b rather than a v — followed by a stop and the figure 7. The month intended is plainly November, since the approval eleven days later is "Nov. 13th," but I have kept the letters as written. (4) Rives signs "Alfred L Rives" in full here, where on image 7 he wrote "Alfd L Rives"; both are the same hand. (5) The rates are written with the cent sign, "a 5 1/2 c" and "12 1/2 c", the halves as a small 1 over 2. (6) This account is the fellow of image 7 in every respect except the destination and a few words of description — same three items, same weights, same rates, same total — the Jamestown Island set against the Mulberry Island set. That resolves the doubt raised at image 8: the two $287.60 sums are two genuinely separate sets of shot-furnace irons, not one account filmed twice.
Image 10 — Two sheets in one frame: (a) a manuscript docket, "Richmond Defenses, Vouch No 15," Ettenger & Edmond, paid Dec 4th 1861, $287.60; and (b) the Confederate States of America billhead account it answers, 27 November 1861, iron castings for a 9-foot shot furnace, $287.60, certified by Alfred L. Rives and receipted at Richmond 4 December 1861 from E. A. Deslonde, Capt. A.Q.M.
Two separate pieces of paper photographed one above the other with a black band of the copy board between them, and black ground all round. The upper piece is a plain unprinted wove sheet, folded into four vertical panels and one horizontal fold, with the docket written on the second panel in a fine, light, sloping ink hand, five short lines stepped to the right; below the writing a large free check mark is drawn, and lower still the oval "REBEL ARCHIVES" handstamp is struck very faintly, the palest impression of the three on these sheets but still legible. A dark scorched-looking stain runs down the fold at the head of that panel and a second, longer smudge follows the same fold further down; the paper is otherwise clean. The lower piece is the printed Confederate States of America billhead of the same design as image 3 — blackletter heading, "To ______ Dr.", the "186" year stub, a ruled money grid and a "REMARKS." column at the right — filled in in a fine, small, well-controlled ink hand quite unlike the large hand of image 3. The image of the lower sheet is paler and lower in contrast than the upper, and the print of the certificate and receipt formulas is small; the sheet is folded once vertically down the middle and once horizontally below the entries, and the bottom edge is cut off close under the signature line. The REMARKS column is blank throughout, and there are light check marks beside each money figure.
Upper sheet — docket:
Richmond Defenses
Vouch No 15.
Ettenger & Edmond
paid Dec 4 th 1861
Amount $287.60 v
[large check mark]
[oval handstamp, very faint]
Handstamp (oval):
RECORD DIVISION,
REBEL ARCHIVES,
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Lower sheet — account:
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond ___________ Dr.
186/. REMARKS.
Nov 27 | For 1 set Iron castings for 1 shot furnace (9')
| 4120 lbs. .05 1/2 226 60
| " 1 set wrot. iron pieces for do.
| 448 lb. .12 1/2 56 00
| " 1 wrot. door for furnace staples latch &c 5 00 287 60
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Two Hundred and Eighty Seven 60/100 dollars ————
and that the property has been received and accounted for.
Alfred L. Rives Acting Chf. Eng Bu.
RICHMOND, Dec 4 th 1861 . Received from E a Deslonde
Capt A Q M ———— Two Hundred and Eighty Seven 60/100 dollars
———————— in full of the above account.
Ettenger & Edmond Signed in duplicate
Checks: proves exactly, quantity by rate and extensions against the footing. 4120 lbs. at 5 1/2 cents = $226.60, the extension written. 448 lb. at 12 1/2 cents = $56.00, the extension written. The wrought door with staples and latch at $5.00 carries no rate. 226.60 + 56.00 + 5.00 = $287.60, the figure carried out into the outer money column, written out in full in the certificate and again in the receipt. Tested against its neighbour: the docket at the head of this same frame gives "Richmond Defenses, Vouch No 15, paid Dec 4th 1861, Amount $287.60" — the sum and the payment date match the account below it exactly, so the two belong together and were filmed together.
Flagged: (1) This is a third account for $287.60 — the same three items at the same weights and rates as images 7 and 9, but for a third destination. The docket names "Richmond Defenses"; the account itself gives no place, only the size of the furnace, "(9')". Three identical sums in a row is striking, but the sheets are plainly three separate transactions: three different voucher numbers (26, 7, 15), three different dates of payment (8 December, 3 December, 4 December 1861) and three different destinations. Recorded as they stand. (2) The clerk writes "Defenses" with an s on the docket, where the Virginia forms print "Defences" — his spelling, kept. (3) "Vouch" is his contraction for Voucher. (4) The rank after Deslonde's name is written here large and unhurried — "Capt A Q M" — which settles the crowded readings on images 7 and 9: he was a captain and assistant quartermaster. The letters on this sheet are not in doubt. (5) On this sheet the printed words "and accounted for" stand uncancelled, unlike image 3 where they were struck through and "Sent as above" written in. (6) Rives certifies here in the place where Gibbon certified on image 3 and where Talcott signed on images 7 and 9; this is a Confederate form certified by the Acting Chief of the Engineer Bureau. (7) The dark marks down the fold of the upper sheet look like scorching or a heavy stain rather than ink; no writing is lost to them. (8) "(9')" is a figure 9 with a single prime inside parentheses — a nine-foot furnace — written small at the end of the first entry line.
Amendment, after all ten images were written
Image 3, the doubtful word on the 17 October line. Re-examined at higher magnification and set side by side with the clerk's own "Implements" on the lines above and below it. The word is certainly not "Implements": those have the tall looped I and the pl pair, and this has neither. It begins with a broad two-humped capital W of the same form as the w in "Bowling" lower down, carries a clear tall h loop before the final "es", and ends with the clerk's descending terminal s. I now read it as Wrenches, capitalised as this clerk capitalises "Chassis," "Implements" and "Circle." I leave the [?] on it in the transcription: the reading is probable and consistent with every stroke I can see, but the middle letters are compressed and I cannot prove them.
Image 7 and image 9, Deslonde's rank. The reading is settled by image 10, where the same officer's rank is written large and unhurried as "Capt A Q M" — captain and assistant quartermaster. The crowded forms on images 7 and 9 are the same three letters. I have left the [?] on those two sheets, since on each of them the letters are genuinely crowded and partly crossed by the cancellation below; the certainty comes from image 10, not from those pages.
Image 5, the conflicting dates. Re-checked. The approval month is D-e-c followed by a colon and the receipt month is "October," both unmistakable. The conflict stands, unexplained and uncorrected.
Transcribed by eye from the page images by Claude (Opus 5) for Jack Melton, 6 September 2026. Every reading above is from the images named at the head of each section; nothing has been supplied from outside the sheets except where it is labelled a proposal under Flagged.
Image 11 — Voucher docket (cover), Commonwealth of Virginia, Coast, Harbor and River Defences; Ettenger & Edmond, October 16th 1861, $5.00, Yorktown
A single leaf photographed as the outer face of a folded voucher wrapper, the sheet noticeably wider than tall (scan roughly 4,532 x 3,397 px) and mounted on a black backing that shows at the edges. The printed docket occupies a vertical panel down the middle of the sheet, running with the page rather than across it; the leaf carries strong vertical fold lines to left and right of that panel, and the panels either side of the centre are blank on this face but show heavy bleed-through from the printed billhead and account on the reverse. In the left panel the show-through is mirror-reversed printed blackletter, legible when flipped as "The Commonwealth of Virginia" over a script line and "To Ettenger & Edmond, Dr."; in the right panel the show-through is rotated ninety degrees and is faint script and figures from the account, illegible. The docket is filled in with a fine, confident brown-black iron-gall hand — the same clerkly hand throughout — with a bold check mark beside the money figure and a second, larger check drawn diagonally across the DISTRIBUTION ruling. A large oval handstamp, "RECORD DIVISION / [star] REBEL ARCHIVES [star] / WAR DEPARTMENT.", is struck in pale ink low on the centre panel, cutting the lower DISTRIBUTION rules. Below the stamp, a numeral resembling "4" appears in white — a filming or negative artifact, not ink on the sheet. The paper is lightly soiled and speckled; no tears or losses affect text.
Commonwealth of Virginia,
Coast, Harbor and River Defences.
Voucher No. _______________
Ettenger + Edmond
October 16th 1861
$ 5.00 [check mark]
------------------------------------------
DISTRIBUTION. | $ | C.
| |
For defensive works, | |
| |
Yorktown | |
| |
| |
[RECORD DIVISION / * REBEL ARCHIVES * /
WAR DEPARTMENT. — oval handstamp]
Checks: Only one figure on the sheet, $5.00, with no extensions or footing — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: The printed "Voucher No." blank is not filled in; per the standing rule the head of the form carries no voucher number here. The firm name is written with a crossed "+" for "and" — given as written. The date reads "October 16th 1861" clearly; the printed "186" is completed with a hand-written "1". The $5.00 figure and the Yorktown destination need testing against the account that this docket answers — image 12 following; the docket is not guaranteed to be filmed beside its own account. The white numeral "4" below the handstamp is an artifact of filming, not a document mark. The bleed-through in the side panels is not transcribed because only fragments are legible.
Image 12 — Two exposures on one frame: (a) account, Confederate States of America to Ettenger & Edmond, Oct. 5 1861, $5.00, Yorktown, receipted at Richmond October 16th 1861; and (b) a folded voucher wrapper "No 668", Nov. 11 1861, $1161.00, with a folded Ordnance Bureau letter beneath it
The frame carries two separate photographs stacked one above the other on a black ground (scan 2,550 x 3,300 px). The upper photograph is a single unfolded quarto billhead, printed in blackletter and roman on wove paper, with the printed heading "The Commonwealth of Virginia" and the sub-line "For Coast, Harbor and River Defences." The clerk has struck no printing out but has written "Confederate States of America" across and above the printed state heading, so that the account reads as a Confederate one on a Virginia state form. Ruled money columns for $ and C. and a "CHARGE TO" column stand at the right; there is one charge line only, near the top, and the rest of the ruling is empty. The hand is a fine, steady iron-gall script; a large check mark is drawn through the Amount cell. Down the left margin, mirror-reversed bleed-through of the printed docket on the reverse is visible — "Commonwealth of Virginia / Coast, Harbor and River Defences" — which is the same printing photographed as image 11, confirming that image 11 is the back of this sheet. A shaded printed panel at the left of the receipt band holds the sum in figures. The lower photograph shows three or four documents lying folded on the black ground: at the left, a wrapper folded in three panels with a docket written on the centre panel and a pale "RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT" oval struck below it, the lower edge of the wrapper dark with dirt or water staining; at the right, a letter or order on a printed "Confederate States of America / WAR DEPARTMENT / ORDNANCE [Bureau]" head, Richmond, lying at a steep diagonal and folded so that only alternate panels are readable; and a smaller slip folded on top of it. Because of the folds, only fragments of the Ordnance letter can be read, and its foot is upside down relative to the rest.
[UPPER PHOTOGRAPH — the account]
The Commonwealth of Virginia,
Confederate States
For Coast, Harbor and River Defences.
of America
To Ettenger + Edmond Dr.
------------------------------------------------------------------
186 1 | | $ | C. | CHARGE TO
-------| | | |
Oct 5 | Putting new Eye into Irn Block | 5 | 00 | Yorktown
| | | |
| (remainder of the ruling blank)
| | | |
Amount, | 5 | 00 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Approved for Five ————————————————————————————— X/100 Dollars,
Dec: 16th 1861
Edwd. T. D. Myers Actg Chief Engineer.
------------------------------------------------------------------
[$ 5 00/100 ] Received at Richmond October 16th 1861.
From 1st Lt James Maurice Actg Pay Mr. Ex offo.
the sum of Five ———————————————————————————————— X/100 Dollars.
in full payment of the above account.
(Signed in duplicate.)
Ettenger & Edmond
[LOWER PHOTOGRAPH — the folded wrapper at left]
No 668.
Ettenger & Edmond
Nov[?]. 11. 1861
$1161.00
[RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES /
WAR DEPARTMENT — oval handstamp, below]
[LOWER PHOTOGRAPH — the folded Ordnance letter at right, fragments only]
[Confed]erate States of A[merica]
WAR DEPARTM[ENT]
ORDNAN[CE ...]
Richmond, ______________ De[illegible]
637[?]
...
Mess[rs] Ettenger & Ed[mond] ...
... mark "Gun[?] ...
Yorktown, and " D H " ...
... the following ...
[illegible — panel folded under]
Received Decr 9[th]
[signature, reads approximately] R[?] Shepper[son?]
Checks: Upper photograph: one charge of $5.00 with no quantity or rate, extended as 5 | 00 and carried to Amount as 5 | 00; the written approval "Five ——— X/100 Dollars" and the receipt "the sum of Five ——— X/100 Dollars" and the boxed figure "$5 00/100" all agree. Proves exactly at $5.00. Lower photograph: the wrapper carries only its own total, $1161.00, with no account visible beneath it in this frame — no arithmetic to prove. Docket test: the image 11 docket ($5.00, Yorktown, October 16th 1861) matches the upper account here exactly in sum, destination and date, and the mirror bleed-through in this sheet's left margin is the image 11 printing, so image 11 and the upper photograph of image 12 are two faces of one sheet. The "No 668 / $1161.00" wrapper in the lower photograph belongs to a different and much larger account not shown in this frame.
Flagged: The approval is dated "Dec: 16th 1861" while the receipt below it is dated "October 16th 1861" and the docket (image 11) also reads October 16th 1861 — an approval two months after the money was receipted, which is out of order. The first word of the approval date was read several times at high magnification; the initial letter is a looped "D", distinct from the clear "O" of "Oct 5" and "October" elsewhere on the same sheet, so "Dec:" is what the sheet says. Recorded as written; not corrected. "Irn Block" is written with an overbar abbreviation stroke, plainly for "Iron Block", but the letters on the page are I-r-n and are given so. The disbursing officer's title after "Pay Mr." is an abbreviation reading "Ex offo." — ex officio — the "x" and the doubled long f are clear, but the reading is offered as probable, not certain. The month on the "No 668" wrapper is a swash capital followed by "o" and a raised "r"; it reads "Nov." but could be "Dec.", and the day is plainly 11 — flagged as Nov[?]. The Ordnance letter in the lower photograph is a stray in the sense that it is not the account this frame's docket answers; it is folded so that most of its text is hidden, and its number reads 637 with a long flourish that may be part of the figure. Its receipt signature is not confidently legible; no name is proposed. The "D H" in quotation marks on that letter, alongside "Gun" and "Yorktown", appears to be a shipping mark, but nothing on the visible panels confirms it.
Image 13 — Voucher wrapper opened flat, docket "No 668", Ettenger & Edmond, Nov. 11 1861, $1161.00
The same wrapper seen folded at the left of image 12's lower photograph, now opened out and photographed flat, landscape, on a black ground (scan 4,720 x 3,728 px). The leaf is a plain unruled wove sheet folded twice vertically and once horizontally into six panels; the two vertical folds are strongly marked and slightly darkened, and the horizontal fold crosses the sheet at mid-height. The docket is written in the same fine iron-gall hand as the accounts, on the upper half of the centre panel, ruled off above and below with pen lines. A large pale oval handstamp, "RECORD DIVISION / [star] REBEL ARCHIVES [star] / WAR DEPARTMENT.", is struck on the lower half of the centre panel. The left and right panels carry no writing of their own; they show faint bleed-through of the account inside — a few printed capitals and ruled lines can be made out at the upper right and along the lower left, but nothing legible. A brown stain the size of a thumbprint sits at the upper right of the sheet, and there is a short dark band of soiling along the bottom edge of the left panel and a darker patch at the top of the centre fold. The paper is clean of tears; no text is lost to damage.
No 668.
Ettenger & Edmond
Nov[?]. 11. 1861
$1161.00
[RECORD DIVISION / * REBEL ARCHIVES * /
WAR DEPARTMENT. — oval handstamp]
Checks: A single figure, $1161.00, with nothing to extend or foot — no arithmetic to prove on this sheet. It must be tested against the account it wraps; the account is not on this frame.
Flagged: The month is written as a swash capital, a rounded letter, and a terminal "r" with a long exit stroke. Read at high magnification it is most consistent with "Nov." (Novr), but "Dec." (Decr) cannot be ruled out from the letterforms alone; recorded as Nov[?]. The day, 11, and the year, 1861, are unambiguous. "No 668" is written with a raised "o" after the capital N and a full stop after the figures; this is the voucher's own number, written by the clerk, not a printed form number. The bleed-through on the flanking panels is too faint to transcribe.
Image 14 — Confederate States billhead, Richmond, December 1861: two 8-inch Columbiad carriages with chassis, platforms and implements; receipted 11 December 1861, $1,161.00
A single wide landscape sheet on the firm's printed "Confederate States of America / To ______ Dr." billhead, the payee written in a large ornamental hand as "Ettenger & Edmond". Printed rules divide a narrow date column at the left, a wide description column, and money columns at the right beneath a printed "REMARKS." heading; the money columns are ruled for dollars and cents. The paper carries a heavy vertical fold at about the mid-point and a lighter one to the right of it, plus a horizontal fold across the receipt block. The upper left corner is stained and eaten away by damp or mould, taking the first three or four letters of the printed word "Confederate" (the sheet now begins "…ederate States of America,"). "670" is written large in ink at the top right, above and below a ruled line. All writing is in brown-black iron-gall ink. Down the left edge, written at ninety degrees to the account and reading from the foot of the sheet upward, is a three-line endorsement in a second, finer hand, over which a signature and title have been written so that the strokes of the two overlap and tangle. The account body, the certificate and the receipt are in a third, rounder hand; the firm's own signature at the lower right is a fourth, in a bolder pen.
670
…ederate States of America, To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
186 / . REMARKS.
Dec, For 2, 8in Columbiad Carriages with
Chassis. Platform traverse Circle
tie plates Spikes Rivets & Man [Man-]
oevring wrenches Sponge & Rammer @ 575$ 1150 00
4 Extra Manouvring Handspikes @ 2$ 8 00
4 Priming Wires 1.00 4 Gunners Gimblets 2.00 3 00
---------
$1161 00
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
and that the property has been received and accounted for. George Minor Comdr. for Chief of Bureau
RICHMOND, Decr 11th 1861. Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
Eleven Hundred and Sixty one Dollars
Ettenger & Edmond
in full of the above account. Signed in duplicate
[Left margin, written vertically, reading from the foot of the sheet upward:]
These Carriages were received
and sent to Genl. J. B. Magruder.
Yorktown[?] [illegible]
L Gibbon Capt Ordnance Duty
Checks: 2 x $575 = $1,150.00, agreeing with the first extension. 4 x $2 = $8.00, agreeing with the second. The third line's two items are entered at their line totals ($1.00 for four priming wires and $2.00 for four gunners' gimblets), giving $3.00. $1,150.00 + $8.00 + $3.00 = $1,161.00. Proves exactly at $1,161.00, and the receipted sum written out — "Eleven Hundred and Sixty one Dollars" — agrees.
Flagged: The word beginning the third line of the marginal endorsement is read as "Yorktown" only tentatively; the opening letter is a long looped stroke and the word is crossed by the descenders of the line above and by the "L Gibbon" signature, so it is given as Yorktown[?] with the remainder of the line left as [illegible]. The signature reads "L Gibbon" — a single initial before the surname, not the full "Lardner"; the surname and the words "Capt Ordnance Duty" are clear. The certifying officer is read as "George Minor Comdr. for Chief of Bureau"; the abbreviation after the name is a "Comd" with a raised terminal letter and is taken as Comdr. This is a naval rank and title on a sheet receipted from Smith Stansbury, Captain of Artillery — noted, not resolved. The word "Man / oevring" is broken across two lines by the clerk and his two spellings differ ("Manoevring" broken at the line end, "Manouvring" in the next line) — both are left as written. The rate marks are written as "@ 575$" and "@ 2$" with the dollar sign following the figure; they are transcribed in that order. Damp loss at the upper left corner has destroyed the first letters of the printed "Confederate". No handstamp is present on the sheet.
Image 15 — Ordnance Office order for supplies No. 336, Richmond, 6 December 1861: two 8-inch Columbiad carriages, chassis, platforms and implements for Genl. J. B. Magruder at Yorktown; receipted by the firm 9 December
An upright letter sheet of blue-ruled writing paper printed at the head with a three-line Ordnance Office letterhead, the top line in heavy blackletter. The upper left corner is torn away in a ragged diagonal, taking a triangle of blank paper about a third of the way down the left edge but costing no text; a dark stain sits in the blank space beside the printed head, and the printed "ORDNANCE OFFICE," line is smeared and partly doubled where the sheet was folded while the ink was fresh. Horizontal folds cross the sheet at about a third and two-thirds of its height, and a vertical fold runs down the middle. The letter is in one clear clerical hand in black ink, with two cancellations and one interlineation. A large hand-drawn brace in a heavier, blacker ink gathers the six listed lines at the left, and beside it, written vertically at ninety degrees and reading from the foot upward, is the firm's receipt in a different hand; the flourish under that signature has blotted and offset. There is no handstamp. The whole sheet is clean apart from the corner loss and the staining beside the letterhead.
Confederate States of America,
WAR DEPARTMENT,
ORDNANCE OFFICE,
Richmond, Decr 6th 1861
Order for Supplies No. 336
Messrs Ettenger & Edmond
Sirs
Please ~~forward to~~ mark "Genl J B Magruder
Yorktown", and deliver to the order of Capt D H Wood, A Q M
------------
the following Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, viz:
Apparatus
[brace] 2, 8" Columbiad Carriages with Elevating ~~Screws[?]~~
2, Chassis & platforms for came, complete
Traversing Segments, pintle plates, pintle pins, & bolts
Traverse Circles _ Tie plates & rivets
4 Manvg Wrenches, 4 Manvg Handspikes, 2 Sponges & 2 Rammers
4 Priming Wires, 4 Gunners Gimlets
Your obed't servt
J Gorgas Lieut Col
Chief of Ordnance.
[Left margin, written vertically, reading from the foot of the sheet upward:]
Received Decr 9th
A B Shepperson
Checks: No money columns and no figures beyond the item quantities — no arithmetic to prove. The quantities ordered here (2 carriages, 2 chassis and platforms, 4 manoeuvring wrenches, 4 manoeuvring handspikes, 2 sponges, 2 rammers, 4 priming wires, 4 gunners' gimlets) agree item for item with the account on image 14, except that image 14 charges four extra manoeuvring handspikes as a separate line and prices two sponges and two rammers within the carriage rate.
Flagged: This order pairs with the account on image 14 and stands one frame before it, not after: order dated Richmond, 6 December 1861, receipted by the firm 9 December; the account is dated December and receipted at Richmond 11 December 1861, and both name two 8-inch Columbiad carriages with chassis, platforms, traverse circles, tie plates, rivets, manoeuvring wrenches and handspikes, sponges, rammers, priming wires and gunners' gimlets. Image 14's marginal endorsement — that the carriages were sent to Genl. J. B. Magruder — matches this order's direction to mark them for Magruder at Yorktown, which also supports reading that endorsement's third line as Yorktown. The word cancelled after "Elevating" is struck through so heavily that only its length and a possible initial S can be made out; it is given as Screws[?] and the interlined replacement "Apparatus" is written above it. "Please forward to" has "forward to" ruled through and "mark" written after it, so the sentence as it now stands reads "Please mark …". The abbreviation twice written before "Wrenches" and "Handspikes" is a contraction of manoeuvring; it is transcribed as written, "Manvg". The clerk wrote "for came" where "for same" is plainly meant — left uncorrected. The receipting signature in the margin is read as "A B Shepperson"; the surname's second half is clear but its opening letters run together, so the spelling is not certain. The order signature is "J Gorgas" — the initial is a single looped letter, taken as J. Order number read as 336; the final digit carries a long descending tail.
Image 16 — Docket and account together on one frame: Richmond Defenses, Voucher No. 14, hot-shot furnace ironwork, 27 November 1861; receipted at Richmond 4 December 1861, $350.36
Two panels photographed in one frame, and they belong to the same document: the upper panel is the outer fold of the account — a blank oblong of the sheet showing three vertical fold panels, endorsed in five lines in the middle panel, and carrying an uninked embossed oval handstamp low in the same panel; the lower panel is the account itself, on the printed "Confederate States of America / To ______ Dr." billhead with a REMARKS column, the payee written as "Ettenger & Edmond". The account sheet shows the same three vertical fold panels and one heavy horizontal fold across the middle, so it folded into six. The ink throughout is fine and light and the hand is a small, controlled clerical hand quite different from the round hand on image 14. Each money entry carries a small pen tick beside it, evidently made by an auditor, and the docket amount carries a matching tick. The paper is clean, with no tearing or staining; the right edge of the account is cropped hard by the camera, cutting the tail of the receipting signature line. The embossed stamp is blind — pressed, not inked — and reads around its outer ring "RECORD DIVISION" above and "WAR DEPARTMENT" below, with a star at either side, and "REBEL ARCHIVES" within the inner oval; the impression here is very shallow and only the ring wording and the terminal letters of the inner line can be made out, but it matches the clearer impression of the same stamp on image 17.
[Upper panel — docket on the outer fold:]
Richmond Defenses
Vouch No 14
Ettenger & Edmond
paid. Dec 4th 1861
Amount $350.36 ✓
[pen tick]
[blind embossed oval: RECORD DIVISION * REBEL ARCHIVES * WAR DEPARTMENT]
[Lower panel — the account:]
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
186 / . REMARKS.
Nov 27 For 1 set castings for shot furnace (15")
5195 lbs. .05½ ✓285 73 -
" 1 " wrot iron pieces for do .12½
477 lbs. .12½ ✓ 59 63 -
" 1 wrot door with staples, latch &c ✓ 5 00 - ✓350 36 -
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Three Hundred and Fifty 36/100 dollars ————————————
and that the property has been received and accounted for. Alfred L. Rives Acting Chf. Eng. Bu.
RICHMOND, Decem 4th 1861. Received from E a Deslonde
Capt a q m —— Three Hundred and Fifty 36/100 dollars
------------
in full of the above account. Ettenger & Edmond (Signed in duplicat[e])
Checks: 5195 lbs at $0.055 = $285.725, entered as $285.73 (rounded up a fraction of a cent). 477 lbs at $0.125 = $59.625, entered as $59.63 (likewise rounded up). $285.73 + $59.63 + $5.00 = $350.36. Proves exactly at $350.36, and the sum agrees with the certificate ("Three Hundred and Fifty 36/100 dollars"), with the receipt, and with the docket's "Amount $350.36".
Flagged: The docket and the account on this frame agree in every particular and are two views of one folded sheet, not a stray: same firm, same amount to the cent ($350.36), same date of payment (4 December 1861), and the docket's "Richmond Defenses" is consistent with an Engineer Bureau account certified by Alfred L. Rives. The docket's "Vouch No 14" is the voucher number; there is no printed form number on this sheet. The parenthesis after "shot furnace" is read as (15") — a figure 15 followed by a raised mark that could be an inch mark or an abbreviation stroke; the reading is uncertain and it may be a furnace number rather than a dimension. The rate on the first line is written ".05" with a fraction beneath a short bar; the arithmetic confirms it is one half, not three quarters. The receipting officer's rank after "Capt" is written as three joined minims and is read "a q m"; the final letter is compressed and could be taken for an r or n. "wrot" is the clerk's spelling for wrought, twice, and "duplicat" at the sheet edge loses its final letter to the camera crop. The month of the receipt is written "Decem" with a trailing stroke. The rate 12½ is written twice, on the description line and again on the weight line below it, and only the second one is extended.
Image 17 — Docket only: Ettenger & Edmond, No. 158, 23 January 1862, $1,867.12
The blank outer face of a folded account sheet, filling the frame. Three vertical fold panels and one heavy horizontal fold across the middle divide it into six; the horizontal fold is dark and slightly abraded where the sheet was carried folded. The sheet is otherwise clean, with faint foxing along the middle-right fold and a scatter of small light specks from the film. The docket is written in four lines in a large, confident, sloping hand with a fine nib, centred in the upper part of the middle panel, and runs across the sheet's own blue rules. Low in the same middle panel is a blind embossed oval handstamp — pressed, not inked — legible around its outer ring as "RECORD DIVISION" above and "WAR DEPARTMENT" below, with a star at either side, and "REBEL ARCHIVES" within the inner oval. Behind everything, the printed billhead of the account's recto shows through in mirror image: the blackletter "Confederate States of America" at the upper right, "REMARKS." beside it, and the printed certificate and receipt lines low across the sheet. There is no writing on this face other than the four docket lines.
No 158.
Ettenger & Edmond
January 23.d 1862
$1,867.12
[blind embossed oval: RECORD DIVISION * REBEL ARCHIVES * WAR DEPARTMENT]
Checks: The docket carries a single figure and no computation of its own — nothing internal to prove. Tested against the neighbouring account: it agrees to the cent with image 18.
Flagged: This docket pairs with the account on image 18, the very next frame, and is almost certainly the outer fold of that same sheet: the account on image 18 is made out to Ettenger & Edmond, foots at $1,867.12, and is receipted at Richmond on "Jany 23d 1862" — the docket's figure, firm and date all agree exactly. The mirror show-through on this face is of that account's printed billhead. "No 158." is the voucher or account number written by the office, not a printed form number. Nothing on the sheet is illegible except the interior of the embossed stamp, which is read from the deeper impression of the same stamp seen on other sheets in this range. The year in the docket is written "1862" with an open final figure, but the date is confirmed by the account.
Image 18 — Confederate States billhead, 18 January 1862: three 32-pounder gun carriages with chassis, platforms and implements, heavy traverse circles and tie plates; receipted at Richmond 23 January 1862, $1,867.12 in bonds and currency
The account whose outer fold is docketed on image 17. A wide landscape sheet on the printed "Confederate States of America / To ______ Dr." billhead with the REMARKS column at the right, the payee written large as "Ettenger & Edmond". Two vertical folds and one horizontal fold divide the sheet into six panels, matching the folds on image 17. "799" is written in a large hand at the top right corner. The account itself is in a bold, heavily inked round hand with wide letters; the money columns are entered in the same ink. Across the middle of the sheet, at right angles to the account and reading from the foot of the sheet upward, a second endorsement of seven or eight lines has been written in a much finer, paler ink, so that the two texts cross each other; where the bold account strokes run through it the finer hand is largely unreadable, and it can only be followed in fragments. The printed certificate line — "I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to … and that the property has been received and accounted for." — is left entirely blank and unsigned on this sheet; nothing is written on either printed rule. The paper is clean, unstained and untorn.
799
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
186 2 REMARKS.
Jany 18 3 _ 32 Pdr Gun Carriages with
Chassis Platform & Implements @ 575$ ea 1725 00
3 Sets of Heavy traverse Circles
& tie plates (Extra Weight) 1113 lbs @ 12½ᵈ 139 12
3 Gunners Gimlets 1.50 6 Priming Wires 1.50 3 00
----------
$1867 12
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
[blank]
and that the property has been received and accounted for. [blank]
RICHMOND, Jany 23d 186 2. Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
Eighteen hundred and Sixty seven 12/100 dollars in Bonds & Currency
in full of the above account.
Ettenger & Edmond
Signed in duplicate
[Across the middle of the sheet, written at right angles to the account
and reading from the foot of the sheet upward — a fine pale hand, crossed
by the bold strokes of the account and readable only in part:]
I certify [that the ab]ove [illegible]
carriag[es] [illegible] delivered
to me at [illegible] Clarke[?] Engineer
in charge of the [illegible] Richmond defen[ces]
on the [illegible]
River, [illegible] Lt Col Gorgas[?]
By Order of [illegible] L Gibbon Captain
Checks: 3 x $575 = $1,725.00, agreeing with the first extension. 1113 lbs at $0.125 = $139.125, entered as $139.12 (the fraction of a cent dropped). Three gunners' gimlets at $1.50 the lot and six priming wires at $1.50 the lot = $3.00, as entered. $1,725.00 + $139.12 + $3.00 = $1,867.12. Proves exactly at $1,867.12, and the figure agrees with the receipt written out ("Eighteen hundred and Sixty seven 12/100 dollars") and with the docket on image 17.
Flagged: The docket on image 17 belongs to this account — same firm, same total to the cent, same date of receipt (23 January 1862) — and image 17 is the outer fold of this sheet, so the pair is genuine and adjacent. The rate on the traverse-circle line has been written over an earlier figure: the "12" is doubled and blotted, with a lighter figure showing beneath, and the arithmetic confirms the figure now standing is 12½; the character after the fraction is a small raised letter, transcribed as "ᵈ", and may be a cents mark rather than a "d". "6 Priming Wires" — the "6" is likewise written heavily over an earlier figure and the commodity word could be read as "Irons"; "Wires" is preferred because the same firm's account on image 14 bills "Priming Wires". The number at the top right is read as 799, but the middle digit could be a 4. The diagonal endorsement is the weak point of this sheet: it is written in a pale ink across the bold account and only the fragments given above can be read with confidence — "I certify", "carriag[es]", "delivered", "to me at", "in charge of the", "Richmond defen[ces]", "on the", "River", "By Order of", "Lt Col Gorgas", "L Gibbon", "Captain". The surname read as "Clarke" is uncertain and could be another name entirely; the words between the fragments are genuinely illegible at any magnification and are not guessed at here. Note that the printed certificate and the space for the certifying officer's signature are blank — on this sheet the diagonal endorsement appears to stand in place of the usual certificate.
Image 19 — Docket only: Ettenger & Edmond, No. 146, $1,436.72, April 25 1862, endorsed as ordnance service
The blank outer face of a folded account sheet, laid flat and filling the frame. The paper is a pale wove or laid stock whose horizontal laid lines show plainly under the camera light. Two vertical folds divide it into three tall panels and one horizontal fold crosses it low down; the folds are soft and unbroken. The docket is written in five lines in a fine, small, sloping hand at the head of the middle panel, in pale grey-brown ink, with a ruled line drawn under each of the first four lines. Midway down the same panel is a blind embossed oval handstamp — pressed, not inked — whose ring wording "RECORD DIVISION" above and "WAR DEPARTMENT" below can be made out along with a star at each side; it is the same stamp as on images 16 and 17. There is a small pale mark low in the right-hand panel and a few light specks; the sheet is otherwise blank, undamaged and unstained. No writing shows through from the recto.
No. 146.
---------
Ettenger & Edmond
----------------------
$1436.72
----------
April 25. 1862
----------------
"Ord Ser: in acc'ts[?] &c
[blind embossed oval: RECORD DIVISION * REBEL ARCHIVES * WAR DEPARTMENT]
Checks: A single figure and no computation — nothing internal to prove. Tested against the neighbouring account: it agrees to the cent with image 20.
Flagged: This docket pairs with the account on image 20, the very next frame, and is on the evidence the outer fold of that same sheet: the account there is made out to "Ettenger & Edmond", foots at $1,436.72, and is receipted at "Richmond Va April 25th 1862" — figure, firm and date all agree exactly with this docket. "No. 146." is the voucher number written by the office; there is no printed form number on this face. The fifth line is the weakest reading on the sheet: it opens with what appears to be an inverted comma, then "Ord Ser:" (taken as an abbreviation of Ordnance Service), then a word read as "acc'ts" and closing with "&c"; the middle of that word is compressed and the reading is not certain. The firm's name is written here with an "e" — "Ettenger" — matching the signature on image 20. The interior line of the embossed stamp is too shallow to read on this sheet and is supplied from the clearer impression on image 17.
Image 20 — Confederate States billhead, 24 April 1862: two 8-inch Columbiad carriages complete with chassis, platforms and implements at $718.36 each; approved by Gorgas and receipted at Richmond 25 April 1862, $1,436.72
The account answering the docket on image 19. A wide landscape sheet on the printed "Confederate States of America / To ______ Dr." billhead with the printed REMARKS column at the right and the ruled money columns beneath it, the payee written across the head as "Ettenger & Edmond". The paper is a laid or ribbed stock whose fine horizontal lines show plainly, and writing on the other side ghosts faintly through the whole sheet. Two vertical folds and one horizontal fold divide the sheet into six panels. "1608" is written in a large hand at the top right corner. The entry, the approval and the receipt are all in one fine, elegant, sharply pointed hand in black ink; the firm's own signature at the lower right is in the same bold pen seen on image 18. Long fine diagonal pen strokes cross the entry block from lower left to upper right, and there are further faint diagonal marks among them; whether these amount to an inscription or are simply cancelling strokes cannot be settled, and no word in them can be read with confidence. The printed certificate line stands to the right, above the printed line "and that the property has been received and will be accounted for" — note this form reads "will be accounted for", where the form used on image 16 reads "accounted for". At the bottom left the sheet carries the printed line "SIGNED DUPLICATES."
1608
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr
186 2. REMARKS.
April 24 2 . 8 inch Columbiad Carriages
Complete with Chassis - Platform
Pintle plate & Pins - bolts . traverse
Circle tie plates. 2 Sponges and
Rammers 4 Mang Hand Spikes
4 Eccentric Wrenches. 4 Gimlets &
4 Priming wires @ $718 36/100 Ea $1436 72
Approved "Signed Triplicates I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
J Gorgas Lt Col
& Chief of Ordnance
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for
RECEIVED, Richmond Va April 25th 186 2, of
One thousand four hundred and
thirty Six Dollars Seventy two — Cents, in full of the above account. Ettenger & Edmond
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
Checks: 2 x $718.36 = $1,436.72, which is the figure entered in the money column and the only extension on the sheet. Proves exactly at $1,436.72. The receipt written out — "One thousand four hundred and thirty Six Dollars Seventy two Cents" — agrees, and so does the docket on image 19.
Flagged: The docket on image 19 belongs to this account and stands one frame before it: firm, figure ($1,436.72) and date (April 25, 1862) all agree exactly, and image 19 is on the evidence the outer fold of this sheet. Two things on the sheet contradict each other and are left as written: the approval is endorsed "Signed Triplicates" in the clerk's hand, while the printed line at the foot of the form reads "SIGNED DUPLICATES." The abbreviation before "Hand Spikes" is written "Mang", a contraction of manoeuvring, and is transcribed as it stands; the quantity before it is a clear 4. "Eccentric Wrenches" is written plainly and is transcribed as written. The signature to the approval is read "J Gorgas"; the initial is a single looped letter, as on image 15. The number at the top right is read as 1608. The unit rate is written "$718 36/100 Ea" with the fraction raised over a ruled line. The diagonal strokes across the entry block are the one unresolved feature: at every magnification and rotation tried they resolve into long ruled pen strokes and into show-through from the reverse of the sheet, and no reading of them is offered here rather than guess at words that may not be there.
Image 21 — Voucher docket (endorsement panel), Army of Northern Virginia Engineer Service, Voucher No. 226, June 26, 1862, "Iron work," $471.25
A single sheet photographed as the outside of a folded voucher, so the writing sits in a vertical panel down the middle of the frame with the paper's two long fold lines visible as pale vertical creases to the left and right of the text block. The paper is light and clean; the surrounding film field is black. The docket is a partly printed form — the words "Voucher No." and the "186_" of the year are in heavy printed type, with dotted rules for the manuscript entries — everything else filled in a fine, looping clerical hand in black ink now faded to grey-brown. A heavy black ink blot roughly the size of a thumbnail sits in the blank left third of the sheet, well clear of the writing. In the lower third, straddling the centre fold, is a large oval blind/rubber stamp of the War Department Record Division, very lightly inked and hard to read, with a small ink check mark struck through its centre. Faint show-through from the sheet behind is visible along the right margin. No other stamps, no tears, no losses.
Army of Northern Virginia
Engineer Service
------------------------------
Voucher No. 226
-------------------------------
June 26. 1862
..............................................
Ettinger & Edmond
------------------------------
Iron work $471.25
------------------------------
[oval stamp:] * RECORD DIVISION, *
REB[EL] ARCHIVES[?]
WAR DEPARTMENT.
[ink check mark across the stamp]
Checks: Only one figure on the sheet, $471.25, with nothing to extend or foot — no arithmetic to prove on this page. Tested against its neighbour: the account at the top of Image 22 is dated June 1862, is receipted at Richmond on 26 June 1862, and foots to $471.25 — the same sum, the same date, the same firm. This docket and that account are a matching pair.
Flagged: (1) The firm's name is written here as "Ettinger" — with a clearly dotted i — not the "Ettenger" of the printed billhead used elsewhere in this file. Recorded as written. (2) This docket is headed Army of Northern Virginia, Engineer Service and describes "Iron work," not Ordnance Department gun-carriage work; it may be filmed out of sequence with the Ordnance accounts around it. Flagged where it stands, not moved. (3) "Voucher No. 226" is handwritten on the dotted rule and is a genuine voucher number, not a printed form number. (4) The oval stamp is almost entirely blind; "RECORD DIVISION," and "WAR DEPARTMENT." are legible around the ring. The inner line is illegible on this sheet, but the same stamp is struck far more clearly on the docket at the foot of Image 22, where it reads REBEL ARCHIVES; that is the reading adopted here.
Image 22 — Two documents in one frame: (a) Engineer Bureau account, "The Confederate States, To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.," bolts and spikes for trestle bridges, June 13, 1862, receipted at Richmond 26 June 1862, $471.25; (b) an unrelated docket, No. 4604, Dec. 15, 1862, $29.50
The frame holds two separate sheets photographed one above the other. The upper sheet is a printed Engineer Bureau bill form — heavy display type "The Confederate States," at the head, then a ruled table with printed column heads DATE. / DESIGNATION. / APPLICATION. / COST. subdivided DOLLS. and CTS. Below the table are two printed blocks, a certificate and a receipt, with blanks filled in a fine, sloping clerk's hand in iron-gall ink now brown-grey. In the certificate the words "the articles to be (or have been) accounted for in my Property Return for ___ quarter of ___" have been struck out with a single ruled line, the standard treatment when the account is for work and not for stores. The word "VOUCHER" is printed in outline down the right-hand margin, reading sideways. A horizontal fold crosses the sheet about a third of the way down; a small ink check mark sits in the empty body of the table. The lower sheet is the outside of a folded voucher — a plain leaf with two vertical folds and a docket written down the centre panel in a different, broader hand, with the oval REBEL ARCHIVES stamp struck across its lower half, this time inked clearly enough to read, and a heavy looping ink flourish written over the stamp. Both sheets are clean, unbroken and free of losses; a smudge of soil runs down the right fold of the lower sheet.
(a) — upper sheet
The Confederate States,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| COST.
DATE. | DESIGNATION. | APPLICATION. | DOLLS. | CTS.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 13" | 200 3/4 bolts 18" Long | | |
| 160 " " 16" " | | |
| 200 " Spikes 18" " | Trestle Bridges for | |
| 40 1 1/8 Bolts 12" " | Genl Johnsons Army | |
| 40 " " 17" " | | |
| With Nuts. 1885 lb @ 25 c | 471 | 25
| | | |
| Approved | | |
| A L. Rives | | |
| Acting Chief Engineer Bureau | |
| | | $ |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I certify that the above account is correct and just; the articles to be (or
have been) accounted for in my [struck through]
Property Return for ______ quarter of ___ [struck through]
A L. Rives
Acting Chf. Eng. Bu.
RECEIVED at Richmond, Va. this 26th. day of June 186 2
from Capt. A L. Rives, Actg Chf. Eng. Bu. the sum of Four hundred and
Seventy one 25/100 Dollars
in full payment of the above account.
Ettenger & Edmond
$ [DUPLICATE.]
(b) — lower sheet (docket, verso of a folded voucher)
No 4604
------------------------
Ettenger & Edmond
------------------------------
Dec 15th 1862
------------------------
$29.50
-------------------
Ordnance accts.[?] &c[?]
------------------------------
[oval stamp:] * RECORD DIVISION, *
REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT.
[heavy ink flourish written across the stamp]
Checks: Upper sheet: the only extension on the account is the weight line — 1885 lb at 25 cents. 1885 x $0.25 = $471.25, and the cost columns carry 471 | 25. Proves exactly at $471.25. The receipt below spells the same sum out in words, "Four hundred and Seventy one 25/100 Dollars," which agrees. The five quantity lines (200, 160, 200, 40, 40 = 640 pieces) are not priced individually and carry no extensions; only the aggregate weight is charged, so there is nothing further to prove. Lower sheet: a single figure, $29.50, with no arithmetic on the page. Tested against its neighbour as required: $29.50 dated 15 December 1862 does not match the $471.25 account of June 1862 above it. The docket is not the wrapper of this account.
Flagged: (1) Both the printed billhead and the firm's own receipt signature here read Ettenger — contrast the "Ettinger" of the Image 21 docket. (2) The quantities and the bolt size in the fourth and fifth lines are small and faint on this scan. They are settled by Image 27, which is the same account at almost twice the resolution: the quantities are 40 and 40 (not 440), and the size is one and one-eighth inches, written as a full-size 1 followed by a small 1/8 over the solidus, with a ditto in the line below. Both readings can be confirmed on this sheet once one knows what to look for. (3) "Genl Johnsons Army" is written without the t — almost certainly Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army, but that is an outside proposal, not what the page says. (4) This account is Engineer Bureau work — bolts and spikes for trestle bridges — approved and paid by Capt. A. L. Rives, Acting Chief of the Engineer Bureau, not Ordnance Department gun-carriage work; it sits with the Image 21 docket, which is likewise Engineer Service. (5) The docket number on the lower sheet is read "No 4604"; if the first figure is instead the superior "o" of "No" it would read "No 604," and both readings are possible from the strokes. (6) The last line of the lower docket is written very fast and is only partly legible; "Ordnance" is reasonably clear, the second word reads as an abbreviation of "accounts," and the terminal mark reads as "&c" — all marked uncertain. (7) The lower docket is dated 15 December 1862, six months after the account above it, and belongs elsewhere in the file; flagged where it stands, not moved.
Image 23 — Two documents in one frame: (a) printed Ettenger & Edmond billhead, Richmond, Nov.–Dec. 1862, four 12-pounder howitzer caissons and foundry shafting at Rocketts, receipted from Maj. Smith Stansbury, $2,950.00; (b) an unrelated docket, No. 372, June 12/62, $605.75, "Original"
Two sheets, one above the other in the frame. The upper is the firm's own printed billhead: "Confederate States of America," set in heavy blackletter across the head, a ruled money table beneath it with the printed year "186_" at the left of the head-rule and a printed REMARKS column at the far right, then two printed blocks below — a certificate ("I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to ... and that the property has been received and accounted for.") and a receipt line beginning with the printed word RICHMOND,. All the manuscript is in one flowing, well-formed hand in black ink, the figures firmly written; a small ink check mark stands beside three of the four money entries and beside the footing. In the certificate the sum in words appears to have been written once, then written again immediately below on the ruled line, the two lines saying the same thing. The paper is clean and unstained, with one horizontal fold across the middle of the table; nothing is torn or lost. A faint modern pencil number is written in the extreme upper right corner of the frame, on the sheet. The lower sheet is again the outside of a folded voucher — heavy laid paper showing its chain lines, folded in three vertically and twice horizontally, docketed down the centre panel in a large open hand, with a small pencil number added at the top and the oval RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT stamp struck faintly in the lower middle. A dark smudge sits in the left panel of the lower sheet, and a small "O" or "D" flourish in ink near its foot.
(a) — upper sheet
[pencil, top right corner:] 41024[?]
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
186 2. | | | REMARKS.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov r 27 | For 2. 12 Pdr Howitzer Caissons @ 475$ | 950 00 v | [illegible mark,
29 | " 3 Pullies & 2 Pieces Shafting in | | reads like "I Kev"]
| Foundry at Rocketts | 100 00 |
Dec 3. | " 2 12 Pdr Howitzer Caissons @ 475$ | 950 00 v |
13 | " 2 do do do @ " | 950 00 v |
| $ | 2950 00 v |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twenty nine hundred & fifty I certify that the above account is correct and
Twenty nine hundred & fifty Dollars just, amounting to
and that the property has been received and accounted for.
RICHMOND, December 15 186 2. Received from Smith Stansbury, Major
Two thousand Nine hundred & fifty doll[ar]s in full of the above account.
Ettenger & Edmond (Signed Duplicate)
(b) — lower sheet (docket, verso of a folded voucher)
[pencil:] 372 —
Ettinger & Edmond
June 12/62
$605 - 75/100
Original
[oval stamp, faint:] * RECORD DIVISION, *
REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: Upper sheet, extensions first. Line 1: 2 caissons at $475 = $950.00, and the column carries 950 00 — proves. Line 2 (pullies and shafting) is a lump charge of 100 00 with no quantity and no rate, so nothing to extend. Line 3: 2 caissons at $475 = $950.00, column 950 00 — proves. Line 4: 2 more at the same rate ("do do do @ ") = $950.00, column 950 00 — proves. Footing: 950 + 100 + 950 + 950 = $2,950.00, and the sheet foots $2950 00. Proves exactly at $2,950.00. The certificate's words, "Twenty nine hundred & fifty [Dollars]," and the receipt's words, "Two thousand Nine hundred & fifty dollars," both agree with the figure. Lower sheet: one figure, $605.75, nothing to prove. Tested against its neighbour: $605.75 of 12 June 1862 does not match the $2,950.00 account above it. The docket is not this account's wrapper.
Flagged: (1) The year in the table head is a single handwritten figure after the printed "186". Enlarged, it is a "2" written in this clerk's manner — a small hook at the top, a thick diagonal down to the left, then a thin horizontal foot carried off to the right — the identical figure that fills the head of the account at Image 24 and the receipt line here. The account therefore runs 27 and 29 November and 3 and 13 December 1862, and is receipted 15 December 1862, two days after the last item. Stansbury is styled Major, which is consistent with that date. (2) The firm's name is printed and signed Ettenger on the upper sheet but written Ettinger on the lower docket — the same split seen at Images 21 and 22. (3) The entry in the REMARKS column is a two- or three-letter scrawl that will not resolve; it reads something like "I Kev" and may be an initialled inspection mark. Left as illegible. (4) The sum in words in the certificate is written twice, on two successive lines, both reading "Twenty nine hundred & fifty"; nothing is struck out and the second is not a correction of the first. Recorded as it stands. (5) The pencil number in the top right corner of the upper sheet is a later archival control mark, not part of the document; the strokes read most like 41024 but the reading is uncertain and it may be "4/024". (6) The lower docket, No. 372, dated June 12/62 for $605.75 and endorsed "Original," is a stray in this position; flagged where it stands, not moved. (7) No destination in parentheses appears on any carriage line here — the only place named in the body of the account is the Foundry at Rocketts, Richmond, where the pullies and shafting were fitted.
Image 24 — Two documents in one frame: (a) printed Ettenger & Edmond billhead, 26–28 May 1862, siege-gun platforms, bar iron, cast boxes and hauling, certified by Briscoe G. Baldwin and receipted at Richmond 11 June 1862, $605.75; (b) an unrelated docket, No. 638, Sept. 5, 1861, "Ordnance Serv," $350
Two sheets stacked in the frame. The upper is the same printed billhead used at Image 23 — "Confederate States of America," in blackletter, the payee written in by hand, the ruled money table with its printed year "186_" and REMARKS column, and below it the printed certificate and the printed receipt ending "SIGNED DUPLICATES." The paper here is thin and strongly laid, and the film has picked up the horizontal laid lines as a fine ribbing across the whole sheet, which makes the lighter strokes hard to follow; the ink is brown and in places has faded to little more than a stain, particularly in the middle of the table. Two vertical folds and one horizontal fold cross the sheet. A small tick stands beside every money entry and beside the footing. The certifying officer has signed in a large, confident hand that runs up over the printed rule, and his signature is underscored with a heavy stroke that carries a blot at its right-hand end; in the receipt the blank after the printed "of" was never filled, so the paying officer is not named there. The REMARKS column is empty. The lower sheet is again a folded voucher wrapper, docketed in a fine copperplate quite unlike the hands above, with ruled lines drawn under each entry; the RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT oval is struck faintly across the lower middle of it, and a scattering of small ink flecks lies down its left panel.
(a) — upper sheet
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
186 2. | | | REMARKS.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 26 | 3 Platforms for Siege Guns with Eye bolts @ 50$ | 150 | 00 v |
27 | 11 Bars 4" Sq iron 4100 lb @ 8 1/2 c | 348 | 50 v |
| Work done on 8 Ends of Same | 25 | 00 v |
| 10 Cast boxes 350 lb @ 7 c | 24 | 50 v |
| Boring two boxes | 5 | 00 v |
| Hauling from Mill to Shop & from Shop to Armory | 2 | 75 v |
28 | 1 Platform for Siege Guns Dressed | | |
| & bored & Eye bolts | 50 | 00 v |
| $ | 605 | 75 v |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Six hundred & five 75/100 Dolls I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just,
amounting to
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for.
Briscoe G Baldwin
Capt Arty[?]
RECEIVED, Richmond June 11th 186 2, of [blank]
~~~~~~~~~ Dollars Seventy five Cents, in full of the above account.
Six hundred and five ~~
SIGNED DUPLICATES. Ettenger & Edmond
(b) — lower sheet (docket, verso of a folded voucher)
No 638.
------------------------------------
Ettinger & Edmund
------------------------------------
Sept 5. 1861
------------------------------------
Ordnance Serv $ 350
------------------------------------
[oval stamp, faint:] * RECORD DIVISION, *
REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: Upper sheet, extension by extension. 3 platforms at $50 = $150.00, column 150 | 00 — proves. 4100 lb of 4-inch square iron at 8-1/2 cents = $348.50, column 348 | 50 — proves. "Work done on 8 Ends of Same" is a lump charge of 25 | 00, no rate to test. 350 lb of cast boxes at 7 cents = $24.50, column 24 | 50 — proves. "Boring two boxes" 5 | 00 and "Hauling" 2 | 75 are lump charges. The 28 May platform, dressed, bored and with eye bolts, is a lump 50 | 00. Footing: 150.00 + 348.50 + 25.00 + 24.50 + 5.00 + 2.75 + 50.00 = $605.75, and the sheet foots 605 | 75. Proves exactly at $605.75. The certificate's "Six hundred & five 75/100 Dolls" and the receipt's "Six hundred and five ... Seventy five Cents" both agree. Lower sheet: a single figure, $350, nothing to prove. Tested against its neighbour: $350 of 5 September 1861 does not match the $605.75 account above it. But this account does have its docket in the range — the wrapper at the foot of Image 23, "Ettinger & Edmond / June 12/62 / $605 - 75/100 / Original," matches this sheet in sum, firm and date to within a day of the receipt. The two are a pair, filmed one frame apart and in the wrong order.
Flagged: (1) The head year is the same handwritten figure as at Image 23 — a "2," giving 1862 — and it is confirmed by the receipt line, likewise 186 2, and by the matching docket at Image 23 dated June 12/62. (2) The receipt's blank after "of" was never filled in, so the sheet does not say from whom the money was received; the only officer named on it is Briscoe G Baldwin, who signs the certificate. His title beneath the signature is short and heavily flourished; it reads as "Capt Arty" but the second word is not certain. (3) The lower docket writes the firm Ettinger & Edmund, a third variant — "Ettenger & Edmond" on the printed billhead and in the signature, "Ettinger & Edmond" at Images 21 and 23, "Ettinger & Edmund" here. The terminal stroke of "Edmund" is a flourish and might be read as a final s. (4) The lower docket, No. 638 of 5 September 1861 for $350 "Ordnance Serv," is a stray in this position — a full nine months before the account it sits under; flagged where it stands, not moved. (5) No destination appears in parentheses on any line of this account; the places named in the body are the firm's own Mill, Shop and the Armory at Richmond, in the hauling charge.
Image 25 — Printed Ettenger & Edmond billhead, Ordnance Service, 16–30 August 1861, seven portable forges, certified by Briscoe G. Baldwin, Capt. Ordnance, and receipted at Richmond 5 September 1861 from Smith Stansbury, Capt. of Artillery, $350.00
One sheet only, filling the frame in landscape — the firm's printed billhead with "Confederate States of America," in blackletter across the top left, the payee written in a large ornamental copperplate on the dotted rule, the printed year "186_" at the left of the head-rule and the printed word REMARKS. at the far right. The words "Ordnance Servis" are written by hand above the money columns, on the head-rule itself, as a heading for the charge. Only three lines of the table are used; the remaining two-thirds of the ruled body is blank, and the closing rule is printed low down the sheet, so the account looks very sparse. The paper is clean, pale and unstained, with a single horizontal fold about a third of the way down and light foxing along the top edge; nothing is torn. All the manuscript is in one large, fluent hand in black ink, the entries firmly written and easily read — much the clearest sheet in this run. The certificate is signed by the ordnance officer in a bold hand with his own heavy underscore, and the firm's receipt signature runs across the bottom right. A modern pencil "95" is written in the top right corner of the frame. There is no docket in this frame and no archival stamp.
[pencil, top right:] 95
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
186 1. | | | Ordnance Servis[?] | | REMARKS.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aug 16 | 1 Portable Forge | 50 ~ |
24 | 3 do do @ 50$ | 150 ~ |
30 | 3 do do @ " | 150 ~ $350 00
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three Hundred and Fifty Dollars ——— I certify that the above account is correct and
just, amounting to
and that the property has been received and accounted for.
Briscoe G Baldwin
" Capt Ordnance
RICHMOND, Sept r 5 th 1861. Received from Smith Stansbury Capt of
Artillery Three hundred and Fifty Dollars.
in full of the above account. Ettenger & Edmond
Duplicates
Checks: Line 1, one portable forge at 50 — no rate written on the line, but the column carries 50 with a dash for the cents. Line 2, 3 forges at $50 = $150.00, column 150 — proves. Line 3, 3 more at the same rate ("@ ") = $150.00, column 150 — proves. Footing: 50 + 150 + 150 = $350.00, and the sheet carries $350 00 written across at the level of the third line. Proves exactly at $350.00, seven forges in all. The certificate's "Three Hundred and Fifty Dollars" and the receipt's "Three hundred and Fifty Dollars" both agree. This sheet is the account answered by the docket at the foot of Image 24 — "No 638. / Ettinger & Edmund / Sept 5. 1861 / Ordnance Serv $ 350" — which matches it in sum, in date and in the "Ordnance Serv" heading. The two are a pair, filmed one frame apart and in the wrong order.
Flagged: (1) The head year is a plain slanted stroke with no top hook and no foot — a "1," giving 1861. Set beside the hooked, footed figure at Images 23 and 24, it settles that those two sheets read 1862 and this one 1861. (2) The heading written above the money columns reads "Ordnance Servi_" ; the last letter or two are carried off into a flourish and the word may be meant for "Service" or the abbreviation "Servis". Marked uncertain. (3) Baldwin's title here is written out plainly as Capt Ordnance, with a ditto mark above it. (4) No destination in parentheses appears anywhere on this sheet, and no place is named in the body of the account; the only place recorded is Richmond, in the receipt. (5) Nothing on the sheet is struck out, written over or corrected.
Image 26 — Voucher docket (endorsement panel), Army of Northern Virginia Engineer Service, Voucher No. 226, June 26th 1862, "Iron work," $471.25 — a second copy of the docket at Image 21
A folded voucher photographed from the outside, the writing again confined to the centre panel between two strong vertical folds; the film shows the two side panels as broad grey bands. Unlike the sheet at Image 21, this one carries printing on its inner face, and the show-through is heavy: reversed lines of printed form-text run down both side panels, with a large reversed printed word visible in the right panel. The docket itself is a partly printed form — "Voucher No." and "186_" in bold printed type on dotted rules — filled in a fine, upright hand in black ink that has stayed dark. Each of the three principal entries is underscored with a ruled line. The oval RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT stamp is struck across the lower panel, more legibly than at Image 21, and two heavy ink check marks are drawn over it, one above and one below, with a third check struck through the money figure. A faint pencil mark, no more than a stroke or two, lies in the right panel about a third of the way down; it will not resolve. The paper is sound, unstained and unbroken.
Army of Northern Virginia
Engineer Service
------------------------------
Voucher No. 226
-------------------------------
June 26th. 186 2
..............................................
Ettenger & Edmond
------------------------------
Iron work
------------------------------
v $471.25
------------------------------
[oval stamp:] * RECORD DIVISION, *
REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT.
[two ink check marks drawn across the stamp]
[right panel, faint pencil: an illegible mark]
Checks: One figure only, $471.25, with nothing to extend or foot — no arithmetic to prove on this page. Tested against its neighbours: it agrees to the cent with the docket at Image 21 (same voucher number, same date, same description, same sum) and with the Engineer Bureau account at the top of Image 22, which foots to $471.25 and is receipted 26 June 1862. The account there is endorsed "DUPLICATE," and two dockets survive for the one voucher, so this sheet and Image 21 are almost certainly the wrappers of the two signed copies.
Flagged: (1) The firm's name here reads Ettenger — the vowel after "Ett" carries no dot and is formed as an e — whereas the otherwise identical docket at Image 21 reads Ettinger with a dotted i. Two clerks, two spellings, one voucher. (2) The date is written "June 26th." in full here against the shorter form at Image 21; the year is a rounded "2" of a different make from the figure used on the billheads, but it is unambiguous — 1862. (3) "Voucher No. 226" is filled in by hand on the printed dotted rule and is a genuine voucher number, not a printed form number. (4) This docket, like Image 21, belongs to the Engineer Service and describes "Iron work," not Ordnance Department carriage work. (5) The pencil mark in the right panel is too faint and too broken to read; recorded as illegible rather than guessed. (6) No place appears on the sheet beyond the army designation, and no destination in parentheses.
Image 27 — Engineer Bureau account, "The Confederate States, To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.," bolts and spikes for trestle bridges for Gen. Johnson's army, June 13, 1862, approved by A. L. Rives and receipted at Richmond 26 June 1862, $471.25 — the same account as the upper sheet of Image 22, at nearly twice the scale
A single sheet filling the frame upright, and much the best-resolved image in this run. It is the printed Engineer Bureau bill form: "The Confederate States," in heavy shaded roman across the head, the payee written in on a rule below, then a ruled table with the printed column heads DATE. / DESIGNATION. / APPLICATION. / COST., the last divided DOLLS. and CTS.; the word VOUCHER is printed in outline down the right-hand margin, reading upwards, with the printed year "186" set sideways beside it. Below the table come the printed certificate — its clause about accounting for articles in a Property Return ruled through in ink, as usual for a service account — and the printed receipt, with "[DUPLICATE.]" printed at the foot. The manuscript is in a fine, sloping hand in ink that has faded to a light brown in the upper half of the table and stayed dark below. Two corrections and marks are visible: the word "Trestle" in the APPLICATION column has been written over in much heavier ink, the middle letters gone over twice; a heavy ink check mark is drawn across the money figure; and a second, stray check mark stands by itself in the empty body of the table well below the entries. A long, heavy ink stroke runs down the left margin beside the date. The paper is clean, with a horizontal fold across the middle, some staining at the upper left corner and a heavy ink blot at the right edge beside the receipt line. Nothing is torn or lost.
The Confederate States,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| COST.
DATE. | DESIGNATION. | APPLICATION. | DOLLS. | CTS.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 13" | 200 3/4 bolts 18" Long | | |
| 160 " " 16" " | | |
| 200 " Spikes 18" " | Trestle Bridges for | |
| 40 1 1/8 Bolts 12" " | Genl Johnsons Army | |
| 40 " " 17" " | | |
| with Nuts ~ 1885 lbs @ 25 c[?] v $| 471 | 25
| | | |
| Approved | | |
| A L. Rives | v | |
| Acting Chief Engineer Bureau | |
| | | $ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I certify that the above account is correct and just; the articles to be (or have been)
accounted for in my [ruled through]
Property Return for ______ quarter of [ruled through]
A L. Rives
Actg Chf. Eng. Bu.
RECEIVED at Richmond, Va. this 26th. day of June 186 2
from Capt. A L. Rives, Actg Chf. Eng. Bu. the sum of Four hundred and
Seventy one 25/100 Dolls.
in full payment of the above account.
Ettenger & Edmond
$ [DUPLICATE.]
Checks: One extension only, on the weight line: 1885 lb at 25 cents = $471.25, and the cost columns carry 471 | 25. Proves exactly at $471.25. The receipt's words, "Four hundred and Seventy one 25/100 Dolls.," agree. The five quantity lines — 200 three-quarter-inch bolts 18 inches long, 160 the same 16 inches, 200 spikes 18 inches, 40 bolts of one and one-eighth inch 12 inches long and 40 more at 17 inches, 640 pieces in all, with nuts — carry no rates and no extensions, only the aggregate weight, so there is nothing further to prove. Against its neighbours: this is the same account as the upper sheet of Image 22 and it is answered by the dockets at Image 21 and Image 26, both "Voucher No. 226 / June 26 1862 / Iron work / $471.25." All four agree to the cent.
Flagged: (1) "Trestle" is written over an earlier attempt. The middle of the word is gone over in much heavier ink so that the first try is buried; what stands now reads "Trestle," and no earlier reading can be recovered. Recorded as it appears, with the overwriting noted rather than tidied away. (2) The bolt size is one and one-eighth inches: a full-size figure 1, then a small 1 over an 8 across the solidus. This is clear at this scale and settles the doubtful reading on the smaller scan at Image 22. (3) The quantities in the fourth and fifth lines are 40 and 40, not 440 — again clear here and easily mistaken on the smaller scan. (4) The rate on the weight line is "25" followed by a small raised looped letter. It must be 25 cents, since 1885 at that rate gives the footed figure exactly, but the superior character itself is ambiguous between a c and a d and is marked uncertain. (5) "Genl Johnsons Army" is written without a t — Gen. Joseph E. Johnston is the obvious candidate, but that is a proposal, not what the page says. (6) A stray ink check mark stands alone in the empty part of the table, unconnected to any entry. (7) This is Engineer Bureau work — bridge iron — approved and paid by Capt. A. L. Rives, not Ordnance Department carriage work. (8) No destination in parentheses appears; the only place named is Richmond, in the receipt, and the work's application is to Gen. Johnson's army.
Image 28 — Two documents in one frame: (a) autograph receipt of the receiving engineer, Richmond, June 25/62, for bolts and spikes for trestle bridges, 1885 lbs at 25 per lb, signed Hugh Thos Douglas, Assistant Engineer C.S.A.; (b) an unrelated docket, Ettinger & Edmond, April 4th/62, $2,718.45, "Original"
Two sheets stacked in the frame. The upper is a plain, unruled and unprinted half-sheet of writing paper — no form, no letterhead, no columns — written across in a fine, elegant, strongly sloped hand in ink that has faded to a pale grey-brown and reads only with effort against the grey ground of the film; the writing occupies the top two-thirds and the lower third is empty. Two horizontal folds cross it, and a paler band runs across the middle where the sheet was folded. A large ink X or check is drawn at the right-hand edge, level with the last line of the list. The upper left corner carries a small dark stain. The lower sheet is a folded voucher wrapper, its three vertical fold panels clearly visible; the docket is written down the centre panel in a soft pencil, not ink, which is why it is so pale, with a small figure at the top and a flourished "Original" at the foot. The oval RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT stamp is struck near the bottom of the panel and is almost entirely blind — only "RE" and part of the ring survive. Below it, in dark ink, stand two large looped initials.
(a) — upper sheet
Richmond June 25/62
Recd of Ettenger & Edmond the
following bolts for Trestle Bridges
200 3/4 bolts 18" Long
160 " " 16" "
200 " Spikes 18" " (Countersunk heads)
40 1 1/8 bolts 12" "
40 1 1/8 " 17" "
1885 lbs in all @ 25 d[?] per lb
The said bolts have been received
by me and the price is correct
Hugh Thos Douglas
Assistant Engineer C.S.A.
[large ink X at the right edge]
(b) — lower sheet (docket, verso of a folded voucher, in pencil)
40[?]
Ettinger & Edmond
April 4 th /62
$2.718.45
Original
[oval stamp, almost entirely blind:] * RE[CORD DIVISION,] *
[REBEL ARCHIVES]
[WAR DEPARTMENT.]
[in ink, two large looped initials: O O[?]]
Checks: Upper sheet: no money is written on it at all — only the quantities, the aggregate weight and the rate. The one arithmetical statement that can be tested is the weight against the pieces named, and the sheet does not break the weight down, so nothing can be proved internally. Taken with the rate, 1885 lb at 25 cents gives $471.25, which is exactly the sum of the account at Images 22 and 27 and of the dockets at Images 21 and 26 — so this receipt belongs with voucher No. 226 and confirms it. Its list matches the account item for item, quantity for quantity, including the 40s. Lower sheet: a single figure, $2,718.45, with no arithmetic on the page. Tested against its neighbour: $2,718.45 of 4 April 1862 does not match the June 1862 receipt above it, and no account in Images 21–30 foots to that sum. The docket is a stray here and its account is not in this range.
Flagged: (1) The receipt adds a detail the account does not carry: the 200 spikes are specified as having countersunk heads. (2) The rate is written "25" with a small raised letter that is formed as a d — the British pence abbreviation — where cents are plainly meant, since 1885 at 25 cents gives the account's $471.25. The same superior letter appears on the account at Image 27. Transcribed as written and marked uncertain. (3) The signature reads Hugh Thos Douglas, Assistant Engineer C.S.A. The given name is written small and fast; "Hugh" is the best reading of the strokes. (4) The date is written "June 25/62" — the day figure is a clear 25, three days after the last item on the account and one day before the receipt of payment. (5) The lower docket is in pencil, unlike every other docket in this run, and is very faint; its top figure reads "40" but is little more than two strokes and may be part of a longer number carried off the panel. (6) The lower docket's sum, $2,718.45 of 4 April 1862, belongs to an account not filmed in Images 21–30; flagged where it stands, not moved. (7) The two large looped ink initials at the foot of the lower sheet appear again over the stamp on the docket at Image 22; they read as a pair of Os but no reading is certain. (8) This receipt, like its account, is Engineer business — bridge iron for Gen. Johnson's army — not Ordnance carriage work; the only place named is Richmond.
Image 29 — Two documents in one frame: (a) printed Ettenger & Edmond billhead, 17 Feb.–4 April 1862, a casting, two portable forges and six caissons, certified by Briscoe G. Baldwin and receipted at Richmond 11 April 1862 in bonds and currency, $2,718.45; (b) an archival wrapper, "Contract — Ettenger & Edmond — Location not given — Letters Recd W.D. of 1861 — No: 839"
Two sheets in one frame. The upper is the firm's printed billhead, the same form as at Images 23, 24 and 25 — "Confederate States of America," in blackletter, the payee written in on the dotted rule, the printed year "186_" at the left of the head-rule, the printed REMARKS. column at the right, and beneath the table the printed certificate and the printed receipt beginning RICHMOND,. Five lines of the table are used and the rest is blank. The manuscript is in a light, quick, sharply sloped hand, and the ink has faded badly — much of the sheet is a pale grey on a grey ground and the writing has to be worked at line by line. A ruled tick is set against each money entry and against the footing, and a second set of ticks stands in the quantity column. The paper is much creased: two heavy horizontal folds and a strong vertical crease down the right of the table, with the film showing a light band where each crease lifted. A small pale flake-loss sits in the money column beside the first entry, touching no writing. The lower sheet is not a Confederate document at all but a later archival wrapper — ruled lined paper written in a round, careful, post-war clerical hand, giving a file heading and a Letters Received number, with the oval RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT stamp struck plainly across the middle of it.
(a) — upper sheet
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
186 2. | | | | | REMARKS.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb y 17 | 1 Casting from their Pattern 53 lb @ 6 1/2 d[?] | v | 3 | 45
March 19 | 2 Portable forges @ 60$ | v | 120 | 00
25 | v 3 6 Pdr Caissons @ 425$ ea | v | 1275 | 00
April 1 | v 1 12 " Howitzer do @ 440$ ea | v | 440 | 00
4 | v 2 12 " do do @ " " | v | 880 | 00
| $ | 2718 | 45 v
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two thousand seven hundred Eighteen 45/100 Dolls I certify that the above account is
correct and just, amounting to
and that the property has been received and accounted for.
Briscoe G Baldwin
" Capt Arty
RICHMOND, April 11 ~ 186 2. Received from B G Baldwin Capt Artillery
Two thousand Seven hundred and Eighteen 45/100 dollars in bonds & currency
in full of the above account.
Ettenger & Edmond (Signed in duplicate)
(b) — lower sheet (later archival wrapper, ruled paper)
Contract
Ettenger & Edmond
Location not given
Letters Recd W.D. of 1861
No: 839.
[oval stamp:] * RECORD DIVISION, *
REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: Upper sheet, extension by extension. 53 lb at 6-1/2 cents = $3.445, and the column carries 3 | 45 — a half-cent has been carried up, the only rounding in this run; recorded, not corrected. 2 portable forges at $60 = $120.00, column 120 | 00 — proves. 3 six-pounder caissons at $425 each = $1,275.00, column 1275 | 00 — proves. 1 twelve-pounder howitzer caisson at $440 = $440.00, column 440 | 00 — proves. 2 more at the same rate = $880.00, column 880 | 00 — proves. Footing: 3.45 + 120.00 + 1275.00 + 440.00 + 880.00 = $2,718.45, and the sheet foots 2718 | 45. Proves exactly at $2,718.45 as the clerk wrote it; against the unrounded extension it would be $2,718.445, half a cent less. The certificate's "Two thousand seven hundred Eighteen 45/100 Dolls" and the receipt's words agree with the footing. This is the account answered by the pencil docket at the foot of Image 28 — "Ettinger & Edmond / April 4th/62 / $2.718.45 / Original" — which matches it to the cent and to the date of its last item. The two are a pair, filmed one frame apart and in the wrong order. Lower sheet: no figures at all — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: (1) The last two figures of the footing, "45," are written heavily and appear to have been gone over; nothing legible survives underneath, and the figure as it stands agrees with the words in both the certificate and the receipt. Noted as overwriting rather than read as a correction. (2) The rate on the first line carries the same small raised looped letter as at Images 27 and 28, read there as a d where cents are meant. (3) The receipt records payment in bonds & currency — Confederate bonds and Treasury notes — which is worth noting: it is the only sheet in this run that says how the firm was paid. (4) Baldwin certifies the account as Capt Arty and then receipts it in his own name as B G Baldwin Capt Artillery; the same officer stands on both sides of the transaction, as he does at Image 24. (5) The lower sheet is a later War Department wrapper, not a Confederate docket: its hand, its ruled paper and its wording ("Letters Recd W.D. of 1861 No: 839," "Location not given") are all post-war archival. It carries no sum and cannot be matched by figure to anything; it is filed here as a heading for the firm, and its year, 1861, does not agree with the 1862 account above it. Flagged where it stands, not moved. (6) The wrapper spells the firm Ettenger & Edmond, agreeing with the billhead. (7) No destination in parentheses appears on any line; the only place named on either sheet is Richmond, in the receipt, and the wrapper expressly records that the firm's location was not given.
Image 30 — Voucher docket on the back of an Ettenger & Edmond billhead, No. 86, Ettinger & Edmonds, April 17, 1863, "Ord[nance] Ser[vice]," $2225.08
A single sheet photographed from the back, folded in four vertical panels so the film shows four broad bands; the docket is written across the second panel from the left, in a large, looping, confident hand in black ink, each of the first three entries underscored with a ruled line and the sum written out to the right of the date on the same rule. The sheet is the verso of one of the firm's own printed billheads: the printing shows through in reverse right across the frame — "Confederate States of America" in blackletter reading backwards along the bottom left, the printed year "186" and the printed word REMARKS reversed at the right, and the ruled money columns of the table standing as pale vertical lines the whole height of the sheet. Between them, also reversed, run the ghost lines of the account's own manuscript entries, legible as writing but not as words. The oval RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT stamp is struck in the middle of the docket panel, well enough inked to read all three lines. The paper is sound; a crease runs down each fold and the top edge is a little ragged, but nothing is torn away and no text is lost.
No. 86.
--------------------------------
Ettinger & Edmonds
--------------------------------
Apl. 17 th /1863 $2225.08
--------------------------------
Ord Ser: in[?] acc'ts &c:
[oval stamp:] * RECORD DIVISION, *
REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT.
[showing through in reverse from the recto: the printed billhead
"Confederate States of America," the printed year "186", the printed
column head "REMARKS", the ruled money columns, and the ghost of the
account's own manuscript entries]
Checks: One figure only, $2225.08, with nothing to extend or foot — no arithmetic to prove on this side of the sheet. Tested against its neighbours: $2,225.08 matches no account in Images 21–30. The nearest sum in the run, $2,718.45 at Image 29, is nearly five hundred dollars away and belongs to a different docket. What can be said is that the account this docket answers is on the other side of this very sheet — the show-through is unmistakably an Ettenger & Edmond billhead with entries written in — and that side was not filmed in this range.
Flagged: (1) The date is April 1863, a year later than everything else in Images 21–30, which run from August 1861 to December 1862. The final figure of the year is a clear 3, formed with the bowl turning right and down, and is not the "2" this file's clerks write. The day is 17. (2) The firm is written Ettinger & Edmonds — a fourth spelling, with both the i and a plural Edmonds. The i is plainly dotted and the terminal s is a full letter, not a flourish. (3) The cents figure is written over: the first of the two cent digits is a heavy black blot with an earlier figure buried under it; what stands reads 0, giving .08, but nothing can be recovered from underneath. Recorded as overwriting, not corrected. (4) The last line is written fast and small. "Ord Ser:" is secure — Ordnance Service — and the closing "&c:" is secure; the word between, read here as "in," and the abbreviation "acc'ts" are both uncertain. The same formula appears at the foot of the docket at Image 22, which supports the reading. (5) "No. 86." is handwritten, not printed, and is a genuine voucher or file number. (6) No place is named anywhere on this side of the sheet, and no destination in parentheses.
Amendment, after all ten images were written
Three readings were settled or corrected by evidence found later in the run; the sections above already carry the corrected text, and the reasoning is set out here.
- The head-year figure on the billheads. The single handwritten digit after the printed "186" was first read as a 1 at Image 23. Image 25 provides a control: there the figure is a plain slanted stroke with no top hook and no foot, and its receipt is dated 1861. At Images 23, 24 and 29 the figure instead has a small hook at the top, a thick diagonal, and a thin horizontal foot carried off to the right — the same figure the clerk uses in the receipt lines that are unambiguously 1862, and at Image 29 it stands beside a receipt reading "186 2." Those three sheets are therefore 1862, and Image 23 was corrected accordingly. Image 25 stands as 1861.
- The quantities and bolt size in the trestle-bridge account. On the smaller scan at Image 22 the fourth and fifth quantity lines were first read "440" and the size "1/8." The same account at Image 27, at nearly twice the resolution, shows the quantities to be 40 and 40, and the size to be one and one-eighth inches — a full-size figure 1 followed by a small 1 over an 8. The receipt at Image 28, in a third and much clearer hand, lists the same "40 1 1/8 bolts 12"" and "40 1 1/8 " 17"." Image 22 was corrected to match, and the piece count there revised from 1,440 to 640.
- The certifying officer's title. Baldwin's title under his signature at Image 24 was read "Capt Arty" with a query. Image 29, where the same signature and title are clearer, confirms Capt Arty; Image 25 shows the same officer signing "Capt Ordnance." Both forms are his, and the Image 24 reading stands.
Two further points, offered as observations rather than corrections. The superior letter after the rate figures at Images 27, 28 and 29 is formed as a d in all three places, where cents are certainly meant, since every extension proves at a rate in cents; this is the clerk's habit and has been transcribed as written. And the closing formula on the docket at Image 22, read there as "Ordnance accts.[?] &c[?]," is supported by the docket at Image 30, where the same hand writes "Ord Ser: ... acc'ts &c:" — the doubtful reading is left marked, but it is the more likely of the two.
Unresolved: the docket number at the foot of Image 22, read "No 4604," which may be "No 604"; the pencil control number in the top right corner of Image 23, read "41024"; the pencil figure at the head of the docket at Image 28, read "40"; and the two large looped ink initials that appear at Images 22 and 28. None of these was guessed at in the transcriptions.
— transcribed from the images, Images 21–30, and checked line by line.
Image 31 — Printed "Confederate States of America / To Ettenger & Edmond Dr" billhead, 1862, three 8-inch Columbiad carriages and extra ironwork; footed $2155.08, with a further April 7 entry begun below the footing
A large single leaf of the firm's printed billhead, filmed at 4920 x 4136 pixels, grayscale, the sheet filling the frame edge to edge and running off the bottom, so the account continues onto the following image. The printed matter is the standard form: "Confederate States of America," in heavy blackletter across the head, a ruled "To ................................ Dr" line beneath it filled in by hand, a double rule, then the column heads — "186" (the last digit supplied in ink) over the date column at left and "REMARKS." over a wide empty column at right. Below the heads the sheet is ruled in faint horizontal lines with vertical rules dividing month, day, description, and four narrow money columns. Two soft vertical folds run down the sheet, one about a third across and one just right of centre, and a slack horizontal fold crosses the upper third; the folds have not broken the paper and cost no text. The hand is a fluent, right-sloping commercial round hand in a medium-brown ink now reading light grey on the film, thin and a little faint on the upstrokes. There is minor edge chipping at the left margin and a scatter of white film specks and one white scratch across the upper right money columns. The REMARKS column is entirely blank. A single stray ink "6" stands in the space between the description column and the first money rule, opposite the "Shoes on Carriages" line.
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr
186 2 | REMARKS.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 14 For 3 8inch Columbiad Car
riages with Chassies platforms
traverse circles, tie plates
2 Truck Handspikes
Rammer & Sponge and ^ @ 575 $ ea 1725 00
1203 tbs Extra weight of iron
making heavy traverse circles &
tie plates - @ 13½ ¢ 162 41
Extra weights iron for plating
Chassies 1035 tbs @ 13½ ¢ 139 72
Extra large Screws on 3 Chassies
to fasten plates & other Extra irons 24 75
Extra irons on End pieces Middle
transoms. Corner plates. Pieces on
bottom transom Shoes on Carriages 6
and additional weight of Center
plates 441 tbs @ 20 ¢ 88 20
6 Manvg HandSpikes @ 2$ 12 00
3 Gunners Gimlets @ 50 ¢ 1 50
6 Priming wires @ 25 ¢ 1 50
--------
$2155 08
Apl 7 2 Manvg wheels for 32 Pdr Carriage
(at Marion Hill Battery ) 70
Checks: The extensions prove. 3 carriages @ $575 each = $1,725.00, as written. 1203 lbs @ 13½¢ = $162.405, entered 162 41 (rounded up). 1035 lbs @ 13½¢ = $139.7225 — strictly $139.72½ — entered 139 72 (rounded down). 441 lbs @ 20¢ = $88.20, as written. 6 handspikes @ $2 = $12.00, 3 gimlets @ 50¢ = $1.50, 6 priming wires @ 25¢ = $1.50, all as written. The footing proves exactly: 1725.00 + 162.41 + 139.72 + 24.75 + 88.20 + 12.00 + 1.50 + 1.50 = $2,155.08, which is the figure written. The April 7 line below the footing carries 70 in the dollars column with the cents cell blank in the visible part of the sheet, and is not included in the $2,155.08 footing.
Flagged: The interlined insertion above "Rammer & Sponge and" is read "2 Truck Handspikes"; the second word is written as one unbroken flourish and the initial capital could be read Tr- or Th-, so "Truck[?] Handspikes". "Manvg" (twice, for handspikes and for wheels) is written M-a-n-v-g with no period; it is proposed, as outside knowledge and not part of the reading, that this is the ordnance abbreviation for "manoeuvring" — the transcription keeps the clerk's letters. The cents figure of the last priming-wires extension, "1 50", is written over an earlier figure — the 5 is doubled and heavily inked; only the final state is legible. The date-column head is printed "186" with a handwritten "2" and a ruled stroke after it, giving 1862; the year is therefore printed-plus-manuscript, not wholly manuscript. The stray "6" between the description and money columns opposite the "Shoes on Carriages" line has no evident referent. The sheet is cut off by the bottom of the frame partway through the April 7 entry, so that entry's destination note "(at Marion Hill Battery)" is complete but its money figure may be incomplete; the continuation should be looked for on the next image. Destination named in parentheses on the carriage work: Marion Hill Battery.
Image 32 — Foot of the same Ettenger & Edmond billhead: total $2225.08, approved by the Chief of Ordnance, inspection certificate, and receipt at Richmond, April 17, 1862, from Capt. S. Stansbury
The lower two-thirds of the same printed billhead begun on image 31, refilmed so that the two frames overlap: the top line of this frame is the tail of the "$2155 08" footing, and the "Apl 7 / 2 Manvg wheels" entry that ran off the bottom of image 31 is here complete, with its $70 and the grand total below it. The frame is 4904 x 3749, grayscale, the sheet edge visible at left and along the bottom against a black film ground. Below the ruled account body the printed form resumes: a heavy double rule, then "I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to" with the amount space left entirely blank, "and that the property has been received and will be accounted for.", the printed word "RECEIVED," with "186 , of" printed further right and simply written across, "Dollars," and "Cents, in full of the above account.", and at bottom left the printed bracketed line "[SIGNED DUPLICATES]". Three manuscript blocks sit in the ruled body: an approval, an inspection certificate, and, in the left margin below the rule, "(Signed triplicate)" — written by hand and directly contradicting the printed "[SIGNED DUPLICATES]" beneath it. Two vertical folds and one horizontal fold cross the sheet; the ink is the same brown-grey, the account hand the firm's clerk, the approval and certificate in two different official hands, both hurried. No handstamp of any kind appears on the sheet. The REMARKS column stays blank.
[ $ 2155 08 ]
Apl 7 2 Manvg wheels for 32 Pdr Carriage
(at Marion Hill Battery ) 70
$ 2225,08
Approved
JGorgas
Lt Col & Chief of Ordnance
I certify that the above property has been inspected and
received for the Government and will be accounted for
L Gibbon / Captain
Ordnance Duty )
===========================================================================
(Signed triplicate) I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for.
RECEIVED, Rich'd April 17th 1862 of Capt S. Stansbury
186 , of
C S. Arty Two thousand two hundred and twenty five ~ Dollars,
and Eight Cents, in full of the above account.
[SIGNED DUPLICATES] Ettenger & Edmond
Checks: The account foots and the receipt agrees with it. $2,155.08 (the footing carried from image 31) + $70.00 for the two manoeuvring wheels = $2,225.08, which is the grand total written, with a comma for the decimal point. The receipt's written words, "Two thousand two hundred and twenty five ... Dollars, and Eight Cents," prove exactly against $2,225.08. The printed "amounting to" blank in the officer's certificate above was never filled in, so there is no third figure to test.
Flagged: The approving signature is a fast, heavily looped hand read "JGorgas"; the letters after the capital G run together and the initial is a single loop, so both the initial and the -org- are uncertain. It is proposed, as outside knowledge, that this is Josiah Gorgas, Lieutenant Colonel and Chief of the Confederate Ordnance Bureau, whose title matches the words written beneath — but the reading rests on the title, not on legible letters. The inspecting officer signs with a looped initial and "Gibbon"; the initial is consistent with L, and the file's other sheets give Lardner Gibbon, Captain, Ordnance Duty, but on this sheet only the surname is firm. The manuscript "(Signed triplicate)" sits directly above the printed "[SIGNED DUPLICATES]" and disagrees with it; both are recorded as they stand. The paying officer is written "Capt S. Stansbury" and his written name runs straight over the printed "186 , of", which is why the printed year fragment appears mid-word. This frame and image 31 are two exposures of one sheet, not two documents; the $70 line and the $2,225.08 total appear only here.
Image 33 — Docket (outer fold of a folded voucher), Ettenger & Edmond, May 8. 1862, $2155 08/100, with the Record Division handstamp
The back of a voucher folded lengthwise into panels and then across, filmed at 4972 x 3693, grayscale. The fold lines show plainly as four vertical light bands with the two outer panels darker, and one horizontal fold crosses the sheet about a quarter down; the docket is written on the exposed centre panel, reading with the sheet turned sideways. The paper is a laid stock whose horizontal chain and laid lines are strongly visible through the film, giving the whole surface a ribbed texture that badly hurts legibility of anything faint. The top right corner of the sheet has been cut away on a diagonal. The panel is otherwise blank: four lines of a bold, confident docket hand in black ink at the head, each ruled underneath with a pen stroke, a separate mark at the upper right, and, at the centre of the panel, a large oval handstamp struck in a pale, dry ink that has taken very unevenly. Two very faint pen ticks stand in the blank field below the docket. There is edge chipping along the left and lower margins and a scatter of white film specks.
Apº 234. C A ——
______________
Ettenger & Edmond
__________________________
May 8. 1862
______________
$ 2155 08/-
Handstamp, oval, struck about the middle of the panel:
* [ RECORD DIVISION ] * (outer ring, upper half)
[ RE... ... ...VES ] (inner oval, largely illegible)
[ WAR DEPARTMENT ] (outer ring, lower half)
Checks: The docket carries one figure, $2155 08/100, written with the cents as a superscript fraction over a stroke. It does NOT agree with its filmed neighbour. The account on images 31–32 is receipted for and totals $2,225.08; the docket's $2,155.08 is that account's intermediate footing, before the $70.00 April 7 charge for two manoeuvring wheels was added below the rule. The difference is exactly $70.00. The dates do not agree either: the docket is dated May 8, 1862 and the account was receipted at Richmond on April 17, 1862.
Flagged: Because the docket's figure is $70.00 short of the neighbouring account's total and its date is three weeks later, this docket should not be assumed to belong to the account on images 31–32. Two readings are possible and the sheet does not decide between them: the docket was written from the sub-footing and the $70 line was added afterwards, or the docket belongs to a different voucher altogether. Recorded here where it stands, unresolved. The first line is read "Apº 234." — a capital A, a descending p, and a superscript o, followed by 234 and a period; the abbreviation is not certain and no expansion is offered from the sheet itself. The mark at the upper right reads as two capitals followed by a long dash, "C A ——", but the second character could equally be a crossed stroke rather than a letter, so "C A[?]". The handstamp's outer ring reads RECORD DIVISION above and WAR DEPARTMENT below, with an ornament or star at each side; the inner oval is struck too dryly over the laid ribbing to be read, with only an initial RE- and a terminal -VES recoverable, and no attempt is made here to complete it. The stamp is a later archival marking, not a wartime one. No officer is named on this sheet.
Image 34 — Confederate States of America billhead, Richmond, May 1862: three 8-inch Columbiad carriages with chassis, platforms and implements; $2,155.08
A printed Confederate States of America billhead, landscape format, filled and receipted on the face; no docket or endorsement is visible on this frame. The printed matter comprises the blackletter head "Confederate States of America," with a manuscript "To Ettenger & Edmond" and a script "Dr." at the right; a printed "186 ." date head over ruled date columns (a wide month cell and a narrow day cell closed by a double rule); ruled money columns at the right (dollars/cents, with an outer set of rules) and a printed "REMARKS." column head at the far right, which is left entirely blank. Below the ruling are the printed certification ("I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to ... and that the property has been received and will be accounted for"), the printed "RECEIVED," and "Cents, in full of the above account." receipt line, and the small printed line "SIGNED DUPLICATES" at the foot. The manuscript is a fine, sloping, light-pressure hand in pale ink, badly faded and in places barely above the paper tone; the certification and receipt are in a second, bolder and larger hand. A manuscript archival number, "1673", stands in ink at the upper right corner. The scan is a grey microfilm frame carrying heavy horizontal banding that competes with the ink; the paper shows a soft vertical fold at about a third of the width and light overall soiling, but no loss of text. Faint offset from another sheet shows through in one or two places between the ruled lines.
1673
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
186 2. REMARKS.
May 1[?] | For 3 , 8 inch Columbiad
| Carriages with Chassis
| Platforms Bolts Plates & Bars
| 6 Rammers 3 Sponges 6 Short
| hand Spikes 6 Manuvg[?] Handspikes
| 2 Gunners Levels 6 Priming Wires
| Traverse Circles & top plates[?]
| @ 718 36/100 ea $ 2 | 155 | 08
"Signed Triplicates"
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Twenty one Hundred & fifty five dollars eight cents
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for
Capt. Thos S. Rhett Insp: Ord[?].
RECEIVED, Richmond May 5 186 2, of
Two thousand one hundred and
fifty five Dollars Eight Cents, in full of the above account.
Ettenger & Edmond
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
Checks: Proves exactly. One extension only: 3 carriages @ $718 36/100 each = $2,155.08, and the amount column carries $2 | 155 | 08 (the thousands, hundreds-and-units, and cents cells of the ruled money columns). The certification in words, "Twenty one Hundred & fifty five dollars eight cents," and the receipt in words, "Two thousand one hundred and fifty five Dollars Eight Cents," both equal $2,155.08. No footing line is drawn — the single extension is the total.
Flagged: (1) The day in the date column is a single long slanting stroke ending in a heavy blob, crossing the printed double rule; I read it as "1" but cannot be certain — it could be a bracket or brace stroke rather than a numeral, so "May 1[?]". The day cell on the third line of image 38 carries the figure 1 in exactly this form, a bare slanting stroke with no stem, which supports the reading. The receipt below is unambiguously dated May 5, 1862, so the account date and the receipt date are not the same day. (2) "6 Manuvg[?] Handspikes" — the word before "Handspikes" is a short abbreviation with a long looped, barred descender. The same abbreviation, written more clearly as "Manvg Handspikes", appears in the Ordnance Office order on image 39, which supports the reading here; it is an abbreviation of a longer word, most likely manoeuvring, but neither sheet spells it out. (3) "6 Short / hand Spikes" runs across the line break exactly as written, with "hand Spikes" beginning the next line — the clerk did not hyphenate. (4) "Traverse Circles & top plates[?]" — the last two words are the faintest on the sheet; "top plates" is my best reading and is flagged. (5) "Insp: Ord[?]." — the last element of Rhett's title is written as a single compressed flourish with a terminal period; the reading "Ord." (Inspector of Ordnance) is proposed on the strength of the abbreviation "Insp:" before it, not on legible letters. (6) The archival number at the top right reads "1673"; the third digit is a looped stroke that could be taken for a 9, so 1673 rather than 1693 is my reading but not certain. (7) Officer named here — Capt. Thos. S. Rhett — is not among the officers listed elsewhere in this file range; noted, not corrected. (8) The firm signs "Ettenger & Edmond," and the billhead heading is written the same way. (9) No voucher number appears anywhere on the sheet; the "1673" is a file/archival number, not a voucher number. (10) REMARKS column blank.
Image 35 — Docket (blank verso) of Ettenger & Edmond's bill No. 682, Sept. 12th 1861, Ordnance Service, $500.00
The blank back of a folded bill, used as a docket. The leaf is filmed on its side — the docket writing runs across what is the short dimension of the sheet when the account on the following frame is upright — and the frame measures 4,476 × 3,413 pixels against 3,400 × 4,505 for image 36, which is the same leaf the other way about; the two are the recto and verso of one sheet. The paper is a plain blue-grey wove, folded in three across and once down, the fold lines standing out as broad pale bands; the centre panel carries the docket in a large, confident, heavily shaded clerical hand in black ink, four lines, each written on a ruled line, with a double rule above the first. The whole of the rest of the sheet is blank except for the show-through of the account on the other side, which appears as faint pale ghost-writing running crosswise in the left and right panels. Below the docket, struck in black on the centre panel and tipped some twenty degrees off the horizontal, is the double oval National Archives–era handstamp: outer band "RECORD DIVISION," above and "WAR DEPARTMENT." below, with a five-pointed star at each side, and "REBEL ARCHIVES," in the inner oval. The impression is weak and partly starved, but every word is legible. There is no other endorsement, no file number apart from the "No 682" of the docket, and no damage.
No 682
Ettenger & Edmond
Sept 12th 1861
Ordnance Service $500.00
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
REBEL ARCHIVES,
WAR DEPARTMENT.
* *
Checks: Only one figure on the sheet — $500.00 — so there is no arithmetic to prove within the docket. Tested against its neighbour: the account on image 36 is Ettenger & Edmond's bill to the Confederate States Navy Department, dated Sept. 10th 1861 for the work and receipted at Richmond Sept. 12th 1861, in the sum of $500.00, for Ordnance Service. Firm, sum, month and receipt date all agree. This docket pairs with the account on image 36, and the pairing is exact.
Flagged: (1) "Ordnance" in the last line is written with a heavy initial flourish and a compressed body; the reading is secure from the account on image 36, which carries the same words, "Ordnance Service," in the appropriation line. (2) The amount is written without a decimal point as five figures, "$50000," and read here as $500.00; the account and its receipt ("five hundred dollars") settle it. (3) The four rules under the docket lines do not appear in my contrast-enhanced crops because the enhancement suppresses long horizontal features; they are plainly visible in the plain scan and are recorded on that basis. (4) The docket spells the firm "Ettenger & Edmond," the same as its signature on image 34. (5) "No 682" is a voucher or bill number written by the clerk, not a printed form number.
Image 36 — Virginia Navy Department form converted to Confederate use, Richmond, Sept. 10–12, 1861: one 8-inch Columbiad carriage, chassis, implements and turning platform for Lowry's Point Battery, Rappahannock River; $500.00
An upright folio bill on a printed Commonwealth-of-Virginia blank pressed into Confederate service. The printed head, in a heavy blackletter, reads "The State of Virginia Navy Department, to ______ Dr."; the words "State of Virginia" have been cancelled with a single ruled pen stroke and "Confederate States" written in script immediately above, leaving "The ... Navy Department, to" standing. "IN TRIPLICATE." is printed in bold caps across the top. Below the head run the printed script lines "Office of Ordnance & Hydrography" and "Appropriation for", the latter completed in manuscript. The body is ruled with a date column at the left and two money columns at the right, closed off by a horizontal rule about two-thirds down with a printed "$" under the money column. The foot of the sheet carries three printed blocks: the examining officer's certificate with its brace, the "Received the above article for ______ Navy Storekeeper" line, the "Approved for ______ dollars and ______ cents" line, and the contractor's receipt "in full, of the above bill, and have signed triplicate receipts." The manuscript is in several hands: a large, open, well-formed clerical hand for the entry; a distinct bold hand for the bureau approval; and further hands for each of the three signatures at the foot. Ink is black and strong throughout — this is by far the most legible sheet in the range. The paper is cream laid, lightly foxed, with a horizontal fold across the middle and a vertical fold at the centre, both showing as pale bands; a short tear or crease runs in from the top edge just left of centre. This is the recto of the leaf whose verso is docketed on image 35. No handstamp is visible on this face.
IN TRIPLICATE.
Confederate States
The ~~State of Virginia~~ Navy Department, to Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
Office of Ordnance & Hydrography Appropriation for
Ordnance Service
______________________________________________________________________
18 61 | | |
Sept 10th | One 8" Columbiad Carriage | |
| Chassis & Impplements & | |
| turning platform Complete | 500 | 00
| | |
| For Lowrys Pt Battery | |
| Rappahannock River | |
| | |
| | |
| App'd | |
| D N Ingraham | |
| Chief of Bureau | |
|______________________________________________| $ |
Having examined the article above charged, }
certify that of good quality, } R. D. Minor Lieut C.S. Navy
and the price charged fair.
186 . Received the above article for
Navy Storekeeper.
Richmond Va Sept. 12, 1861.
Approved for five hundred ———— dollars and ————
cents.
Captain in charge.
Richmond Sept 12th 186 1 . Received of S. Stansbury Capt of Artilly[?]
Five hundred dollars in bonds & Currency dollars and cents,
in full, of the above bill, and have signed triplicate receipts.
$
Ettenger & Edmond
Checks: Proves exactly. A single item at $500.00 entered in the money columns as 500 | 00; no rate is stated and no extension is made, so there is nothing to multiply. The approval in words, "five hundred ———— dollars and ———— cents," the receipt in words, "Five hundred dollars in bonds & Currency," and the docket on image 35, "$500.00," all agree with the column figure. No footing line is drawn.
Flagged: (1) "Impplements" is written with two clear p-descenders; it is the clerk's slip and is left uncorrected. (2) The gun's calibre is written as a figure 8 with a small raised mark above and to the right, which I read as an inch mark and render 8"; it could equally be a superscript abbreviation stroke. (3) "Lowrys Pt Battery" — "Lowrys" is written without an apostrophe and "Pt" without a period. Lowry's Point on the Rappahannock is proposed as the place meant, on the strength of the river named on the next line; this is a proposal from outside the document, not a reading. (4) The bureau approval is signed "D N Ingraham" over "Chief of Bureau" — the initials are compressed and the first could be read as a monogram; the office is that of the Confederate Navy's Office of Ordnance and Hydrography, named in the printed head above. (5) "S. Stansbury Capt of Artilly[?]" — the rank and arm run together in a hurried flourish; "of" could be "&", and the last word is written short for Artillery. Note that this Confederate States Navy bill was receipted from an Army artillery captain, and that the Navy Storekeeper line above was left blank. (6) The examining officer signs "R. D. Minor Lieut C.S. Navy"; the last two words are heavily flourished and abbreviated. (7) The struck-through "State of Virginia" is one of the converted Virginia forms noted elsewhere in this file; the conversion here is by cancellation and manuscript substitution, not by overprinting. (8) The firm is written "Ettenger & Edmond" both in the head and in the receipt signature. (9) "IN TRIPLICATE." at the head is printed matter belonging to the form, not a voucher number; no voucher number is given on this face — the number 682 appears only on the docket, image 35. (10) The date the work was done (Sept. 10th) and the date it was examined, approved and paid (Sept. 12) differ, as the docket confirms.
Image 37 — Docket (blank verso) of Ettenger & Edmund's bill No. 563, Decr 2d 1861, $1,267.96
The blank back of a folded account, carrying nothing but a four-line docket and a handstamp. The leaf is filmed on its side, as image 35 was: the frame is 4,720 × 3,755 pixels against 4,748 × 3,771 for image 38, which is the account this docket belongs to, and the two are recto and verso of one sheet. The paper is a cream wove, folded in three across and once down, the panels standing out as broad pale bands with the crossing folds clearly visible; the right edge is chipped and torn for about a fifth of its length near the top corner, but the loss is in blank paper and costs no text. The docket is written on the centre panel in a fine, high, sharply shaded copperplate — a smaller, more careful hand than the docket on image 35 — in ink now faded to a pale brown-grey, with each line written along a ruled line and a double rule above the first. Below it, struck faintly on the centre panel and tipped about twenty degrees, is the double oval "RECORD DIVISION, / REBEL ARCHIVES, / WAR DEPARTMENT." handstamp with a star at each side; this impression is much weaker than the one on image 35 and the inner-oval wording is only half legible. Very faint ghosting of the account on the other side shows through in the outer panels. There is no other endorsement and no damage to the written matter.
No 563.
Ettenger & Edmund
Decr 2d 1861
$1267.96
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
REBEL ARCHIVES,
WAR DEPARTMENT.
* *
Checks: Only one figure, $1,267.96, so there is no arithmetic internal to the docket. Tested against its neighbour: the account on image 38 is a Confederate States of America billhead to Ettenger & Edmond footed at $1267.96, receipted at Richmond on Decr 2, 1861. Sum, date and firm all agree, and the two frames are the two sides of a single leaf. This docket pairs with the account on image 38, and the pairing is exact.
Flagged: (1) The firm is docketed "Ettenger & Edmund" — with a "u" — whereas the account on the other side of the same leaf is headed and signed "Ettenger & Edmond." The two spellings on one sheet are recorded as written; the medial letter in the docket is an open two-stroke minim rather than a closed bowl, which is why I read "u" here and "o" on image 38. (2) The docket number, "No 563.", does not agree with the number written at the top right of the account on image 38, which reads "558" (repeated smaller below as "558" or "556"). Recorded as a discrepancy; both are transcribed as seen and neither is corrected. (3) The last cent figure is a closed oval read as 6 by comparison with the 6 in "1267" on the same line; the reading $1267.96 is confirmed by the account, which is footed $1267 96 and receipted "Twelve hundred and Sixty Seven 96/100 dollars." (4) The month is abbreviated "Decr" with the day as "2d". (5) As on image 35, the ruled lines under the docket entries do not survive my contrast enhancement and are recorded from the plain scan.
Image 38 — Confederate States of America billhead, Richmond, Nov.–Dec. 1861: an 8-inch Columbiad carriage for Jamestown, a 32-pounder carriage for Evansport, and two wrought-iron hot-shot furnaces; $1,267.96
A printed Confederate States of America billhead in landscape format, the recto of the leaf docketed on image 37 (4,748 × 3,771 pixels here against 4,720 × 3,755 there). The blackletter head "Confederate States of America," runs across the top left, with "To ______ Dr." on a ruled line beneath; the left margin has been torn away for about two inches at the top, taking most of the initial "C" of "Confederate" and part of the flourish under it, but no manuscript. Below runs the printed "186 ." date head with the last figure supplied in ink, the ruled date columns (month cell, day cell, quantity cell), and at the right a set of ruled money columns under a printed "REMARKS." head; the remarks column is entirely blank. The lower third carries the printed certification "I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to ______ and that the property has been received and accounted for.", then the printed receipt line "RICHMOND, ______ 186 . Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery," — Stansbury's name and rank are printed into the form in small capitals — and "in full of the above account." The entries are in a fine, sloping, well-controlled clerical hand in black ink, very legible; three further hands appear at the foot (the bureau approval, the ordnance officer's note, and the firm's receipt). At the top right corner, in a heavy hand, is the number 568, with a second, much fainter number repeated below it. The paper is cream wove, folded twice across and once down; the fold bands are pale and one crosses the money columns without obscuring them. Light soiling along the folds; no handstamp on this face.
568
556[?].
[C]onfederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
186 1. REMARKS.
Novemr | 25 | 1 | 8in Columbiad Carriage . Chassis & Platform (Jamestown) | 500 | 00
| 30 | 1 | 32 Pdr Carriage. Chassis. platform & Impliments (Evansport)| 575 | 00
| 1 | 1 | Wrot iron furnace for heating Shot 603 lbs a 16 c | 96 | 48
| 19 | 1 | ,, ,, ,, for ,, ,, 603 . 16 c | 96 | 48
$ 1267 | 96
Approved for Two Gun Carriages
George Minor Comdr.
For Chief of Bureau
The Iron Furnaces have been received — L Gibbon Capt Ordnance Duty
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
and that the property has been received and accounted for.
RICHMOND, Decem 2 186 1 . Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
Twelve hundred and Sixty Seven 96/100 dollars
in full of the above account. Ettenger & Edmond
Signed in duplicate
Checks: Proves exactly. Two extensions can be tested against a stated rate: 603 lbs at 16 cents = $96.48, entered as 96 | 48, and the second furnace at the same weight and rate gives the same $96.48. The first two lines carry no rate, only lump sums of $500.00 and $575.00. The footing: 500.00 + 575.00 + 96.48 + 96.48 = $1,267.96, and the total is written across the money columns as $1267 | 96. The receipt in words, "Twelve hundred and Sixty Seven 96/100 dollars," agrees, as does the docket on image 37, "$1267.96."
Flagged: (1) The dates run out of order. The month is written once, "Novemr," against the first line; the day cells then read 25, 30, 1, 19. If the last two also belong to November the sequence is 25, 30, 1, 19; if they belong to December, the 19th falls seventeen days after the bill was receipted on December 2, which is impossible. My reading is that all four days belong to November and that the clerk entered the two carriages first and the two furnaces afterwards, but the sheet itself does not say so, and the ambiguity is left standing. (2) The "1" in the third day cell is a single slanting stroke with no stem and no serif — exactly the form of the doubtful day mark on image 34, which supports reading that mark as a 1 as well. (3) "Impliments" is spelt with an i in the second syllable on line 2; compare "Impplements" on image 36. Both are left as written. (4) The rate is written as "16" followed by a small raised c with a long flourish, i.e. 16 cents; rendered here as "16 c". (5) The printed certification block is blank and unsigned — no amount is written into "amounting to ______" and no officer has signed under it. The only officer's signature in that part of the sheet is Lardner Gibbon's, and it belongs to the manuscript note above the printed line, "The Iron Furnaces have been received —", not to the certification. (6) The number at the top right: the bold figure is read 568, the second and much fainter figure below it 556, both with real doubt about the middle digit. Neither agrees with "No 563" on the docket that is the other side of this same leaf. All three numbers are recorded as seen; none is corrected. (7) "L Gibbon Capt Ordnance Duty" — the initial before Gibbon is a single looped stroke read as L; the officer is one of those named elsewhere in this file. (8) "George Minor Comdr. / For Chief of Bureau" signs the approval, which covers only "Two Gun Carriages" — not the furnaces, which Gibbon receipted separately. That an ordnance-and-hydrography (Navy bureau) commander approved the carriages while an Army artillery captain, Smith Stansbury, paid the account is recorded without comment. (9) The firm is written "Ettenger & Edmond" in both the head and the receipt signature, against "Ettenger & Edmund" on the docket. (10) "(Jamestown)" and "(Evansport)" are the destinations named in parentheses; both are written plainly. (11) The month abbreviation is "Novemr" and the receipt month "Decem". (12) Paper loss at the top left costs part of the printed "C" of "Confederate" only.
Image 39 — Ordnance Office order for supplies No. 298, Richmond, Nov. 28th 1861: a wooden 32-pounder carriage, chassis, platform and implements for Evansport, signed by Josiah Gorgas
An upright printed letter-form of the Confederate Ordnance Office, filled in one clear, rapid official hand. The printed matter is set in three faces: a blackletter "Confederate States of America," at the head, bold gothic capitals for "WAR DEPARTMENT," and "ORDNANCE OFFICE," beneath it, and an engraver's script for "Richmond,", "Order for Supplies No.", "the following Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, viz:", "Your obedt servt" and "Chief of Ordnance." at the foot. The sheet is ruled with faint horizontal lines throughout, and below the "viz:" line a heavy rule runs the width of the page with a vertical rule dropped from it to make a narrow quantity column at the left, in which the numbers stand. At the top left corner is a large irregular brown stain — a wet or adhesive stain that has darkened the paper through about three inches of the upper margin and left edge — but it falls entirely on blank paper and takes no text. Written up the left margin, at right angles to the rest and reading from the foot of the page upward, is a short receipt endorsement in a different and much bolder hand. The paper is cream wove with a soft vertical fold at the centre; the ink is black and, apart from the endorsement, the whole is in good condition and easily read. In the body of the letter one word is struck through with a single pen stroke. No handstamp.
Confederate States of America,
WAR DEPARTMENT,
ORDNANCE OFFICE,
Richmond, Nov 28 th 1861
Order for Supplies No. 298
Messrs Ettenger & Edmond
Sirs
Please ~~forward~~ to mark Genl S G French
Commdg C S Forces Evansport Va, and deliver to the
order of Capt D H Wood A Q M
the following Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, viz:
______________________________________________________________________
|
1 | Wooden Carriage for 32 Pounder
1 | Chassis & 2 Traverse Wheels & Bearings
1 | Platform complete ( Segments & Sills )
1 | Traverse circle
2 | Traverse Wheels & forks
1 | Sponge, 1 Rammer
4 | Manvg Handspikes
1 | Elevating screw
|
Your obedt servt
J Gorgas Lieut Col
Chief of Ordnance.
[written up the left margin, sideways:]
Recd
D. H. W.
Checks: No figures on the sheet other than quantities — no arithmetic to prove. The quantities are 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1 and 1, 4, 1 (the sixth line carries two items, "1 Sponge, 1 Rammer", the second quantity written in the body of the line rather than in the quantity column), giving thirteen pieces in eight lines.
Flagged: (1) "Please ~~forward~~ to mark Genl S G French" — the word "forward" is struck through with a single stroke and the sentence stands as "Please to mark Genl S G French, Commdg C S Forces, Evansport Va, and deliver to the order of Capt D H Wood A Q M, the following Ordnance and Ordnance Stores." The cancellation is transcribed where it occurs and the sentence is not repaired. (2) "Manvg Handspikes" is written with the same short abbreviation and looped, barred descender as the doubtful word on image 34; the two are the same abbreviation in different hands, which supports reading image 34's word the same way. It is an abbreviation of a longer word, most likely manoeuvring, but the sheet gives only "Manvg". (3) The left-margin endorsement reads "Recd / D. H. W." The initials are a rapid monogram and the last letter is ambiguous on this sheet alone — I first took it for an M — but the identical endorsement on image 40, which is better preserved, shows an unmistakable cursive capital W, and that settles the reading here. Capt. D. H. Wood, A.Q.M., is named in the order itself as the officer to whose order the stores were to go; that the endorsement is his own receipt is a proposal from the text, not from a signature. (4) The salutation is written "Sirs" with a terminal flourish; the companion order on image 40, in the same hand, plainly reads "Sir:", so this may be the same word with the colon mistaken for an s. (5) The firm is addressed "Messrs Ettenger & Edmond". (6) "No. 298" is the office's own order number, printed head plus manuscript figure, and is not the same series as the bill numbers 682 and 563 on the dockets in this range. (7) Josiah Gorgas signs "J Gorgas / Lieut Col" over the printed "Chief of Ordnance."; the rank abbreviation is written small and could be read "Lieut Col" or "Lt Col". (8) The destination, Evansport, Va., is the same as that named in the second line of the account on image 38, and the article ordered — a 32-pounder wooden carriage with chassis, platform, traverse circle, traverse wheels and implements — answers exactly to that line, "1 32 Pdr Carriage. Chassis. platform & Impliments (Evansport) $575.00" of Novemr 30. This order of Nov. 28th and that charge of Nov. 30th appear to be the two ends of the same transaction; the sheets do not say so, and the connection is offered as a proposal. (9) The stain at the top left corner is the only damage and costs no text.
Image 40 — Ordnance Office order for supplies (number left blank), Richmond, Nov. 25th 1861: an oak 8-inch Columbiad carriage, chassis and platform for Jamestown, signed by Josiah Gorgas
The companion sheet to image 39 — the same printed Ordnance Office letter-form, the same clerk's hand, the same signature, and the same left-margin receipt endorsement, three days earlier and for a different gun and a different destination. The printed head is identical: blackletter "Confederate States of America," gothic "WAR DEPARTMENT," and "ORDNANCE OFFICE," and engraver's script for "Richmond,", "Order for Supplies No.", "the following Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, viz:", "Your obedt servt" and "Chief of Ordnance." The paper is ruled with faint horizontal lines; a heavy rule crosses below the "viz:" line with a vertical rule dropped from it to make the quantity column. The upper left corner is torn away in a ragged bite about two inches deep and darkly stained along the break, the same damage pattern as on image 39 but here the tear has actually removed paper; the loss is entirely in the blank margin and takes no writing. A vertical fold runs down the centre and a horizontal fold crosses the lower third; the ink is black and clear. Written up the left margin at right angles, in the bolder receipting hand, is "Recd D. H. W." Only three articles are ordered, and the second and third lines are carried by ditto marks. No handstamp.
Confederate States of America,
WAR DEPARTMENT,
ORDNANCE OFFICE,
Richmond, Nov 25 th 1861
Order for Supplies No.
Messrs Ettenger & Edmond
Sir:
Please ~~forward~~ to mark " Commanding Officer
at Jamestown Va " and deliver to the order of Capt
D H Wood A Q M ,
the following Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, viz:
______________________________________________________________________
|
1 | Oak Carriage for 8inch Columbiad
1 | ,, Chassis ,, ,, ,,
1 | ,, Platform ,, ,, ,,
|
Your obedt servt
J Gorgas Lieut Col
Chief of Ordnance.
[written up the left margin, sideways:]
Recd
D. H. W.
Checks: No money on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. Three articles, one of each.
Flagged: (1) The order number is not filled in: the printed "Order for Supplies No." stands with the space after it blank. Its companion, image 39, is numbered 298 and dated three days later, so this sheet's number, if it ever had one, was never written on the face. (2) "Please ~~forward~~ to mark" — the same cancellation of "forward" as on image 39, in the same hand, leaving "Please to mark". Here the address to be marked is set in quotation marks: " Commanding Officer at Jamestown Va ". (3) The day is written "25" with a small raised suffix; the second figure is a single-bowled character read as 5 (an 8 in this hand carries two loops, as in the "1861" alongside), and the suffix is read "th" from the fuller form on image 39. (4) The salutation here is plainly "Sir:" with a colon; on image 39 the same clerk appears to have written "Sirs". (5) The margin endorsement reads "Recd / D. H. W." — the last initial is a cursive capital W, which settles the same endorsement on image 39, and the initials answer to Capt. D. H. Wood, A.Q.M., named in both orders. The identification of the writer as Wood himself is a proposal from the text, not from a signature. (6) "8inch" is written closed up, without a space. (7) The ditto marks in lines 2 and 3 stand for "Oak" before the article and for "for 8inch Columbiad" after it; they are reproduced in position and not expanded. (8) The destination, Jamestown, Va., matches the first line of the account on image 38 — "1 8in Columbiad Carriage . Chassis & Platform (Jamestown) $500.00", dated Novemr 25, the very day of this order. The order and that charge appear to be the two ends of one transaction; the sheets do not say so, and the connection is offered as a proposal. (9) The firm is addressed "Messrs Ettenger & Edmond". (10) The tear at the upper left is the only damage and costs no text.
Image 41 — Manuscript receipt, Richmond, Va., 25 November 1861: one small wrought-iron hot-shot furnace shipped to the Evansport Battery (no money figures)
A photographic copy sheet (2,550 × 3,300 px) carrying two exposures of the same small slip, one in the upper half and one in the lower; the lower exposure is the fuller of the two, catching the year "1861" at the right edge that the upper exposure cuts off. The slip itself is a small oblong of plain (unruled) writing paper photographed against a black ground; its upper-left corner is gone — a ragged, roughly triangular loss that eats into the left margin of the first two lines but costs no text. A grey-brown stain about the size of a thumbnail sits on the left edge at mid-height, and a horizontal crease runs across the sheet below the body of the note. The hand is a single practised, heavily flourished copperplate in black ink, written large — five lines of body and a three-line signature block ranged to the right. Lying across the slip's lower-left corner in both exposures is a separate folded leaf of blue-ruled paper, face down; only ghost strokes of writing show through from its far side, nothing readable. No printed billhead, no form number, no docket, no handstamp anywhere on the frame.
Richmond Va Nov 25th 1861
Received from Ettinger & Edmonds
1 Small wrought Iron Shot furnace, which
was shipped by me By Order of Capt
B G Baldwin Ord Dpt. To Com Chatard[?]
Evansport Battery
Lewis Grimes[?]
Chief of Transp.
Ord Dept C.S.A.[?]
Checks: No money figures on the sheet — the only quantity is "1 Small wrought Iron Shot furnace." No arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: (1) The firm's name reads "Ettinger & Edmonds." The first word is clear enough (E, crossed double-t, then "inger" with a terminal flourish); in the second, the letter after the capital E carries almost no ascender, so it could be read "Eamonds" — but the "d" later in the word is unmistakable and "Edmonds" is one of the spellings the file uses, so that is the reading given. (2) The consignee reads "Com Chatard" with an abbreviation bar; the final two letters run together and could be taken for "-ru." Proposal only, kept out of the transcription: Commander Frederick Chatard, C.S. Navy, commanded the Potomac batteries in the Evansport (Quantico) area in the autumn of 1861, which would fit both the abbreviation "Com" and the destination named on the next line. Not to be printed as fact without a second source. (3) The signer's surname is the weakest reading on the sheet — a large looped capital, one tall ascender, an i-dot, then minims closing in "-es." "Grimes" is the best fit but "Ginnes" is possible; the given name "Lewis" is firm. (4) The signature's third line is blotted where the pen ran heavy; "Ord Dept C.S.A." is a reading, not a certainty. (5) "Ord Dpt." after Baldwin's name is written with the p looped and the t small and high; it may be intended as "Dept." (6) Capt. B. G. Baldwin = Briscoe G. Baldwin, an officer already established elsewhere in this file. (7) This slip is a shipping receipt, not an account and not a docket; it names no dollar sum and cannot be paired by figure with any neighbouring account. It does share Evansport as a destination with other sheets in the file.
Image 42 — The same slip as image 41, with its companion receipt turned face up: Ordnance Dept. C.S.A., Richmond, 1 November 1861, one portable shot furnace received of Ettenger & Edmond (no money figures)
A landscape photographic frame (3,352 × 2,204 px) of the same two documents seen in image 41, but with the ruled leaf that lay face-down there now turned over, so that its writing reads. The leaf — blue-ruled writing paper with about eleven faint horizontal rules, torn irregularly along the right edge and again at the bottom right, and carrying two large pale brown damp stains down its left side — lies across the lower left two-thirds of the earlier slip and hides the middle of that slip's text; the parts of the earlier slip still showing (the date line, the "Received from Ettinger & Edmonds" line, the ends of the following lines, and the tail of the signature block) match image 41 word for word. The leaf's own text is four short lines in a smaller, quicker hand in black ink: a dateline written high and to the right of centre, two lines of body ranged left, and a three-line signature block ranged right and much more hurried than the body, the last two lines of it badly tangled with heavy pen pressure and a blot. The upper-left corner of the underlying slip shows the same triangular loss recorded at image 41.
[the ruled leaf lying on top:]
Ord Dept CSA Nov 1st 1861
Rec d of Ettenger & Edmond
1 Portable Shot Furnace.
J R Brown Sup t
Ag[t?] [illegible] C S A
[illegible — two or three words]
[the underlying slip, so far as it is not covered — same document as image 41:]
Richmond Va Nov 25th 1861
Received from Ettinger & Edmonds
[covered] ...ace, which
[covered] ...Capt
[covered] ...Com Chatard[?]
Checks: No money figures on either document in this frame — the only quantity is "1 Portable Shot Furnace." No arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: (1) On this leaf the firm is spelled "Ettenger & Edmond" — a different spelling from the "Ettinger & Edmonds" of the slip beneath it, and the two are in different hands. Both are recorded as written. (2) The signature's second and third lines defeat the eye: the second begins with what looks like "Ag" and a tall letter (so possibly "Agt," for Agent) and ends in three widely spaced capitals that read C S A; the third line is a tangle of loops crossed by a heavy blot and may be a paraph rather than words. Nothing there should be printed as a reading. (3) "J R Brown" is the best reading of the initials, which are written as a joined monogram; the first could be H. "Sup t" is written with the t raised. (4) Relationship of the two documents: they are not an account and its docket. They are two separate receipts for the same class of object — this leaf, dated 1 November 1861 at the Ordnance Department, Richmond, for "1 Portable Shot Furnace" received of Ettenger & Edmond; the slip beneath it, dated 25 November 1861, for "1 Small wrought Iron Shot furnace" shipped to the Evansport battery. Same firm, same kind of article, twenty-four days apart, filmed on one frame because they were physically together in the file. Neither carries a dollar figure, so neither can be tested against the other by amount. (5) The frame gives no clue whether the two receipts cover one furnace or two.
Image 43 — Archival cross-reference card for the firm and its two partners, referring to vouchers under S. Stansbury and to the Wilmington & Weldon R.R. file (no date, no figures)
Not a Confederate document at all but a modern archival finding-aid card, photographed alone against a black ground in a tall narrow frame (1,652 × 3,580 px). The card is a plain pale slip whose writing all sits in the upper third, the lower two-thirds left blank; the surface is peppered with the white specks and short scratches of a worn film negative, and a faint horizontal band of lighter tone crosses the card at about the level of the typed line. Three kinds of marking share the card: a large, confident modern cursive in black ink for the firm and partners' names, a heavy typewriter face for "See vouchers No." and for "S. STANSBURY" (the latter in small capitals, sitting slightly low and with a stray comma-like mark under its final letter), and the same cursive again for the voucher number written in after the typed line and for the last line. No Confederate handstamp, no fold, no damage.
Ettenger & Edmond,
{ Wm. Ettenger
{ Horace P. Edmond.
See vouchers No. 2.6.
S. STANSBURY,
See Wil. & Wel. R.R. No. 122.
Checks: No figures on the card beyond reference numbers — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: (1) This card belongs with the file as a whole, not with the accounts on either side of it; it is a finding aid, and its two reference numbers ("vouchers No. 2.6." and "Wil. & Wel. R.R. No. 122") point away from this frame entirely. It is therefore a stray as regards the surrounding sheets and pairs with nothing in images 41–47. (2) The voucher number is written "2.6." — whether that is meant as the two numbers 2 and 6, or as 26, cannot be told from the card. (3) The card gives the partners' full names, which the accounts themselves do not: Wm. Ettenger and Horace P. Edmond, and it settles the spelling used by the archivist as "Ettenger & Edmond." (4) "S. STANSBURY" is Smith Stansbury, the artillery captain (later major) whose name appears on accounts elsewhere in this file. (5) "Wil. & Wel. R.R." is a contraction the card does not expand; read as Wilmington & Weldon Railroad, that is an inference, not something the card says.
Image 44 — Docket (endorsement panel) of voucher No. 408: Ettenger & Edmund, June 9, 1862, $736 83/100, "Ord Serve in all its branches"
The blank outer face of a large folded account sheet, filling a wide frame (4,864 × 3,744 px). The sheet has been folded twice down its length and once across, giving four tall panels; the fold lines are dark and well worn, the paper is grubby along them, and the left-hand third carries a spray of black smudges and a heavy soiled band low down where the outside of the folded packet took the wear. The endorsement is written in a fine, elegant clerical copperplate on the second panel from the left, that being the panel that faced outward when the account was folded: four short lines set between two ruled ink lines that box the head, then, below the lower rule, a single line naming the class of service. Two further features belong to the recto rather than to this face and show through the paper reversed: an oval handstamp in the lower middle, its three lines legible in mirror as RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT, and, across the bottom third, the ghost of the printed certificate and receipt of the account form (the words "and that the property has been received and", "Dollars," and "Cents" can be picked out backwards). No Confederate file number other than the one written, no wax, no seal.
No 408.
Ettenger & Edmund
June 9. 1862
$ 736 83/100
----------------------------
Ord Serve in all its branches
Checks: The docket carries one figure, $736 83/100, and nothing to compute against on this face. Tested against its neighbour: the account at image 45 is dated Richmond, June 9, 1862, is made out to Ettenger & Edmond, and foots to $736 83 — the docket and that account agree exactly in name, date and amount, and the two frames are consecutive. This is a true docket-and-account pair, not a stray.
Flagged: (1) The firm is spelled "Ettenger & Edmund" here, with a clear u in the last syllable — a fourth spelling, and different again from the "Edmond" written on the account it belongs to (image 45). Recorded as written. (2) The cents are written as 83 over a looped contraction that could be mistaken for a figure 4; it is the clerk's shorthand for /100, and the account itself confirms 83 cents. (3) "Ord Serve" is written with a terminal e and no abbreviation stroke; it is almost certainly meant for "Ord Service," but the sheet says Serve. (4) The oval RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT stamp is a post-war United States War Department archival mark, not a Confederate one, and it is seen here only as bleed-through from the other side. (5) "No 408" is the voucher number written by the endorsing clerk, not a printed form number.
Image 45 — Account, Confederate States of America to Ettenger & Edmond, Richmond, May 23 – June 7, 1862: seacoast gun-carriage ironwork, truck handspikes, wrenches, 32-pounder platforms and traverse segments — $736.83, receipted June 9, 1862
The account whose docket is image 44, photographed face up in a large frame (4,856 × 4,633 px). It is a printed Confederate billhead: "Confederate States of America," across the head in a heavy blackletter, then a ruled printed line beginning "To" and ending "Dr" with the firm's name written in the blank; below that the ruled body of the bill, with a printed "186" and a space for the year at the left of the date column and "REMARKS." heading the right-hand column, and two narrow money columns (dollars and cents each) between the description and the remarks. At the foot sit the two printed clauses — "I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to … and that the property has been received and will be accounted for." and the receipt line beginning "RECEIVED," with printed "186", "Dollars," "Cents, in full of the above account." and the bracketed "[SIGNED DUPLICATES]" at the lower left. Everything written is in one fine, right-sloping clerical hand in brown-black ink, except the certificate signature and the firm's receipt signature, which are two other hands, both larger and freer. The sheet has been folded in four down its length and once across — the same folds as image 44 — and the paper is lightly foxed with a few small blots; long looping flourishes from the writer's pen sweep down across the rate column, and the endorsement written on the reverse (image 44) shows through faintly. In the upper right corner, well clear of the printed matter, a modern archivist's number: 1831.
1831
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr
186 2 | | | | REMARKS.
---------+--------------------------------------------------------------+--------+----------+--------------------
May 23 | Two Elevating tongues with Eye | | |
| bolts & Pins &c. 85 lbs @ 25 c | | 21 25 | Expended
| Altering 6 Columbiad Carriages | | |
| 24 Cast bearings 456 lbs @ 7 c | 31 92 | | )
| Making Pattern for bearings . | 5 00 | | )
| Time of Carpenters | 49 20 | | ) Expended in
| " " Machinists | 72 00 | | ) repairs to Carriages
| " " Blacksmiths | 15 00 | 173 12 | )
| 12 Truck Hand Spikes @ 4 $ | | 48 00 |
| 6 Wrenches for bolts @ 1 $ | | 6 00 |
31 | 2 Platforms for 32 Pdr @ 120 07 | | 240 14 | * [illegible] the Richmond defen-
June 7 | 1 do " 32 " | | 120 07 | des[?] Middle Cross plate
| 6 Traverse Segments 285 lbs @ 15 c | | 42 75 | & [illegible] bolted to traverse
| 12 do do 570 " " | | 85 50 | circle
| | |----------|
| $ | 7 | 36 83 |
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
T. S. Rhett
Col & Insp: [of?] O[?]
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for.
RECEIVED, Richmond June 9th 186 2, of
Seven hundred and thirty Six Dollars,
And Eighty three Cents, in full of the above account. Ettenger & Edmond
[SIGNED DUPLICATES]
Checks: Proves exactly at $736.83. Every extension holds: 85 lbs @ 25 c = 21.25; 456 lbs @ 7 c = 31.92; 12 truck handspikes @ $4 = 48.00; 6 wrenches @ $1 = 6.00; 2 platforms @ 120.07 = 240.14; 1 platform @ 120.07 = 120.07; 285 lbs @ 15 c = 42.75; 570 lbs @ 15 c = 85.50. The braced sub-group foots correctly: 31.92 + 5.00 + 49.20 + 72.00 + 15.00 = 173.12. The outer column foots 21.25 + 173.12 + 48.00 + 6.00 + 240.14 + 120.07 + 42.75 + 85.50 = 736.83, which is the figure written in the footing line, the figure written out in words in the receipt ("Seven hundred and thirty Six Dollars, And Eighty three Cents"), and the figure on the docket at image 44. Not a cent adrift anywhere.
Flagged: (1) The count of Columbiad carriages altered reads as a 6 — a single bottom loop under a long entering curve, not the two loops of an 8 — but the figure sits under a flourish and an 8 cannot be ruled out entirely. (2) The May date is written 23 with a small raised d; the second digit is crossed by a fold and could be a 5. (3) The REMARKS note beside the platform entries is in a lighter, hastier hand and is partly written over itself; "Richmond," "Middle Cross plate," "bolted to traverse" and "circle" are readable, the rest is not. The word split across the first two lines looks like "defen-/des," which the writer presumably meant for defences — but it is not what the letters say, and it is left as written. (4) Rhett's title after the colon is two glyphs only and defeats a firm reading; "of O[rd]" fits the shapes but is not certain. The signature itself, T. S. Rhett, is clear. (5) The dollar sign in the footing line stands in the cents box of the inner column, so the total reads across the rules as "$ 7 | 36 | 83"; the sum intended is plainly 736.83. (6) The archivist's "1831" in the top corner is a modern frame number, not part of the document, and is not the voucher number — that is 408, written on the docket. (7) "32 Pdr" for the platforms is written with the P and a raised dr. (8) No destination is named for anything but the platforms; the Richmond remark applies to those entries alone.
Image 46 — Voucher No. 191 complete on one frame: docket above, account below. Confederate States to Ettenger & Edmond, Richmond, January 24, 1862 — six 32-pounder barbette carriage chassis with implements and platforms, traverse circles and tin plates, gunners' gimlets and priming wires — $3,734.25, receipted of Smith Stansbury
A single photographic copy sheet (2,550 × 3,300 px) carrying two exposures of the same document: in the upper half, the outer face of the folded sheet with its endorsement; in the lower half, the sheet opened out and photographed face up. The upper exposure shows the four panels made by the folds, the endorsement written in a large flowing copperplate on the second panel, and — this time impressed on the outward face itself and reading the right way round — the oval archival handstamp RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT; the impression is very pale, more embossing than ink. The lower exposure is a printed Confederate billhead of the same setting as image 45 ("Confederate States of America," in blackletter, a "To … Dr" line, ruled money columns, "REMARKS." at the right, and printed certificate and receipt clauses at the foot), the horizontal centre fold showing as a pale band across the middle. Two things distinguish this sheet: the printed certificate clause at the foot is left entirely blank — no certifying officer signed on the face — and a second, much fainter note in a different and hastier hand is written sideways across the body of the bill, at right angles to the account, running up the sheet and largely buried under the account's own bolder ink. A modern archivist's number, 1029, stands in the upper right of the account.
[upper exposure — the endorsement on the folded outer face:]
No 191.
Ettenger & Edmund
January 24th 1862
$3,734.25
[oval handstamp, very faint:]
RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT
[lower exposure — the account:]
1029
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
186 2. | | | REMARKS.
---------+----------------------------------------------------+----------+----------
Jany 24 | 6 32 Pdr barbette Carriages Chassis | |
| & Implements & Platforms @ 575 $ | 3450 00 |
| 6 Sets traverse Circles and tin Plates | |
| (Extra weight) 2226 lbs @ 12 1/2 c | 278 25 |
| 6 Gunners Gimblets 3.00 12 Priming wires 3.00 | 6 00 |
| $ | 3734 25 |
[written sideways across the body, faint and mostly buried under the
account's ink; only these fragments can be made out:]
I certify that … has …
have received … delivered …
of Col Gorgas …
Mr John … [Richmond?] …
charge …
[signature ending] … Gibbon Captain
Ordnance Duty
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
[left blank — unsigned]
and that the property has been received and accounted for.
RICHMOND, Jany 24 186 2 Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
Three thousand Seven hundred and thirty four 25/100 dollars
in full of the above account.
Ettenger & Edmond
Signed in duplicate
Checks: Proves exactly at $3,734.25. 6 chassis with implements and platforms @ $575 = 3,450.00; 2,226 lbs extra weight @ 12½ c = 278.25 (2,226 × 0.125 = 278.25 to the cent); the gimlets and priming wires are entered as two sums of 3.00 carried out together as 6.00. 3,450.00 + 278.25 + 6.00 = 3,734.25, which is the footing written on the account, the sum written out in words in the receipt ("Three thousand Seven hundred and thirty four 25/100 dollars"), and the figure on the docket in the exposure above. Docket and account here are the same physical sheet photographed twice, so the pairing is beyond doubt: same date, 24 January 1862, same amount, same firm.
Flagged: (1) The docket spells the firm "Ettenger & Edmund"; the account and the receipt signature both spell it "Ettenger & Edmond" — the two spellings sit on opposite faces of one sheet. (2) In the first extension, "3450 00", the figure 4 is written over an earlier figure that cannot now be read; the overwriting is heavy and blotted, and is recorded here as it stands, not corrected. The quantity "12" before "Priming wires" is likewise written over something. (3) The printed certificate is unsigned on the face of the bill. The sideways note may well be the certificate that would otherwise have gone there, but too little of it can be read to say so; "I certify that," "have received," "of Col Gorgas," "Mr John," "charge," "delivered," and a signature whose surname ends in what reads as Gibbon, followed by "Captain" and "Ordnance Duty," are all that the eye can recover. Proposal only, kept out of the transcription: Lardner Gibbon, Captain on Ordnance Duty, appears elsewhere in this file, and "Col Gorgas" would be Josiah Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance. Neither should be printed as read without better images. (4) "Carriages Chassis" is written with a plural flourish on the first word; "Chassis" serves for both singular and plural. (5) "Gimblets" is the clerk's spelling for gunners' gimlets. (6) The rate "12 1/2 c" is written with the half as a fraction. (7) The archivist's number 1029 and the voucher number 191 are different things; 191 is the Confederate voucher number, written by the endorsing clerk. (8) The printed receipt clause on this form reads "received and accounted for," where image 45's form reads "received and will be accounted for" — two settings of the same billhead.
Image 47 — Voucher No. 95 complete on one frame: docket above, account below. Confederate States to Ettenger & Edmond, Richmond, February 7, 1862 — two sets of hot-shot furnace irons and two complete doors — $575.20, certified by Alfred L. Rives for the Engineer Bureau and paid March 4, 1862 by Capt. Wm. Thos. Hardy, A.Q.M.
Like image 46, a single copy sheet (2,550 × 3,300 px) carrying two exposures of one document: the folded outer face with its endorsement above, the sheet opened out and photographed face up below. The endorsement panel is ruled off by the writer with pen lines under each element — a line under the firm's name, two short lines under the subject, a double rule under the money — and carries, well down the panel, the oval archival handstamp RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT, here reasonably legible, and below that a very faint pencil "No 95." The account beneath is a printed Confederate billhead of the same family as images 45 and 46, with the money set out in a narrow column and nothing written in the REMARKS column at all. The clerk's hand is small, fast and even, and he packs the specification of the furnace ironwork into cramped continuation lines under each heading. One detail matters: on the printed certificate at the foot, the clause "and that the property has been received and accounted for." has been struck through with a single pen stroke before the certifying officer signed — the Engineer Bureau certified the account's correctness but not receipt of the property. The lower edge of the account exposure is clipped by the black frame border, so the firm's receipt signature is cut across at the base of the letters but is still readable.
[upper exposure — the endorsement on the folded outer face:]
Ettenger & Edmond
------------------
Hot shot Irons &c
------- ---------
$575.20
===========
Paid March 4th 1862
"
Voucher 100. 1st qr. 1862
-------------------------
[oval handstamp:] RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT
[in faint pencil, lower down:] No 95
[lower exposure — the account:]
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
186 2 | | | REMARKS.
--------+----------------------------------------------------------------+---------+---------
Feby 7 | 2 Sets irons for hot Shot furnace | |
| 10 Long Pipes(9ft) 40 Short do 10 Grates 52 Washers. 8 Pieces door | |
| frame 6 Pieces for door arch 8 Pieces Shot door frame. 16 doors | |
| 4 Sills & 8 ribs 8240 lbs @ 5 1/2 c | 453 20 |
| 13 Bolts. 4 Eye bolts 1 Bar 1" O iron & 1 Set | |
| irons for Ash pit door 896 lbs @ 12 1/2 c | 112 00 |
| $ | 565 20 |
| 2 doors Complete with hinges &c 5 $ | 10 00 |
| $ | 575 20 |
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to Five Hundred
And Seventy five 20/100 Dollars — — —
Alfred L. Rives
and that the property has been received and accounted for. [struck through]
Acting Chf. Eng. Bur.
RICHMOND, Va March 4th 1862. Received from Wm Thos Hardy. Capt & A.Q.M. C.S.P.A.
— — — Five hundred and Seventy five 20/100 Dollars — — — — —
in full of the above account.
Ettenger & Edmond
Checks: Proves exactly at $575.20. 8,240 lbs @ 5½ c = 453.20 (8,240 × 0.055 = 453.20); 896 lbs @ 12½ c = 112.00 (896 × 0.125 = 112.00); 453.20 + 112.00 = 565.20, which is the sub-total struck across the column; 2 doors complete @ $5 = 10.00; 565.20 + 10.00 = 575.20, which is the footing, the figure on the docket in the exposure above, and the sum written in words twice at the foot ("Five Hundred And Seventy five 20/100 Dollars" in the certificate and "Five hundred and Seventy five 20/100 Dollars" in the receipt). The docket's own note, "Paid March 4th 1862," matches the receipt's date, Richmond, Va., March 4th 1862, exactly. Docket and account are the same sheet, so the pairing is certain — and every figure on the two faces agrees.
Flagged: (1) "10 Long Pipes(9ft)" — the word is written with a clear capital P and reads Pipes; in a hot-shot furnace it is an odd article and a reader may want to check the original, but Pipes is what the letters give. (2) "4 Sills & 8 ribs" — the last word is cramped and could be read otherwise, though ribs fits both the strokes and the ironwork. (3) The bolt count reads 13, the second figure having the double loop of a 3 rather than the flat foot of a 2. (4) "1 Bar 1" O iron" uses the trade symbol — a small circle for round iron — after the inch mark; it is a symbol on the page, not a letter O. (5) The striking-out of "and that the property has been received and accounted for" is deliberate and made before signature; it is a substantive alteration to the certificate and should not be silently dropped in any printed text. (6) Alfred L. Rives signs as "Acting Chf. Eng. Bur." — Acting Chief of the Engineer Bureau — which places this account under the Engineer Bureau rather than the Ordnance Department, unlike images 45 and 46. (7) "Wm Thos Hardy. Capt & A.Q.M. C.S.P.A." is the paying quartermaster; the initials after A.Q.M. read C.S.P.A. (8) The docket gives two different numbers — "Voucher 100. 1st qr. 1862," written by the paying office, and the pencilled "No 95" lower on the panel. They are not the same series and neither should be assumed to be the other. (9) The firm is spelled "Ettenger & Edmond" on the docket, in the billhead heading and in the receipt signature — consistently, on this voucher alone of the four accounts in this range.
Image 48 — Docket panel (verso of a folded account), Ettenger & Edmond, Nov. 23d 1861, $1000
The outside of a folded sheet, photographed whole and filling the frame: a wide, pale, heavily creased leaf carrying two vertical folds and three horizontal ones, so that the surface reads as a grid of soft panels. The docket is written in a fine, looping, dark-brown clerk's hand in the upper-centre panel, the four lines riding across faint printed horizontal rules that belong to the back of the billhead. There is no printed docket wording of any kind — every word on the panel is manuscript. Below the writing, straddling the centre horizontal fold, is the oval purple-black handstamp of the Record Division, struck lightly and unevenly so the inner ring is much fainter than the outer. Show-through from the written face of the account appears as mirrored ghost lettering along the right edge and, more faintly, at lower left; none of it is legible in reverse. A small white paper loss or emulsion flake sits at the upper right, well clear of the writing, and the sheet is otherwise sound — no tears, no staining, no ink corrosion.
N o 452.
Ettenger & Edmond
Nov 23d 1861
$1000.
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES, *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: no computation on the sheet — a single figure, $1000., and nothing to add. Tested against the neighbouring account: image 49 is a Confederate States of America billhead to Ettenger & Edmond footing $1000 00, receipted at Richmond November 23d 1861. Figure, date and place all match, so this docket pairs with image 49, the very next frame.
Flagged: the docket number reads N o 452 — the "2" is written with a flat crossed top and could conceivably be a "7," but 2 is much the better reading. Image 49, the account it belongs to, carries "455" pencilled or inked at its top right corner, so the two numbers do not agree; both are recorded here as seen and no attempt is made to reconcile them. The firm is spelled Ettenger & Edmond on this docket. The Record Division stamp is legible but weak in its inner ring; "REBEL ARCHIVES," is read with confidence from the surviving letter tops. Mirrored show-through at the sheet edges is genuinely illegible and is not transcribed.
Image 49 — Account, Confederate States of America to Ettenger & Edmond, Richmond, Nov. 20–22, 1861: two 8-inch Columbiad carriages, chassis and platforms for Jamestown — $1000 00
A single wide leaf of the firm's printed billhead, filling the frame, photographed with a narrow black border. The printed matter is the standard Confederate form: a heavy blackletter "Confederate States of America," at the upper left, a script "To" and "Dr." flanking the space where the firm's name is written, "186" with the last digit left to be filled at the head of the date column, "REMARKS." above the last column, and the certificate and receipt formulas at the foot in roman and small capitals. Faint blue-grey printed rules divide the page into the date column, two narrow columns, the wide description field, four narrow money columns, and the remarks column. Three vertical folds and one heavy horizontal fold cross the sheet; the horizontal fold runs through the money column and has left a grey band. The clerk's entries are in a fine, right-slanted, well-controlled hand in black ink now faded to grey-brown; the destination "Jamestown" is written twice in noticeably paler ink and underlined each time, apparently added afterwards. A darker, heavier hand — a different pen — wrote the "Approved / George Minor" block. A small dark stain and a paper abrasion sit at the upper left corner clear of the text. The remarks column is empty. The bottom edge shows a soft crease where the sheet was folded up.
455
Confederate States of America, To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
186 1. | | | REMARKS.
| | |
Novem 20 | For 1. 8n Columbiad Carriage, Chassis | |
| and Platform Jamestown | 500 00 |
,, 22 | For 1 8n Columbiad Carriage | |
| Chassis & Platform Jamestown | 500 00 |
| | $1000 00 |
| | |
Approved | |
George Minor Comdr | |
In Chf of Bureau | |
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Ten hundred Dollars ——
and that the property has been received and accounted for.
RICHMOND, November 23d 186 1. Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
One thousand dollars
in full of the above account. Ettenger & Edmond
Checks: two extensions of 500 00 each; 500 + 500 = 1000. The footing is written $1000 00. Proves exactly at $1,000.00. The written certificate, "Ten hundred Dollars," and the written receipt, "One thousand dollars," both agree with the figure. No rate is given for either carriage, so there is no quantity-times-price step to test; each line is a lump sum for one carriage with chassis and platform.
Flagged: the number at the top right corner, between two ruled lines and in a filing clerk's hand, reads 455 as best it can be made out; the third figure is a flat-topped stroke identical in form to the 5s in "500 00" lower on the sheet, which is why 455 is preferred, but 452 and 453 cannot be ruled out. This matters because the docket at image 48 is numbered 452 while carrying the same firm, date and sum as this account — the two numbers are recorded exactly as seen and are not reconciled here. "8n" is written with a raised n after the 8, the clerk's abbreviation for the bore; it is transcribed as written rather than expanded. "Novem" in the date column is written with a trailing stroke and may be intended as "Novemr"; only "Novem" can be positively read. The approving officer reads George Minor, "Comdr / In Chf of Bureau"; the raised letter after "Comd" is small and blotted but is best read as r. Proposal only, kept out of the transcription: a George Minor served as a commander in the Confederate States Navy in charge of the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, which would explain the naval rank on an account for Jamestown Island battery carriages — this should be verified before use. There is no signature under the printed certificate; the space where a certifying officer would sign is blank, and the only signature on the sheet is the firm's, under the receipt. The certificate wording "Ten hundred Dollars" is the clerk's, not an error introduced here.
Image 50 — Printed forwarding receipt, Richmond, Nov. 22, 1861: carriage and packages of ordnance stores from Ettengr & Edmunds, marked to the Commanding Officer, Jamestown
A small oblong printed slip, far smaller than the account sheets around it — the scan is only about a third the size of its neighbours — photographed against a black ground with the slip's four cut edges visible. A heavy double rule runs across the top. The printed matter is sparse and set in roman with small capitals: "RICHMOND," and "186" on the first line, "Received from" and "Packages Ordnance Stores," on the second and third, and "Marked" on the fourth, with generous blanks between them for the clerk. The writing is a very large, bold, fast, heavily looped hand in black ink that sprawls well outside the ruled blanks — "Carriage &c" runs across and over the printed "Packages Ordnance Stores," and the descenders of "Officer" and the initials at the foot cut through the lines below them. Low at the left, in a thin grey line that is almost certainly pencil, a second and much smaller hand has written a name; a scratch or abrasion runs through it and has taken part of the surname. A faint printed rule closes the slip at the bottom. There is no handstamp, no docketing and no figure of any kind on the slip.
RICHMOND, Nov 22 186 1
Received from Ettengr & Edmunds
Carriage &c Packages Ordnance Stores,
Marked Commandg
Officer
W F. Johnston
Jamestown
W F J
Checks: no figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The only quantities are the words "Carriage &c," and the printed word "Packages" is left without a number before it.
Flagged: the firm's name is written at speed with an abbreviating stroke above it and reads "Etteng" plus a raised terminal — most likely Ettengr for Ettenger, though Ettinger cannot be excluded; the second partner is clearly "Edmunds," with a final s, a fourth variant of the firm's name and not the "Edmond" used on images 48 and 49. "Commandg" is written with a raised g. The pencil name at lower left reads W F. Johnston as far as the abrasion allows; the terminal could be "Johnson," as the t is not certain. The bold initials at the foot read W F J and appear to be the same person signing. No date year is written after the printed "186" other than a single figure 1; it is read as 1861. This slip is not a docket and carries no sum, but it belongs with image 49: the date, Nov 22, is the second of the two delivery dates on that account, and "Jamestown" is the destination named twice there, so the slip is the carrier's or forwarding agent's receipt for the second 8-inch Columbiad carriage. It should be understood as evidence supporting image 49 rather than as a separate transaction.
Image 51 — Two small slips photographed together: (a) the blank stamped verso of a forwarding receipt; (b) printed forwarding receipt, Richmond, Nov. 19th 1861, one carriage and chassis from Ettinger & Edmonds marked to Genl Magruder, by steamer from Rocketts
Two loose slips laid side by side on a black ground and photographed in one frame, neither one filling it; the black surround is wide and dusty with white specks and scratches from the film. The upper left piece is turned on its side, its printed face downward, so that only the back is visible: it is blank of manuscript and carries a single large oval handstamp, RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT, struck flat and grey, with the two flanking stars faintly visible. The printed matter of the form ghosts through the paper in mirror image and running sideways — "186," "Packages Ordnance Stores," and "RICHMOND," can all be made out reversed — and a fold runs down the middle of the piece. A pale thread or hair lay across the slip when it was photographed and shows as a bright white line curling across the left of the stamp. The lower right piece is a second printed slip of exactly the form used at image 50, its top left corner overlapped by the first slip so that the R of "Received" is hidden. It is written in the same very large, bold, looping black hand as image 50, the writing sprawling over the printed lines; the flourish of "Rocketts" runs off toward the right edge, where a bright flake of emulsion loss sits. A last line, in a thin pale hand quite unlike the rest and probably pencil, runs along the bottom above the closing rule. There is no figure of any kind on either piece.
[upper left piece — verso, no manuscript]
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES, *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
[reversed show-through of the printed form: 186 ... Packages
Ordnance Stores, ... RICHMOND, — illegible as text]
[lower right piece — printed forwarding receipt]
RICHMOND, Nov 19th 186 1
[R]eceived from Ettinger & Edmonds
1 Carriage
& Chassis Packages Ordnance Stores,
Marked Genl Magruder
Co[?] Steamer
Rocketts
Signed on back
Checks: no figures on either slip — no arithmetic to prove. The only quantity written is "1 Carriage," and the printed word "Packages" again stands without a number before it.
Flagged: the word before "Steamer" is a single capital with a small raised o and a dot, and cannot be read with confidence; "Co" for "care of" is the best guess and "Per" is possible, so it is left marked doubtful. The firm's name is again written at speed with an abbreviating stroke over it and is read here as "Ettinger & Edmonds"; the same hand wrote image 50, where the same two words were read "Ettengr & Edmunds" — the medial vowels in both halves of the name are genuinely undecidable in this hand, and the two readings should be understood as one name written twice by one man rather than as two different spellings. "Genl Magruder" is written clearly and is not in doubt. "Rocketts" is written with two t's and a final s. The note "Signed on back" is in a different, much paler hand. The upper left piece carries no signature at all, so if it is the back of this slip the promised signature is not there; more likely it is the verso of a different slip of the same form, because the heavy ink of the lower right slip would be expected to ghost through and does not. Neither piece is a docket and neither carries a sum, so neither can be matched to an account by figure. By date and cargo the lower right slip belongs with the run of Columbiad carriage deliveries around images 49 and 50, but Nov 19th is not one of the two dates entered on image 49 and the destination here is Genl Magruder, not Jamestown, so it does not pair with that account; the account it answers is not among images 48 to 54.
Image 52 — Docket panel (verso of a folded account), Ettenger & Edmund, May 8, 1862, $1,436 72/100
The outside of a folded account sheet, filling the frame, the paper a laid or machine-ribbed stock whose fine horizontal lines show plainly through the whole exposure and give the surface a striped look. Two vertical folds divide it into three panels and a horizontal fold crosses at mid height; the fold lines are soft and unbroken, with no splitting. The docket occupies the top of the centre panel in a fine dark-brown hand, four lines, the last two underscored with a long flourish; a faint printed or ruled line closes the block below. At the upper right of the centre panel, well clear of the writing, stands a small file mark in the same ink: a large open C followed by a short pointed stroke carrying a long horizontal bar. The Record Division oval handstamp is struck low in the centre panel and is very weak — the outer ring, both stars and the words at top and bottom can be traced, but the inner ring is nearly gone. The left panel carries a long column of mirrored show-through from the account written on the other side: a date column, description lines and a money column can all be seen in reverse but none of it can be read as text. A short curled ink stroke, apparently an idle mark, sits near the centre fold above the stamp.
N o 233. C [+ stroke]
Ettenger & Edmund
May 8. 1862
72
$ 1.436 ---
100
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES, *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: no computation on the sheet — a single sum, $1.436 72/100, and nothing to add. Tested against the neighbouring account: image 53 is a Confederate States of America billhead to the firm, footed 1436 72, certified "Fourteen Hundred & Thirty Six 72/100 Dolls" and receipted at Richmond May 8th 1862. Figure, date and place all match to the cent, so this docket pairs with image 53, the very next frame.
Flagged: the docket number reads N o 233; the two figures after the 2 are flat-topped strokes identical in form to the 3 in "1.436" lower on the same sheet, which is what settles them as 3s rather than 5s. The clerk wrote the thousands separator as a full point — "$ 1.436" — not as a comma; it is transcribed as written and means one thousand four hundred and thirty six. The firm is spelled Ettenger & Edmund here, with the second name ending in a broad terminal loop that may be a flourish or may be a final s; if it is an s the reading would be Edmunds. The mark at the top right is a file or bundle mark, not part of the docket: a large open C followed by a small pointed stroke with a long horizontal bar drawn off it. Only the C is certain; the stroke after it may be a hurried capital A, and it is not transcribed as a letter. The corresponding mark on image 54 is a plain lowercase a. The archives handstamp is much fainter here than on image 48 and the words "REBEL ARCHIVES" are read from the ring position and the surviving letter tops rather than from a clear impression. The reversed show-through on the left panel is genuinely illegible and is not transcribed.
Image 53 — Account, Confederate States of America to Ettenger & Edmond, Richmond, April 26 1862: two 8-inch Columbiad carriages with chassis, platforms, circles and implements — 1436 72, receipted May 8th 1862
A full sheet of the same printed billhead used at image 49, filling the frame with a black surround, but in far worse condition to read. The paper is a hard, closely ribbed machine-made stock and the film has picked up every one of those horizontal lines, so the whole exposure is laid over with a fine grey corduroy that competes with the ink. The clerk's ink has faded to a pale grey-brown and in places is barely darker than the ribbing; the printed matter, by contrast — the blackletter "Confederate States of America," the script "To" and "Dr.", "186", "REMARKS.", "I CERTIFY", "RECEIVED," and "SIGNED DUPLICATES." — has held its black and reads easily. Two horizontal folds and two vertical ones cross the leaf, and the vertical fold through the money columns has bleached a pale band that has taken the tops of several figures. A long white filament — a hair or thread on the copy stand — loops across the middle right of the sheet, over the description lines and into the money column, and a second short piece lies below it; both are photographic accidents, not marks on the paper. A file number is written large across the top edge in a dark filing hand. One line of the account, the truck handspikes, is interlined above the last entry in a much blacker ink and a heavier pen than the rest, with a caret set below the line to place it. The bottom third, where the certificate and receipt are written, is markedly darker and easier to read than the body.
1672
Confederate States of America, To Ettenger & Edmond[?] Dr.
186 2. | | | REMARKS.
| | |
April 26 | For 2 8 In[ch] Columbiad | |
| Carriages and Chassis | |
| Platforms, Traverse[?] Circles | |
| Six[?] Plates, Truck[?] Bolts[?] & [illegible] | |
| 2 Sponges & Rammers | |
| Gunners [illegible] & Handspikes | |
| +4 Truck Handspikes | |
| 1[?] Heavy [illegible] ^ [illegible] 00 | 1436 72|
| | |
| Signed Triplicates | |
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Fourteen Hundred & Thirty Six 72/100 Doll[s]
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for.
Capt. Thos S Rhett Insp. Ord.
RECEIVED, Richmond May 8th 186 2, of
One thousand - four hundred and
thirty six Dollars Seventy two Cents, in full of the above account.
Ettenger & Edmund
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
Checks: the footing in the money column is 1436 in the dollars column and 72 in the cents column. Only one other figure appears anywhere in the money columns — an entry ending 00 on the same line, immediately to the left — and it cannot be read, so the extensions cannot be added against the footing and the arithmetic cannot be proved from this sheet alone. What can be checked all agrees: the certificate reads "Fourteen Hundred & Thirty Six 72/100," the receipt reads "One thousand four hundred and thirty six Dollars Seventy two Cents," and the docket at image 52 reads $1.436 72/100 — three independent statements of $1,436.72, matching the figures in the column to the cent. No quantity-times-rate step is legible for any line, so none can be tested.
Flagged: this is the hardest sheet in the range and a good deal of the body has been left unread rather than guessed. The description lines are certain only for "For 2 8 In Columbiad," "Carriages and Chassis," "Platforms," "Circles," "2 Sponges & Rammers," "Handspikes" and the interlined "+4 Truck Handspikes"; the words marked doubtful — "Traverse," "Six," "Truck Bolts," and the word after "Gunners" — are best readings from stroke shape and are not secure, and everything marked illegible is genuinely below the level at which the ink separates from the paper's ribbing. The abbreviation after the 8 is written as a raised contraction and is expanded here only as far as "In[ch]." The last description line begins with a tall stroke that may be a figure 1 or the contraction It, followed by "Heavy" and a word that cannot be read. The caret under that line places the interlined truck handspikes. The manuscript note above the certificate reads "Signed Triplicates," while the printed line at the foot of the sheet reads "SIGNED DUPLICATES." — the two disagree, and both are given as they stand. The file number across the top edge reads 1672; it is written in the same style of filing hand as the number on image 49 but is a wholly different number, so the two sheets were numbered in different series or at different times. The firm's name on the "To" line is too faint to read with confidence and is given as Ettenger & Edmond only because that is the shape the strokes best fit; the signature under the receipt, which is clear, reads Ettenger & Edmund and matches the docket at image 52. The certifying officer signs Capt. Thos S Rhett, Insp. Ord., clearly and without doubt. The white filament across the middle right of the sheet is on the film, not on the document, and has hidden a few characters of the description lines where it crosses them.
Image 54 — Docket panel (verso of a folded account), Ettenger & Edmund, May 12. 1862, $1,436 72/100
The outside of a folded account sheet, cleanly photographed and filling the frame, on the same closely ribbed stock as image 53 — the fine horizontal ribbing runs across the whole exposure. Two vertical folds and one horizontal fold divide the leaf into six panels; the folds are crisp and the paper is flat and undamaged. The docket occupies the top of the upper centre panel: four lines in a neat, fine, dark-brown hand, each line ruled underneath with a long straight pen line, and a fifth ruled line closing the block below the sum. A small lowercase letter, quite separate from the docket, stands to the upper right of the first line. The Record Division oval handstamp is struck in the centre of the sheet, below the docket block and squarely on the vertical fold; it is grey and shallow but complete, both stars showing and every word of the three lines traceable. Along the extreme right edge of the frame are several irregular dark blots and a run of small dark marks — they sit at or beyond the paper's edge and read as staining or transfer at the edge of the sheet rather than as anything written. There is no show-through of the account on this face; the paper is heavier than image 48's and holds the ink.
N o 255. a
---------
Ettenger & Edmund
-------------------
May 12. 1862
---------------
72
$ 1.436 ----
100[?]
-----------------------------
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES, *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: no computation on the sheet — a single sum, $1.436 72/100, and nothing to add. Tested against its neighbours: the sum is identical to the cent with both the docket at image 52 ($1.436 72/100) and the account at image 53 (footed 1436 72, certified "Fourteen Hundred & Thirty Six 72/100"). But the date does not match — this docket is dated May 12. 1862, while image 53 is receipted at Richmond May 8th 1862 and image 52's docket reads May 8. 1862 — and the number does not match either, this being N o 255 against image 52's N o 233. So although the figure agrees, this docket does not pair with the account at image 53 on date or number; the sheet it belongs to is not among images 48 to 54.
Flagged: the docket number reads N o 255 without real doubt: the two figures after the 2 are formed with a top bar and a closed round bowl, which is this clerk's 5, and are plainly different from the flat-topped open-tailed 3s he writes in "1.436" lower down the same sheet and in the number on image 52. The thousands separator is again a full point — "$ 1.436" — not a comma. The denominator of the cents fraction is written as a single compressed stroke rather than as three clear figures; it is read as 100 by analogy with image 52, where the same clerk wrote it out plainly, and is marked doubtful here. The second partner's name ends in the same broad terminal loop seen on image 52 and in the receipt signature on image 53, so Edmund and Edmunds are both possible; Edmund is given. The small mark at the upper right is a clear lowercase a, a bundle or copy mark. Proposal only, kept out of the transcription: image 53 carries the manuscript note "Signed Triplicates," meaning three copies of that account were signed, which would account for more than one docket bearing the same sum at slightly different dates — but nothing on this sheet says so, and it should be verified against the other copies before being relied on.
Image 55 — Confederate States of America billhead to Ettenger & Edmond, May 1862: two 8-inch Columbiad carriages complete with chassis, platforms and implements at $718 36/100 each; certified by Thos. S. Rhett, Capt. & Insp. Ord.; receipted at Richmond May 12th; $1,436.72
A full printed billhead filling the frame, the paper a machine-ribbed stock whose close horizontal laid lines run through the whole exposure and make every faint stroke hard to separate from the surface. The printed matter — the blackletter "Confederate States of America," the "To ______ Dr" rule, the "186 " date head, "REMARKS.", the certificate and receipt clauses, and "SIGNED DUPLICATES." at the foot — is crisp and black. All of the manuscript, by contrast, is in a very pale grey-brown ink, thin and dry, and much of it survives only as the upper halves of letters; only the pen-dips (the day figure, the leading figures of the money column, the words "Signed Triplicates," and the two signatures) carry real body. A dark irregular ink blot about the size of a thumbnail sits at the upper left, just above and left of the "C" of "Confederate." Two vertical folds and one horizontal fold cross the sheet, the vertical ones showing as pale bands through the middle of the writing; a small white emulsion flake sits in the right margin beside the third and fourth entry lines, and a second at the far right of the "To" line. A file number is written in ink at the top right corner, above the printed head. There is no Record Division handstamp anywhere on this face, and the REMARKS column is empty.
1659[?]
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr
________________________________________________________________
186 . REMARKS.
May 8[?] To 2 Eight[?] Inch Columbiad Car-
riages with Chassis Platforms
Traverse Circles & tie plates[?]
2 Sponges & Rammers 4 [illegible]
Handspikes 4 Man[illegible] Wrenches
2 Gunners Gimlets 4 Priming wires
& Elevating Screws — $ 718 36/100 ea $ 1436 [72?]
" Signed Triplicates "
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for
Thos S Rhett Capt & Insp. Ord
RECEIVED, Richmond May 12[?]th 186 2[?] , of
One thousand Four hundred and
thirty Six Dollars Seventy Two Cents, in full of the above account.
Ettenger & Edmond
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
Checks: one extension only. The rate is written $718 36/100 each and the quantity is 2; 2 × 718.36 = 1,436.72, and the money column carries 1436 in the dollar cells with two very faint flat marks in the cents cell, consistent with 72 but not legible as figures. The receipt spells the sum out as "One thousand Four hundred and thirty Six Dollars Seventy Two Cents," i.e. $1,436.72, which matches the extension exactly. Proves exactly at $1,436.72. Tested against the neighbouring dockets: the docket at image 52 reads "N o 233 / Ettenger & Edmund / May 8. 1862 / $ 1.436 72/100" — the same firm, the same figure to the cent, and the same May 8 date as the entry line here. Image 55 is therefore a second signed copy (a triplicate; see below) of the same account the image 52 docket answers.
Flagged: the manuscript ink is so pale that several words survive only as their upper halves, and four readings are genuinely doubtful. (1) The day figure in the date column is a single heavy closed oval with a short exit stroke; it is one figure, not two, and could be 8, 6 or 0 — 8 is proposed only because the image 52 docket for this same sum is dated May 8, 1862, and that is outside knowledge, not evidence on this sheet. (2) The word after the quantity 2 on the first line is read "Eight" but only its tops survive; what follows it, "Inch Columbiad Car-", is secure. (3) The tail of the third entry line, read "tie plates," is badly abraded; "tie" and "plates" are both proposals from the shape of the descenders and from the vocabulary used elsewhere in this file, and neither word can be seen letter by letter. (4) The word between "4" and "Wrenches" on the fifth line begins "Man" and then fails entirely; "manoeuvring wrenches" is the phrase used on other sheets of this file, but nothing on this sheet proves it, so it is left illegible. Likewise the word between "4" and "Handspikes" at the end of line four cannot be read at all — the surviving strokes suggest a five-letter word ending in "st," but no reading is offered. The firm's name is written twice: in the printed "To" line at the head, where only letter-tops survive, and in the receipt signature at the foot, where it is clearer; both are read "Ettenger & Edmond," but the medial vowel of the first name (e or i) and the final vowel of the second (o or u) are not decidable in this hand, so Ettinger and Edmund cannot be excluded. The certifying signature is read "Thos S Rhett Capt & Insp. Ord" and is written boldly and clearly; the middle initial is a looped capital read S. Note the contradiction between the manuscript "Signed Triplicates," written large across the middle of the sheet in a bold hand quite unlike the account itself, and the printed "SIGNED DUPLICATES." at the foot of the same form — the clerk has overridden the printed statement, and both are transcribed as they stand. No amount is written after the printed words "amounting to"; that blank was left unfilled. The received day is read 12 but the second figure is a narrow closed loop and could be 0, giving "10th." The year figure after the printed "186" in the receipt line is a single short stroke, read 2 with no confidence; the "186 ." in the column head was never completed at all. The file number at the top right reads 1659, but the third figure is written like a long s and could be 8 rather than 5.
Image 56 — Docket panel (outer fold of a folded voucher), No. 789, Ettenger & Edmond, Sept. 28, 1861, Ordnance Service, $500.00
The blank outside of a folded voucher, filling the frame and photographed against a black ground that shows as a broad irregular border, heaviest at the left and bottom where the corner of the sheet is torn away in a shallow bite. The paper is a lightly ribbed white stock, clean and unstained; three vertical folds and one horizontal fold divide it, the vertical fold at the centre running straight down through the docket and the stamp. The docket is written across the top of the second panel in a confident, well-formed dark hand, four lines, each ruled under with a long horizontal stroke, and the whole block sits between two faint printed or ruled lines carried through from the form on the other side. Below and slightly left of centre the Record Division oval handstamp is struck in pale grey — the outer ring and the words RECORD DIVISION at the top and WAR DEPARTMENT at the bottom read plainly, REBEL ARCHIVES across the middle is broken and weak, and one of the two flanking stars, the right-hand one, survives clearly. The left third of the sheet carries a quantity of ghosted show-through from the writing on the inside, in reverse and too faint to resolve as words, together with a long pale diagonal scratch running from the upper left down toward the middle. A second, shorter diagonal crease crosses the lower right quarter. There is no other manuscript on the panel.
No 789.
Ettenger & Edmond
Sept 28. 1861
Ordnance Service $ 500.00
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES, *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: no computation on the sheet — a single sum, $500.00, and nothing to add. Tested against the neighbouring account: image 57 carries, in its upper half, a Virginia Navy Department bill to Ettenger & Edmond for one 8-inch Columbiad carriage complete, charged at $500, entered Sept 24, approved "for five hundred dollars," and receipted at Richmond Va. Sept. 25, 1861, against the appropriation written in as "Ordnance Service." Figure and appropriation match exactly and the year matches; the docket's date, Sept 28. 1861, is three days later than the receipt on the account, which is what one expects of a voucher passed a few days after it was receipted. This docket pairs with the account in the upper half of image 57, the very next frame.
Flagged: the voucher number reads No 789; the second figure is a clear double-looped 8 and the third a loop with a long left-turning descender, which is what makes it a 9 rather than a 0. The firm's name is written here in full and without ambiguity as Ettenger & Edmond — the medial e of Ettenger and the o of Edmond are both formed plainly, which makes this sheet the best witness in this run to the spelling of the name. The month abbreviation is "Sept" with a raised t and the day is 28; the first figure has a flat base and a diagonal approach and is a 2, not a 4. The amount is written $500.00 with a full point between dollars and cents rather than the fractional 00/100 used on other sheets in this file. Nothing on this panel is illegible except the reversed show-through, which is not transcribed.
Image 57 — Two documents in one frame: (a) Virginia Navy Department bill IN TRIPLICATE, head altered to "C. S.", to Ettenger & Edmond, Sept. 24, 1861, one 8-inch Columbiad carriage complete sent to Yorktown, $500; approved by George Minor, Comdr., examined by R. D. Minor, Lieut. C.S. Navy; receipted Richmond Va. Sept. 25, 1861. (b) Docket panel, No. 452, Ettenger & Edmond, February 19, 1862, $85.00
Two separate sheets photographed one above the other in a single frame on a black ground, the upper filling about half the height and the lower the rest, with a broad black band between them. The upper sheet is a printed form on smooth white paper, tall and portrait, its top right corner torn away on a long diagonal that has carried off whatever was written there — a faint stroke survives at the edge of the tear and cannot be read. The printing is heavy black: "IN TRIPLICATE." centred at the head, then a blackletter line "The State of Virginia Navy Department, to ______ Dr.", a lighter italic "Office of ______" and "Appropriation for ______", a ruled money grid with three narrow columns at the right, and the certificate, approval and receipt clauses at the foot. The manuscript is in a fluid, practised dark-brown hand with tall looped capitals, quite different from the pale account hand of image 55. The printed words "State of Virginia Navy" are cancelled by two heavy ruled strokes and "C. S." is written in above them — the Virginia form converted for Confederate use. A white emulsion flake sits over the middle of the word "Columbiad" in the first entry line and a second, smaller one over the initial of the firm's name in the "to" line. A faint fold runs down the sheet at the right of the money grid and another across it below the entries. The line "Sent to Yorktown," written well below the entries, is in a far paler, thinner ink than the rest and looks like a later or hurried addition. There is no archives handstamp on the upper sheet. The lower sheet is the blank outer fold of a different, folded voucher — a clean pale stock with four vertical folds — carrying a four-line docket in a fine, elegant hand at the top of its second panel, each line ruled under, and, low on the left panel, the Record Division oval handstamp struck very faintly, its outer ring and the word REBEL legible and the rest a grey smear. A curl of the sheet lifts away at the lower right corner and shows as a bright wedge.
[(a) — upper sheet]
IN TRIPLICATE.
C. S.
The [State of Virginia Navy — struck through] Department, to Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
Office of Ordnance & Hydrogy Appropriation for Ordnance Service
_____________________________________________________________________________
18 61 . | | |
Sept 24th One 8 in Columbiad Car-
riage with Chasses ^Platform and | 500 | — |
(Platform inserted above with a caret)
implements Complete
Sent to Yorktown
|$ 500 | — |
Having examined the article above charged, } R. D. Minor
certify that ______________ of good quality, } Lieut C.S. Navy
and the price charged fair.
186 . Received the above article for ______________
Navy Storekeeper.
Richmond Va. Sept. 25, 1861.
Approved for five hundred — — — — — dollars and ______________
cents.
George Minor, Comdr
For Captain in charge.
186 . Received of ______________
Five hundred dolls in bonds & Currency [dollars and — struck through]
______________ cents,
in full, of the above bill, and have signed triplicate receipts.
$ ______________ Ettenger & Edmond
[(b) — lower sheet, docket panel]
No 452.
Ettenger & Edmond
February 19. 1862
$ 85.00
[oval handstamp, very faint:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES, *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: (a) one item, no rate written and no multiplication to prove: the entry is extended at 500 and the column is footed at $500, dollars only, with a dash in the cents cell both times. The approval is written out as "five hundred ... dollars" with the cents blank, and the firm's receipt as "Five hundred dolls in bonds & Currency." Every figure and every word on the sheet says five hundred dollars. Proves exactly at $500.00. (b) No computation on the docket — a single sum, $85.00. Pairing tested both ways. The docket at image 56 (No. 789, Sept. 28. 1861, Ordnance Service, $500.00) matches this upper account in firm, figure, appropriation and year, and is dated three days after its Sept. 25 receipt — image 56's docket answers image 57 (a). The docket printed in the lower half of this same frame does not answer the account above it: No. 452 is dated February 19, 1862 and carries $85.00 against the upper sheet's September 1861 and $500. It matches instead the account at image 58, a Confederate States of America billhead to the same firm entered Feb'y 17, footed $85.00, receipted at Richmond Feb'y 19th 1862 and certified in words as "Eighty five dollars" — image 57 (b)'s docket answers image 58, the next frame. The two sheets in this frame are therefore unrelated to each other and each pairs with a neighbour outside it.
Flagged: the head of the upper form is a Virginia Navy Department billhead altered by hand — the cancel strokes run through "State of Virginia Navy" but not through "The" or "Department, to", so as amended the printed line reads "The C. S. Department, to," which is not idiomatic; the intention was plainly to turn a Virginia Navy voucher into a Confederate States one, and both the cancelled words and the interlined "C. S." are transcribed as they stand. The office named beneath, "Ordnance & Hydrogy" (Hydrography, with a raised y), is written in, not printed. "Chasses" is the clerk's spelling of chassis and is left uncorrected; "Platform" is squeezed in above the line with a caret and belongs between "Chasses" and "and." The examining officer signs "R. D. Minor" and adds a rank read "Lieut C.S. Navy" — the two letters between "Lieut" and "Navy" are formed as looped capitals with points after them and the first could be read a rather than C, though C.S. Navy is the only sense the line will carry. The approving signature reads "George Minor, Comdr" with a raised dr, above the printed "Captain in charge" and a written "For," i.e. signing for the captain. The printed line "Received the above article for ______ Navy Storekeeper" was never filled in, and neither year blank in the two "186 ." receipt heads was completed, though the date written across the approval line supplies Sept. 25, 1861 and the column head is completed as 1861. The firm signs "Ettenger & Edmond" at the foot in the same form used in the "to" line. On the lower docket the amount is $85.00 — the first figure is a clear double-looped 8, not a 6 — and the date February 19. 1862 and the number No 452 are written without ambiguity. The torn upper right corner of the sheet has taken away a mark, probably a file number of the kind written in that position on images 55 and 58; what survives is a single stroke and is not transcribed.
Image 58 — One sheet photographed twice: Confederate States of America billhead to Ettenger & Edmond, Feb'y 17, 1862, heavy axle and boxes, manoeuvring pin, sleeves, washers, trunnion bolt and collars fitted up, $85.00; receipted at Richmond Feb'y 19th 1862 to S. Stansbury, Capt. Artillery
A single frame containing two exposures of the same document, one above the other on a black ground. The upper exposure is cropped short at the bottom — it stops just after the printed line "and that the property has been received and accounted for," so the whole receipt block is missing from it and only the tops of a few strokes of that block show along the cut. The lower exposure carries the full sheet. Everything else on the two is identical, line for line, including the file number, and they are plainly two shots of one piece of paper rather than a duplicate and its copy. The sheet itself is a clean, lightly ribbed white billhead, wider than tall, printed in black: the blackletter "Confederate States of America," a "To ______ Dr." rule, a "186 " date head, a money grid of four ruled columns at the right, "REMARKS." over the last of them, and the two certificate clauses across the foot. The manuscript is in a fine, small, very controlled hand in dark ink, considerably neater than any other hand in this run; the figures are small and the abbreviations light. A horizontal fold crosses the sheet below the certification and shows as a soft band, and there is a slight cockle along the lower edge. The upper left corner carries a small blurred smudge in both exposures. Written sideways up the REMARKS column, reading from the bottom of the sheet upward, is a note in a second and much bolder hand: "will be paid on presentation," signed S. Stansbury. There is no archives handstamp on this face.
1288
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
__________________________________________________________________________
186 2 | | | | REMARKS.
Feby | 17 | 1 Heavy Axle & Boxes Complete | | | | w
| | 1 Manovring Pin, 2 Sleves and | | | | i
| | 4 Washers & 1 Trunion bolt and | | | | l
| | Collars — fitted up $ 85 | 00 | | | l
b
I certify that the above articles have e
been received in accordance with the p
annexed order No 590. — a
N. A.[?] Miller i
Correct d
W S Christian Capt & A Q m, [illegible] Regt Artly
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
and that the property has been received and accounted for
RICHMOND, Feby 19th 186 2 Received from S Stansbury Capt Artilly
Eighty five dollars — in full of the above account. Ettenger & Edmond
[sideways in the REMARKS column, in a second hand:]
will be paid on
presentation
S. Stansbury
Checks: one item group, no rate and no multiplication: the four described lines are extended once at $85 in the dollars column and 00 in the cents column, and there is no separate footing. The receipt writes the sum in words as "Eighty five dollars," and the docket in the lower half of image 57 gives $85.00. All three agree. Proves exactly at $85.00. Pairing: the docket at image 57 (b) — No. 452, Ettenger & Edmond, February 19. 1862, $85.00 — matches this account in firm, figure and date to the day, February 19 being the date of the receipt at the foot of this sheet. Image 57 (b)'s docket answers this account. Note that it is filmed one frame before the account it answers and in the same frame as an entirely unrelated 1861 Navy voucher.
Flagged: three spellings are the clerk's and are left as written — "Manovring" for manoeuvring, "Sleves" for sleeves, and "Trunion" for trunnion. The certifying signature above "Correct" reads N. A. Miller as far as the initials allow; the first is a capital that could be N or H and the second is a small looped letter with a point after it that could equally be A or F, so the surname Miller is secure and the initials are not. The second officer signs "W S Christian" and adds "Capt & A Q m," followed by two abbreviated words: the first, between the comma and "Regt," is a short glyph that may be an ordinal numeral or an ampersand and cannot be read; the last is read "Artly" from its terminal flourish. The order number in the certification is written "No 590." and is clear. The receiving officer signs "S Stansbury Capt Artilly" — the word between "Capt" and "Artilly" is a single raised stroke, probably an abbreviated "of," and is not transcribed as a word; this is the Smith Stansbury who appears elsewhere in this file, but only the initial S is written here. The sideways note in the REMARKS column, "will be paid on presentation," is signed with the same surname, in what appears to be the same bold hand as the receipt-line signature. The day figure in the date column is 17 with a small raised terminal. The file number at the top right reads 1288, underlined; the second figure is written with a flat base and is a 2. Nothing after the printed "amounting to" was filled in, on either exposure. Because the upper exposure is cut short, the receipt block, the sum in words and the firm's signature exist only on the lower one — anyone working from the upper frame alone would think the account unreceipted.
Image 59 — Special Order No. 590, Head Quarters Army of the Peninsula, Yorktown, January 12th 1862: Private Miller of the 3d Howitzer Co. sent to Richmond to buy castings for gun carriages under Col. G. W. Randolph; by command of Major Gen. Magruder, Henry Bryan, A.A.G.
A single square-ish leaf of blue-grey wove writing paper, filling the frame against a black ground, its top edge irregular where it was torn from a larger sheet and its upper left corner ragged. A hard vertical crease or split runs down the left quarter of the sheet from the top edge to about a third of the way down and photographs as a black line. The paper carries faint machine ruling. The order is written in a clear, rounded, well-spaced hand in dark ink, thirteen lines, with the heading indented to the right and the signature block indented further; the hand is legible throughout. A pencilled check or tick, shaped like a broad V, sits in the left margin beside the fourth line. Written across the whole face, running diagonally from the lower left to the upper right and cutting through every line of the order, is a large endorsement in a much broader, wetter, blacker hand — letters two and three times the height of the order's own — which is very difficult to read because it crosses the dense text beneath it. There is no handstamp, no docket and no figure of any kind on the sheet.
Head Quarters Army of the Peninsula
Actg Adjt. Generals Office
Yorktown January 12th 1862
Special Order
No 590
Private Miller of the
3d Howitzer Co, on detached
service, is ordered to proceed to
Richmond and to buy for
this department such castings
for gun carriages & other
fixtures as Col G.W. Randolph
may instruct him to procure,
reporting to Col Randolph from
time to time for instructions, &
returning to Yorktown as early
as practicable —
By command of
Major Gen Magruder
Henry Bryan
A.A.G.
[large diagonal endorsement across the face, in a second bold hand —
only fragments recoverable:]
[illegible; a long word appearing to begin Trans-] ... [illegible]
... Wood[?] ... [illegible]
Checks: no figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The order is nonetheless the documentary anchor for image 58: the certification on that account reads "I certify that the above articles have been received in accordance with the annexed order No 590," and this is Special Order No. 590. The certifying signature there is read Miller, and this order sends "Private Miller of the 3d Howitzer Co" to Richmond to buy castings for gun carriages — the same name in the same errand. This sheet is the annexed order to the account at image 58, filmed one frame later rather than beside it, and it is not a docket and carries no sum, so it cannot be matched by figure.
Flagged: the diagonal endorsement is the one substantial failure on this sheet. It is written in a broad, heavily inked hand at roughly sixty degrees to the text, and although individual bold letters are plain enough, they interlace with the order's own writing so completely that no continuous reading can be sustained; a long word near the beginning appears to open "Trans-" and a later group appears to end "-Wood," but neither is offered as a reading and the rest is not attempted. It is left as illegible rather than guessed. Elsewhere: "Actg" is written with the t and g run together and could be read Acty, though Actg (Acting) is the only sense; "Adjt." carries a raised t and a point. The company is "3d Howitzer Co," with the 3d written as a figure and a raised d and set out to the left of the line, in the position where a paragraph number would normally stand. "Col G.W. Randolph" is written in full the first time and "Col Randolph" the second. The order number, 590, is written plainly and is not in doubt. Magruder's name is spelled Magruder and the adjutant signs Henry Bryan with a long underscore flourish and "A.A.G." beneath. The pencil V in the left margin is a file mark, not a letter. No year figure is missing anywhere: the date line is written out in full as January 12th 1862.
Image 60 — Docket panel (outer fold of the folded account), No. 408, Ettenger & Edmond, February 12th 1862, $2,578.62
The blank back of a folded account sheet, filling the frame, laid on a black ground that shows as a narrow ragged border. Three vertical folds and two horizontal folds divide the sheet into a grid of panels; every fold is soft and unbroken and each shows as a pale band. The docket is written across the top of the centre panel in a fine, sloping, confident hand, four lines, the first three ruled under with long horizontal strokes and a fourth rule closing the block beneath the sum. The whole of the paper is thin enough that the account written on the other side shows through in reverse: the printed blackletter head can be made out, mirrored, in the top right panel, the printed word REMARKS mirrored in the top left, and the ruled money columns and the certificate lines as pale bands lower down — none of it readable as text. The Record Division oval handstamp is struck large and reasonably strong in the lower centre panel: the outer ring, RECORD DIVISION, REBEL ARCHIVES, WAR DEPARTMENT and both flanking stars can all be traced, though the impression is grey and partly broken across REBEL ARCHIVES. On the left-hand panel, in a heavy soft pencil or a broad dry stroke, is a large mark shaped like a capital T lying on its side or a bracket, about the height of four lines of writing; it is a file or bundling mark, not a letter of text. Low on the centre panel, well below the stamp and near the bottom edge, the figure 2578.62 is written again, small and faint, in pencil. There is no other manuscript.
No 408.
Ettenger & Edmond
February 12.th 1862
$ 2.578.62
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES, *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
[faint, near the lower edge:] 2578.62
Checks: no computation on the panel — one sum, $2,578.62, repeated faintly at the foot in the same figures. Tested against the neighbour: image 61 is a Confederate States of America billhead to Ettenger & Edmond, dated Feb'y 10 in the entry column, footed $2578 62, and receipted at Richmond February 12th 1862 from Smith Stansbury, Captain of Artillery, with the sum written out as "Two thousand five hundred and Seventy Eight 62/100 dollars." Figure, firm and date all agree to the cent and to the day. Moreover the mirrored show-through on this panel matches that form exactly — the blackletter head appearing on the right and REMARKS on the left, as it must if this is the reverse of that very sheet. This docket is the outer fold of the account at image 61, the very next frame.
Flagged: the clerk writes the thousands separator as a full point, "$ 2.578.62," so that both separators on the line are points; it means two thousand five hundred and seventy-eight dollars and sixty-two cents, and is transcribed as written. The docket number is No 408, written plainly, the 4 open-topped and the 0 and 8 unambiguous. The day is written "12." with a raised th following the point. The firm is spelled Ettenger & Edmond; the vowel in the second syllable of Edmond is a small closed loop that could be read u, so Edmund is possible, but the first name is clearly Ettenger with a medial e. The faint repetition of the sum at the foot of the panel is in a different, softer medium — pencil, or ink much diluted — and gives the figures without a dollar sign and with a single point: 2578.62. The heavy T-shaped mark on the left panel carries no meaning that can be recovered from this sheet and is described rather than transcribed.
Image 61 — Confederate States of America billhead to Ettenger & Edmond, Feb'y 10, 1862: four 8-inch Columbiad carriages complete at $575 each, extra weight in traverse circles and plates at 12½¢ the pound, manoeuvring handspikes, props, gunners' gimlets and priming wires; $2,578.62; receipted at Richmond February 12th 1862 from Smith Stansbury, Captain of Artillery
A wide printed billhead filling the frame, on smooth cream paper, the print crisp and black — blackletter "Confederate States of America," a "To ______ Dr." rule, a "186 " date head at the left, "REMARKS." over the last of five ruled columns at the right, and the two certificate clauses and the receipt line across the lower half. The manuscript is in a rapid, thin, spidery hand, brownish and dry, that runs well past the right edge of the description column and crowds the money grid; the entry lines slope slightly upward. The figures in the money columns are much bolder than the descriptions and were plainly written with a fresh dip. Two vertical folds and one horizontal fold cross the sheet, all soft; the horizontal one runs just below the entry block and shows as a pale band through the certificate clause. The bottom edge is nicked and slightly ragged in two places and the lower left corner is soft. Small white emulsion flakes sit in the cents column beside the fourth and fifth extensions. Written sideways across the entry block, in a much paler and finer hand, is a certification of receipt turned ninety degrees to the account — it runs from the bottom of the sheet upward and is largely defeated by the account's own writing crossing it. The REMARKS column is empty and there is no archives handstamp on this face; the stamp for this voucher is on its outer fold, image 60.
1243
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
_______________________________________________________________________________
186 2 | | | REMARKS.
Febry | 10 | 4, 8 in Columbiad Carriages. with Chassies Platforms traverse Circles tie
| | plates rammers Sponges Elevating apparatus Pintles & Plates @ 575/ ea
| | | 2300 | 00 |
| | 1604 lbs Extra weight in traverse circles & plates @ 12½ ¢
| | | 200 | 50 |
| | 8 Man g Handspikes 12/ 8 Props 12/ | 24 | 00 |
| | 4 Gunners Gimlets 2.00 8 Priming wires 2/ | 4 | 00 |
| | Extra weight of one traverse circle omitted Dec 19/61, 401 lbs @ 12½ ¢
| | | 50 | 12 |
| | $| 2578 | 62 |
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
and that the property has been received and accounted for.
RICHMOND, February 12 — 186 2. Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
Two thousand five hundred and Seventy Eight 62/100 dollars
in Bonds & Currency in full of the above account. Ettenger & Edmond
[written sideways across the entry block, in a second and much paler hand:]
I certify that the [illegible] Carriages [illegible]
have been received [illegible]
[illegible] Rob[t?] [illegible]
[illegible signature] Capt[ain?]
Ordnance Dep[t]
Checks: five extensions, and every one of them proves. 4 carriages @ $575 each = 2,300.00 — column reads 2300 00 ✔ 1,604 lbs @ 12½¢ = 200.50 — column reads 200 50 ✔ 8 manoeuvring handspikes at 12/ plus 8 props at 12/ = 12.00 + 12.00 = 24.00 — column reads 24 00 ✔ 4 gunners' gimlets at 2.00 plus 8 priming wires at 2/ = 2.00 + 2.00 = 4.00 — column reads 4 00 ✔ 401 lbs @ 12½¢ = 50.125, entered as 50.12 (the clerk drops the half-cent) — column reads 50 12 ✔ Footing: 2300.00 + 200.50 + 24.00 + 4.00 + 50.12 = 2,578.62 — footed $2578 62 ✔ The receipt writes the sum out as "Two thousand five hundred and Seventy Eight 62/100 dollars," and the docket at image 60 gives $2.578.62. Proves exactly at $2,578.62, the only rounding being the half-cent dropped on the last line, which is in the government's favour. Pairing: the docket at image 60 (No. 408, February 12th 1862, $2,578.62) is the outer fold of this very sheet — the mirrored show-through there matches this form, and figure, firm and date agree to the day. Image 60 pairs with this account.
Flagged: the clerk's spellings are left as written — "Chassies" for chassis, "Febry" for February, "Man g" (with a raised g) for manoeuvring. The pound abbreviation on the third and sixth entry lines is written as the usual crossed ligature with a following s and is rendered here as "lbs"; on the page it looks like a doubled crossed t. The rate marks are the clerk's shorthand and are transcribed as he made them: "575/ ea" and "12/" and "2/" all use a stroke where a dollar sign would stand, while "2.00" on the same line is written in full — the arithmetic proves that the stroke means dollars in every case, and that the "12/" figures are the price of the whole group of eight and not of each piece. The date on the entry is Febry 10, ten written as a single joined pair; the receipt below is dated February 12, two days later, with a long dash after the day where "th" would stand. The file number at the top right is 1243. The sideways certification across the entry block is the real difficulty on this sheet: it is written in a fine pale ink at ninety degrees to the account and every one of its lines is crossed by two or three lines of the account's own writing, so that only the opening formula "I certify that the ... Carriages ...", the phrase "have been received," a word that may be "Rob[t]," a rank ending "Capt-" and the words "Ordnance Dep[t]" can be made out; the signature itself is a flourish that cannot be resolved into a name. It is left mostly illegible rather than reconstructed, and no officer is claimed from it. Nothing was written after the printed "amounting to." The firm's name appears twice, in the "to" line at the head and in the receipt at the foot, both times as Ettenger & Edmond, though the head is written so large and so fast that the medial vowels are formed only as loops.
Image 62 — Docket panel (outer fold of a folded voucher), No. 453, Ettenger & Edmond, February 19. 1862, $24.00
The blank outside of a folded voucher, filling the frame on a black ground that is heavily scratched and specked from the film, with two long white scratches running across the lower half of the exposure and a shorter one at the upper left. The paper is a clean pale wove stock; three vertical folds and one horizontal fold divide it, and the vertical folds show as sharp light lines because the sheet was still slightly tented when photographed. The docket sits at the top of the second panel in a fine, sloping, well-formed hand, four lines, each ruled under with a long horizontal stroke and a fifth rule closing the block; the same hand and the same layout as images 56, 57 (b) and 60. A small ink check mark stands in the left of the fourth line, immediately before the dollar sign, where a clerk has ticked the sum off. The Record Division oval handstamp is struck in the middle of the centre panel and is the strongest impression in this whole run: the double ring, both flanking stars and all three lines of lettering — RECORD DIVISION, REBEL ARCHIVES, WAR DEPARTMENT — can be read without difficulty, though the ink is grey and dry rather than black. The left and right panels carry reversed show-through from the printed form inside: ruled column lines and a scatter of figures on the left, and on the right a band of heavy printed matter at the height of the form's head, none of it resolvable as text. There is no other manuscript on the panel.
No 453.
Ettenger & Edmond
February 19. 1862
✓ $ 24.00
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES, *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: no computation on the panel — a single sum, $24.00, with a tick beside it. Pairing tested against both neighbours. It does not answer image 61, the account on the frame before: that one is dated February 12 and footed $2,578.62, and although one of its five extensions happens to be exactly $24.00, a docket answers a whole voucher and not a line within one. It does answer the next frame: image 63 is a Confederate States Navy Department bill IN TRIPLICATE to Ettenger & Edmond, entered Sept 3 for three wormers for large guns with handles at $8 each, footed $24 00, approved for "twenty four" dollars by George Minor, Comd, and receipted at Richmond Feb'y 19, 1862 from S. Stansbury, Capt. Artillery, the sum written out as "Twenty four dollars." Number, firm, figure and date all agree. This docket pairs with the account at image 63, the frame after it — the same one-frame-early arrangement seen at images 57 (b) and 58.
Flagged: the voucher number reads No 453; the middle figure is written like a long s, which is this clerk's 5 throughout (compare the 5 in 590 on image 59 and in 575 on image 61), and the last is a clear 3. That makes this docket and the one in the lower half of image 57 consecutive — No. 452 for $85.00 and No. 453 for $24.00, both dated February 19. 1862, both in the same hand — so the two were passed together on the same day, though the accounts they answer are more than five months apart in date of delivery. The firm is spelled Ettenger & Edmond, formed clearly enough here that the medial e and the o are both legible. The amount is written $24.00 with a full point, the same style as image 56, not the fractional 00/100 used on images 52 and 55. The tick before the dollar sign is a check mark in ink of the same colour as the docket and is a clerk's mark, not a letter. Nothing on this panel is illegible except the reversed show-through, which is not transcribed.
Image 63 — Confederate States Navy Department, Office of Ordnance & Hydrography, printed "IN TRIPLICATE" billhead; three wormers for large guns, 3 September 1861; approved and receipted at Richmond, February 1862; $24.00
A single tall sheet (scan about 3,520 x 4,506), portrait format, printed in a light-faced roman with the Navy Department's own triplicate billhead — not the "Confederate States of America / To Ettenger & Edmond Dr." Ordnance billhead used elsewhere in this file, and not a Commonwealth of Virginia form. The printed matter runs to a ruled money column at the right (dollars and cents divided by a fine vertical rule), with a receipt-and-approval block occupying the whole lower third. Only one entry was made, at the very top of the account; the clerk then drew a single long ornamental pen-stroke down the empty body of the bill to cancel the blank space, a great lazy S-curve running from about a third of the way down to the footing rule. The ink is iron-gall, now brown-black and quite firm; the hand of the account and of the firm's signature is a practised, looping commercial round hand with heavy flourishing on capitals. The receipt block carries three further hands — the receiving officer's, George Minor's signature, and the "Approved for" wording. There is a manuscript number, "1289", written large and underlined at the top right corner. A horizontal fold crosses the sheet below the money footing; light surface scuffs and a few small white flecks of emulsion loss appear at the lower left and across the receipt lines, one of them cutting through the word "triplicate" in the printed receipt, though the word remains legible. No handstamps.
1289
————
IN TRIPLICATE.
.....
The Confederate States Navy Department,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
Office of Ordnance & Hydrogy Appropriation for _______________
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
18 61
Sept 3d 3 Wormers for large Guns
with handles @ $8 | 24 00
|
$ 24 | 00
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
______ 186_ . RECEIVED the above articles for R. D. Minor
Lieut & Ord Officer
Richmond Feby 18, 1862 Office of Ordn: & Hydrogy
Approved for twenty four ——— dollars and ———
cents. For River Batteries . George Minor
Comd [printed "Captain" struck through] in charge.
Richmond Feby 19th 186 2 . Received of S[?]. Stansbury
Capt Artillery — Twenty four ——— dollars and ——— cents.
in full, of the above bill, and have signed triplicate receipts.
Ettenger & Edmond
$ 24 00/100
Checks: One line only. 3 wormers @ $8 = $24.00, which is the extension entered; the footing "$ 24 | 00" repeats it, the approval reads "twenty four" dollars, the receipt reads "Twenty four" dollars, and the summary figure at the foot is "$ 24 00/100". Proves exactly at $24.00 in every place it is written.
Flagged: The receiving officer's middle initial is a single looped stroke that could be read D or T; I read "R. D. Minor" but flag the initial. The initial before "Stansbury" in the receipt is a flourished capital I read as S but which could be read L or J — hence "S[?]. Stansbury". The office abbreviation is written "Hydrogy" (and "Ordn: & Hydrogy" in the receipt line); I have left it as written rather than expanding it to Hydrography. The printed word "Captain" in "Captain in charge" is struck through and "Comd" written above it, so Minor signs as Commander, not Captain, in charge of the office. "1289" at the head is a manuscript file or voucher number in a later hand than the account. The sheet is a Navy Department account, not an Army Ordnance Department one, and the destination noted in the approval — "For River Batteries" — is the only place named besides Richmond.
Image 64 — Docket (outer fold of a folded account), Ettenger & Edmond, Nov. 8, 1861, $1,000.00; War Department "Rebel Archives" handstamp
A landscape scan (about 4,416 x 3,640) of the blank outer face of a folded account, photographed with the underlying sheets of the same folded packet showing at the right-hand edge — three or four stepped paper edges and a faint mirror-image show-through of printed text from the account inside. The docket is written in the upper middle of the exposed panel, in a clean, well-spaced clerk's hand, each of the four lines ruled off with a fine pen line beneath it, the last with a double rule. The paper is heavily creased: one strong vertical fold left of centre, a second vertical fold at the right of the written panel, and two horizontal folds crossing them, so the sheet was folded in eighths for filing. Below the docket, straddling the lower horizontal fold, is the postwar oval handstamp of the Record Division — struck in a pale, dry, greyish ink, legible but weak in the inner ring. Scattered emulsion flecks and light scratches; the ink of the docket is brown-black and unfaded. No other writing on the face.
No 274.
——————————————————
Ettenger & Edmond
——————————————————————————————————
Nov 8. 1861
——————————————————————————————————
$1000.00
==================================
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
★ REBEL ARCHIVES. ★
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: No arithmetic on the sheet — a docket only; the single figure is $1000.00.
Flagged: Nothing doubtful in the reading. On pairing: the docket's figure and date test well against the account that follows. Image 65 is an Ordnance Office "Order for Supplies No. 194," Richmond, 28 October 1861, lying over an account whose money column shows $500.00 and $500.00 (two 8-inch Columbiad carriages at $575 apiece is the rate seen elsewhere in the file, but the figures actually on this sheet are 500), and the accounts at images 66 and 67 belong to the same transaction. A docket of "Nov 8. 1861 / $1000.00" is consistent with those two $500 extensions footing to $1,000; I state the match explicitly under image 67 once the account's own footing is read. The docket sits one frame BEFORE its account, which is the outer-fold pattern noted for this file. "No 274." is the voucher number written by the clerk, not a form number.
Image 65 — Ordnance Office order for supplies No. 194, Richmond, 28 October 1861: one 8-inch Columbiad carriage, chassis and platform, for Genl J. B. Magruder at Yorktown; signed Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance
A landscape scan (about 4,856 x 4,401) showing two overlapping documents: the order itself, a printed Ordnance Office form on a light wove sheet, lies on top and occupies the left three-quarters of the frame; beneath and to the right, projecting about a quarter of the frame's width, is the right-hand edge of a larger printed account sheet — a "Confederate States of America / To ... Dr." Ordnance billhead with its ruled money columns and REMARKS heading, its head bearing a manuscript "( 262 )" in parentheses, its money column showing 500 00, 500 00 (underscored with a wavy pen rule) and a footing whose leading figure is hidden by the overlying sheet, reading 000 00 where 1000 00 must stand, and its certification block showing the printed tail of "...t is correct and just, amounting to", a manuscript "...ief of Bureau" and the printed "STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,". That underlying sheet is a separate document, transcribed at its own frame; I record only what its exposed edge shows. The order's own printed matter is in a mixed face — blackletter for "Confederate States of America," small caps for the department lines, engraver's script for the body. The manuscript is in two hands: a fine, sloped clerk's hand for the order, and a heavier hand for the interlineations. "Please forward to" is struck through with a single stroke and "delivd" written above it. Down the left edge of the order, written at right angles to the text and reading upward, is a three-line receipting note. The order is creased with two vertical folds and several horizontal ones; a faint, almost exhausted strike of the oval Record Division / Rebel Archives / War Department handstamp sits in the lower middle of the order, its lettering only partly readable and its lower star clear. Light foxing at the upper left corner, a small white emulsion loss at the left edge, general surface scuffing.
Confederate States of America,
WAR DEPARTMENT.
ORDNANCE OFFICE,
Richmond, 28 Oct 1861
Order for Supplies No. 194
Mess. Ettenger and Edmonds
Sir:
delivd
Please forward to the order of
Capt. D. H. Wood (now finished and marked
Genl J. B. Magruder, (Yorktown)
the following Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, viz:
1 Carriage, Chassis and platform
for 8 inch Columbiad
Your obed't servt
Gorgas Lt Col
Chief of Ordnance.
[written up the left margin, at right angles:]
Recd & Shipped.
for D. H. Wood
Capt & A.Q.M.
[very faint oval handstamp across the lower middle:]
RECORD DIVISION, / REBEL ARCHIVES. / WAR DEPARTMENT.
[exposed right edge of the underlying account sheet:]
( 262 )
Dr.
REMARKS.
500 00
500 00
~~~~~~
000 00 [leading figure concealed]
...t is correct and just, amounting to
...ief of Bureau
STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
Checks: The order itself carries no figures — no arithmetic to prove on this sheet. The figures visible at the frame's right edge belong to the underlying account, not to the order.
Flagged: The firm is addressed here as "Ettenger and Edmonds" — the fourth of the spellings this file uses, and different from the "Ettenger & Edmond" of image 63 and the docket at image 64. "Mess." is written with a long s ("Meſs."). The three-line margin note is faint and crosses the printed matter; the third line reads "Capt & A.Q.M.", confirmed against the same note written more boldly on image 66 and against "A.Q.M." written large and clear on image 70. The mark to the right of "Gorgas" was illegible on this sheet alone; the identical mark on images 66 and 68 reads "Lt Col", and I have entered it so. The number on the underlying sheet reads "( 262 )"; the final digit is heavily flourished and could be a 4. The order is for ONE carriage, chassis and platform for an 8-inch Columbiad, while the underlying account shows two $500 extensions — a point to test when that account is read. The name of the officer in the parenthesis is "Genl J. B. Magruder"; the "J" is a looped capital that could be read L, but Magruder's initials settle it as far as the letterform allows, and I flag it rather than assert it. Destination named: Yorktown.
Image 66 — Ordnance Office order for supplies No. 178, Richmond, 25 October 1861: one 8-inch Columbiad carriage, chassis and platform, for General J. B. Magruder, Yorktown, Virginia; signed Gorgas, Lt Col, Chief of Ordnance
A landscape scan (about 4,732 x 4,413) laid out exactly like image 65: the printed Ordnance Office order lies on top over the left three-quarters, and the right-hand edge of the same underlying Ordnance account sheet projects at the right, again showing the manuscript "( 262 )", the printed "Dr." and "REMARKS." headings, the money column's first extension "500 00", the printed tail "...t is correct and just, amounting to", a manuscript "...ief of Bureau" and the printed "STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,". The order is on the same light wove stock and in the same fine sloped hand, with the same struck-and-corrected "Please forward to / delivd" interlineation. The printed line "ORDNANCE OFFICE," is disfigured by a heavy black smear of ink that obliterates the second half of "ORDNANCE" and most of "OFFICE"; a small inked comma stands before the "O". A dark brown stain, apparently glue or mounting residue with a smaller ink blot inside it, occupies the upper left corner and touches nothing of the text. Behind the header a large, very faint circular ring and a mass of reversed handwriting show through from the adjacent sheet — offset, not writing on this leaf. Down the left edge, at right angles and reading upward, is the same three-line receipting note, here written more boldly. Folds: two verticals and three or four horizontals. Scattered white emulsion flecks; a small loss at the left margin.
Confederate States of America,
WAR DEPARTMENT.
, ORDNANC[E OFFI]CE, [smeared with ink]
Richmond, 25 Oct 1861
Order for Supplies No. 178
Mess. Ettinger and Edmunds
Sir:
delivd
Please forward to the order of
Capt. D. H. Wood Q. Master, now finished and
marked General J. B. Magruder, Yorktown
Virginia
the following Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, viz:
1 Carriage, Chassis and platform for
8 inch Columbiad.
Your obed't servt
Gorgas Lt Col
Chief of Ordnance.
[written up the left margin, at right angles:]
Rec.d & Shipped.
D. H. Wood
Capt. & A.Q.M.
[exposed right edge of the underlying account sheet:]
( 262 )
Dr.
REMARKS.
500 00
...t is correct and just, amounting to
...ief of Bureau
STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
Checks: The order carries no figures of its own — no arithmetic to prove. The "500 00" at the frame's right edge belongs to the underlying account.
Flagged: The firm is addressed here as "Ettinger and Edmunds" — with an i in the first name and a u in the second — where image 65 has "Ettenger and Edmonds" with an e and an o. Compared side by side at high magnification the two sheets really are written differently, so I transcribe each as it stands rather than normalising them. The smear over "ORDNANCE OFFICE" is ink, not a cancellation of the office: the words are simply blotted, and I have bracketed the letters the smear covers. This order and the order at image 65 are for the same article — one carriage, chassis and platform for an 8-inch Columbiad — differently numbered (178 and 194) and eight days apart, which together account for the two $500 extensions on the underlying account. Note the difference in Wood's style between the two orders: "Q. Master" here, no title on image 65, and "Capt. & A.Q.M." in the margin note of both. The circular ring behind the header is an offset impression, not a handstamp struck on this sheet, and I do not read it.
Image 67 — Account, Ettenger & Edmond, October 1861: two 8-inch Columbiad carriages with chassis and turning platforms for Yorktown, $1,000.00; certified by George Minor, receipted at Richmond 8 November 1861 from Smith Stansbury
A landscape scan (about 4,780 x 4,647) of the account itself, laid over the two orders that answer it — the foot of one of them projects along the bottom of the frame, showing "Your obed't servt / Gorgas Lt Col / Chief of Ordnance." and the tail of a margin note at the left, and a second sheet's edge shows behind it. The account is on a large printed Confederate States of America Ordnance billhead with a manuscript "( 262 )" in the top right corner, ruled money columns (dollars, cents, and a wide REMARKS column left blank), and a printed certification-and-receipt block filling the lower third. The upper left corner of the sheet is torn away, taking the first word of the printed heading, so it reads "...erate States of America,"; the tear runs down about a fifth of the left edge and there is a dark stain along its edge. The manuscript is in a fine, even, slightly right-sloped hand for the account, a bolder and more hurried hand for the certification and the receipt. Two lines are cancelled by ruled pen strokes: "and Currency" in the receipt, and the printed "in full of the above account." at the foot, the latter replaced by the same words written by hand a line above. A faint, partly struck oval handstamp — the Record Division / Rebel Archives / War Department oval — sits across the foot of the money column and the printed "correct and just" line, only a few of its letters readable. Two horizontal folds and one vertical. Film-edge lettering, upside down and cut by the frame, runs along the black top margin of the scan; it is a filming caption, not part of the document.
( 262 )
[Confed]erate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
REMARKS.
186 1 .
Oct 28 One 8in Columbiad Carriage,
, Chassis & Turning Platform (Yorktown) 500 00
31 One 8in Columbiad Carriage, Chassis
& Turning Platform (Yorktown) 500 00
~~~~~~~~
$ 1000 00
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
____________________________________________
George Minor Comdr In[?] Chief of Bureau
and that the property has been received and accounted for.
RICHMOND, November 8. 186 1 . Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
One thousand dollars in Bonds and Currency
in full of the above account Ettenger & Edmond
in full of the above account. [printed line, struck through]
[faint oval handstamp across the foot of the money column:]
RECORD DIVISION, / REBEL ARCHIVES. / WAR DEPARTMENT.
[foot of the underlying order, projecting along the bottom of the frame:]
Your obed't servt
Gorgas Lt Col
Chief of Ordnance.
Checks: Two extensions, $500.00 and $500.00, no quantities or rates stated separately — each line is one carriage, chassis and turning platform priced as a unit. 500.00 + 500.00 = 1000.00, and the footing is written "$ 1000 00". The receipt is for "One thousand dollars." Proves exactly at $1,000.00.
Flagged: The printed blank after "amounting to" was never filled in — the certifying officer left the sum unwritten, so the certification carries no figure. The words after "Comdr" in George Minor's signature I read as "In", giving "Comdr In Chief of Bureau"; the two letters are joined and could be read otherwise, and the phrase is unusual (on image 63 Minor signs "Comd ... in charge"), so it is flagged rather than asserted. "and Currency" is struck out of the receipt, leaving payment "in Bonds" only — a deliberate correction, not damage. The printed "in full of the above account." at the very foot is struck through and the same words written in manuscript above it; both are recorded. The firm is spelled "Ettenger & Edmond" both in the billhead heading and in the signature; the final vowel of the surname is a shallow loop that could be read u, but I read o in both places. On pairing: this account is dated 8 November 1861 at Richmond, totals $1,000.00, and is for Ettenger & Edmond — matching the docket at image 64 ("No 274. / Ettenger & Edmond / Nov 8. 1861 / $1000.00") on name, date and figure exactly. The docket at image 64 is therefore this account's outer fold, filmed three frames before it, with the two Ordnance orders that authorised the work (images 65 and 66) filmed between them.
Image 68 — Second exposure of the same account (Ettenger & Edmond, October 1861, two 8-inch Columbiad carriages for Yorktown, $1,000.00, receipted 8 November 1861)
A landscape scan (about 4,788 x 4,430) of the same physical sheet as image 67, photographed again with the camera moved in a little and the sheet a shade lower in the frame, so the film-edge lettering that ran along the top of the previous frame is gone and rather more of the underlying order shows along the bottom. The identity of the two frames is not a matter of inference: the torn upper left corner and the brown stain along its edge match outline for outline between the two exposures, as does every stroke of the writing. The sheet is the same large printed Ordnance billhead, "( 262 )" at the top right, the money column and blank REMARKS column ruled, the certification and receipt block below, the two cancelled passages ("and Currency" and the printed "in full of the above account.") struck exactly as before. The faint oval Record Division / Rebel Archives / War Department handstamp again shows at the foot of the money column, no more legible than before. Along the bottom of this frame the foot of the underlying Ordnance order is fully clear, showing "Your obed't servt / Gorgas Lt Col / Chief of Ordnance." with the tail of its vertical margin note at the left, and a second sheet's corner projects below and to the left of it.
( 262 )
[Confed]erate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
REMARKS.
186 1 .
Oct 28 One 8in Columbiad Carriage,
, Chassis & Turning Platform (Yorktown) 500 00
31 One 8in Columbiad Carriage, Chassis
& Turning Platform (Yorktown) 500 00
~~~~~~~~
$ 1000 00
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
____________________________________________
George Minor Comdr In Chief of Bureau
and that the property has been received and accounted for.
RICHMOND, November 8. 186 1 . Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
One thousand dollars in Bonds and Currency
in full of the above account Ettenger & Edmond
in full of the above account. [printed line, struck through]
[foot of the underlying order, projecting along the bottom of the frame:]
Your obed't servt
Gorgas Lt Col
Chief of Ordnance.
Checks: 500.00 + 500.00 = 1000.00, footed "$ 1000 00" and receipted as "One thousand dollars." Proves exactly at $1,000.00, as on image 67.
Flagged: This frame is a second exposure of the account at image 67, not a duplicate original — the torn corner, the stain and the ink strokes are identical. It is nevertheless recorded in full rather than cross-referenced, so that the sequence is complete. This exposure resolves one reading left uncertain on image 67: the word after "Comdr" in George Minor's signature is legible here as "In", giving "George Minor Comdr In Chief of Bureau"; the phrasing is odd but the letters are clear. The printed blank after "amounting to" is again seen to be unfilled. Nothing else on the sheet reads differently from image 67.
Image 69 — Docket No. 611 and its account together in one frame: Ettenger & Edmond, 4 December 1861, one 8-inch Columbiad carriage, chassis, platform, handspikes &c, $575.00; receipted at Richmond 6 December 1861
A single portrait frame (2,550 x 3,300, noticeably coarser and lower in resolution than the surrounding scans) carrying two separate exposures stacked one above the other on the one page. The upper exposure is the docket: the blank outer panel of the folded account, its four lines of docketing written in the upper third with a ruled line beneath each, the paper deeply creased into vertical panels with the fold lines showing as dark bands, and the oval Record Division / Rebel Archives / War Department handstamp struck squarely in the middle of the panel — the crispest strike of that stamp in this range, every word of the outer ring legible and the two flanking stars sharp, the inner "REBEL ARCHIVES." line the weakest part. At the right edge of that exposure the stepped edges of two further sheets show, each with a faint "186_" visible. The lower exposure is the account itself, on the same printed Confederate States of America Ordnance billhead used at images 67 and 68, complete and untorn, with "611" and a long flourish written at the top right corner, the ruled money columns and blank REMARKS column, and the printed certification and receipt block below. A brown circular stain, about the size of a coin, sits in the left margin of the account beside the first entry. The whole lower exposure is pale and flat in contrast; the printed matter reads well but the ink of the manuscript is thin. Horizontal folds cross both exposures.
[upper exposure — docket:]
No 611.
——————————————————————————
Ettenger & Edmond
——————————————————————————————————————
Decr 6. 1861
——————————————————————————————————————
$575.00
==========================================
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
★ REBEL ARCHIVES. ★
WAR DEPARTMENT.
[lower exposure — account:]
611
Confederate States of America,
To Ettenger & Edmond Dr.
REMARKS.
186 1 .
Dec 4 One 8in Columbiad Carriage
Chassis Platform Handspikes
&c $ 575 00
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
____________________________________________
[unsigned]
and that the property has been received and accounted for.
RICHMOND, Decem 6 186 1 . Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
Five hundred and Seventy five dolls
in full of the above account. Ettenger & Edmond
Signed in duplicate
Checks: A single entry priced as a unit, $575.00, with no separate quantity or rate; there is no separate footing line — the extension is the total. The receipt reads "Five hundred and Seventy five dolls", and the docket reads "$575.00". Proves exactly at $575.00.
Flagged: The certification is UNSIGNED — no officer's name stands over "Chief of Bureau", and the blank after "amounting to" is likewise unfilled, so nobody certified this account on the face of the sheet even though it was receipted and paid. That is worth checking against any duplicate elsewhere in the file. The month in the receipt line is written "Decem" with a trailing flourish that may be an abbreviating stroke for "Decemr"; the docket writes it "Decr". The firm is "Ettenger & Edmond" in all three places on this frame — docket, billhead heading and signature — though at this resolution the vowel after "Ett" is not as clearly an e as it is on images 67 and 68. On pairing: docket and account are on the SAME frame, and they agree on every point — name, "No 611" against the "611" written in the account's top right corner, $575.00 against the account's $575 00, and Decr 6. 1861 against the receipt date of 6 December 1861 at Richmond. The account's own transaction date is 4 December; the docket takes the date of payment, two days later. "Signed in duplicate" under the firm's signature records that a second copy was executed.
Image 70 — Ordnance Office order for supplies No. 310, Richmond, 2 December 1861: an oak carriage, chassis and platform for a 5.82-inch rifled Columbiad with elevating apparatus, traversing ironwork, wrenches and handspikes, marked for Genl L. Polk at Columbus, Ky.; signed J. Gorgas, Lieut Col
A tall single sheet (scan about 3,512 x 4,497), portrait, the same printed Ordnance Office order form as images 65 and 66 but photographed alone, with no other document under it. The upper left corner is torn clean away in a ragged bite roughly four inches deep and two wide, cutting into the blank margin but stopping short of any printed or written matter. The printed heading is in the same mixed founts — blackletter, small caps and a heavy grotesque for "ORDNANCE OFFICE," — and the whole of the writing is in one careful, well-formed hand in strong black ink, better preserved and easier to read than either of the October orders. The printed "forward to" in "Please forward to the order of" is obliterated by a dense scribble rather than a single ruled stroke, and the sentence rebuilt in manuscript around it. In the item list one word at the end of the "Traversing segments" line is cancelled by a heavy multiple stroke and is now unreadable, with "Rivets & Spikes" written boldly above the line as its replacement. Across the blank ruled line between the address and "the following Ordnance and Ordnance Stores" stand four large numeral-3-like pen marks, evenly spaced right across the sheet — a filler cancellation of the empty line rather than a figure of account. Down the left margin, at right angles and reading upward, is a three-line receipt in a second hand. Two horizontal folds and one vertical; a broad dark tonal band crosses the middle of the scan where the lighting fell off, greying two of the four marks and part of the item column, though nothing is lost.
Confederate States of America,
WAR DEPARTMENT,
ORDNANCE OFFICE,
Richmond, Decr 2d 1861
Order for Supplies No. 310
Messrs Ettenger & Edmond[s?]
Sirs
Please forward to [scribbled out] mark Genl L Polk
Columbus Ky. and deliver to the order of Capt D H Wood
A.Q.M.
3 3 3 3
the following Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, viz:
1 | Oak Carriage for 5.82" Rifled Columbiad, with Elevating apparatus
1 | ,, Chassis ,, ,, ,, ,,
1 | ,, Platform ,, ,, ,, ,,
Rivets & Spikes
| Traversing segments, pintle plate, pintle pin, Tie plates & [cancelled, illegible]
2 | Manoevring Wrenches
2 | ,, Handspikes
Your obedt servt
J. Gorgas Lieut Col
Chief of Ordnance.
[written up the left margin, at right angles:]
Recd these Articles Dec 8 1861
Thos A. Mitchell
Checks: No money figures on the sheet — an order for supplies, not an account, so there is no arithmetic to prove. The quantities are 1, 1, 1, 2, 2 with one unnumbered line of traversing ironwork.
Flagged: The firm is addressed "Messrs Ettenger & Edmond" with a long terminal flourish that may or may not be a final s — hence "Edmond[s?]". The word cancelled at the end of the "Traversing segments" line is struck through several times with a broad nib and cannot be read; the interlined replacement "Rivets & Spikes" is clear, and the cancelled word is of about the right length to have been a similar item, but I will not name it. The salutation reads "Sirs" where images 65 and 66 have "Sir:", and I cannot tell at this resolution whether the final s is printed or added by hand. The four large marks on the blank line are read as filler cancellation, not as a quantity; they are of the same form as a numeral 3 but stand alone in an empty ruled line and belong to no column. The receiving signature is "Thos A. Mitchell" — a name not otherwise met in this range; the surname is written with a heavy terminal and could conceivably be Mitchel. The calibre is written "5.82"" with the inch mark, and the piece is described as a rifled Columbiad; the destination is Columbus, Ky., care of "Genl L Polk" — the only place outside Virginia named in these eight frames. Note that Gorgas signs "J. Gorgas Lieut Col" in full here, where images 65 and 66 have only "Gorgas".
Part 2 — What the file shows, and what it does not prove
An order, a bill, and a carriage on the road
The reason to read this file whole is that its pieces fit together. Take November 1861. Images 39 and 40 are Ordnance Office orders signed by Gorgas — one for a wooden 32-pounder carriage, chassis and platform; one for an oak 8-inch Columbiad carriage. Image 38 is the account that answers them, billing a carriage for Jamestown and another for Evansport in the same hand. Image 41 is a manuscript receipt for a small wrought-iron hot-shot furnace shipped out, and image 50 a printed forwarding receipt for a carriage and packages of ordnance stores leaving Richmond. Image 51 consigns a load to Gen. Magruder by steamer from Rocketts wharf.
Order, invoice, and bill of lading, three or four frames apart. That sequence is what a gun-carriage contract actually looked like.
The arithmetic
Every account was checked line by line: quantity times rate against each extension, and the extensions against the footing. No figure has been corrected. This is the cleanest of the four files published here — the great majority prove exactly, among them $2,575.00, $1,000.00, $1,161.00, $1,267.96, $1,436.72, $736.83, $575.20, $2,155.08, $2,578.62 and $3,734.25, the largest in the file, where six 32-pounder chassis at $575 and 2,226 lb of extra iron at 12½¢ foot without a cent out of place.
Carriage prices are steady and legible: $500, then $575, and by 1862 $718.36 apiece. Iron runs at 5½¢, 7¢, 12½¢, 13½¢ and 16¢ the pound.
Where a sheet does not prove, or cannot, it is published as it stands:
| Image | What is wrong | |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | 5,195 lb at 5½¢ is $285.725, entered $285.73; 477 lb at 12½¢ is $59.625, entered $59.63 | rounded up, twice |
| 18 | 1,113 lb at 12½¢ is $139.125, entered $139.12 | the half-cent dropped |
| 31 | 1,203 lb at 13½¢ is $162.405, entered $162.41 | rounded up |
| 61 | 401 lb at 12½¢ is $50.125, entered $50.12 | dropped |
| 53 | The ink has faded almost into the paper. Only one other figure stands in the money column and it cannot be read, so the footing of $1,436.72 cannot be proved from the sheet — though the certificate in words, the receipt in words and two dockets all agree with it | left unproved rather than reconstructed |
The clerk, in other words, rounded a half-cent up as often as he dropped it, and nobody ever reconciled the practice.
The dockets do not sit with their accounts
This is the structural finding of the file, and it matters for anyone using these images. A docket is very often not filmed beside the account it answers. Across seventy frames the readings found dockets that sit one frame before their account as the outer fold of the same sheet; dockets filmed three frames ahead of their account, with the orders that authorised the work in between; dockets that pair with an account two frames away and out of order; and outright strays whose accounts are not in the file at all.
Two examples worth having:
- Image 33's docket does not agree with the account filmed beside it. It reads $2,155.08; its neighbour foots at $2,225.08. The difference is $70.00 — two manoeuvring wheels added at the foot of image 32. The docket was written against the account before that addition.
- Image 54 carries a sum identical to the cent with images 52 and 53, but a different date and a different number. It is a stray, and it is flagged as one rather than matched on the strength of the figure.
Numbers on the same voucher disagree too. A docket numbered 563 sits with an account numbered 568, with a fainter 556 below it. Another docket reads 452 against an account corner-marked 455. All recorded as seen; none reconciled.
Paperwork left undone
Three sheets carry certificates that were never completed, and they are transcribed that way:
- Image 46 — the printed certificate is left entirely unsigned.
- Image 47 — the printed clause "and that the property has been received and accounted for" is struck through before Rives signed.
- Images 67 and 68 — the "amounting to" blank was never filled in.
- Image 69 — the certification is unsigned.
One sheet says "Signed Triplicates" in manuscript directly above a printed "SIGNED DUPLICATES."
The firm's own name
Ettenger & Edmond is spelled at least four ways across the file — Ettenger & Edmond, Ettinger & Edmond, Ettinger & Edmund, Ettinger & Edmonds — and on at least one sheet the two faces disagree with each other, the docket reading Edmund where its own account reads Edmond. The printed billhead and every signature by the partners themselves read Ettenger & Edmond; the variants are clerks writing at speed. Every spelling is transcribed as it stands, and the medial vowels were checked at magnification rather than normalised.
Part 3 — Proposed identifications (external knowledge; flagged, never merged)
| In the file | Proposed identification | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| J. Gorgas, Lieut. Col., Chief of Ordnance | Josiah Gorgas, chief of the Confederate Ordnance Bureau — the same officer who leased the Bellona Foundry from Junius Archer | High; the file states the office |
| Genl. J. B. Magruder | John Bankhead Magruder, commanding the Army of the Peninsula | High; image 59 is headed from his headquarters at Yorktown |
| Genl. L. Polk | Leonidas Polk, commanding at Columbus, Kentucky | Stated as read |
| Lardner Gibbon, Capt. Ordnance Duty | The officer certifying carriage accounts here and in the Archer file | Stated as read |
| Smith Stansbury, Capt. of Artillery | The paying officer, printed into several of the forms | Stated as read |
| Thos. S. Rhett, Capt. & Insp. Ord. | Signs as inspector of ordnance, as in the Archer file | Stated as read |
| Alfred L. Rives, Acting Chief of the Engineer Bureau | Signs the trestle-bridge accounts | Stated as read |
Open questions
- Which account image 54's docket belongs to. Its figure matches two sheets here to the cent, its date and number match neither.
- What the three conflicting numbers on one voucher mean — 563, 568 and 556 on a single transaction.
- Whether images 39 and 40 are the orders behind image 38's two carriages. The dates, the guns and the destinations line up; nothing on the sheets says so outright, and it is offered as a proposal.
- How image 38's dates run — 25, 30, 1 and 19 under a single heading "Novemr," where one reading puts a delivery after the receipt that paid for it.
A note on two pairs of frames: images 67 and 68 are one sheet photographed twice, proved by an identical tear and stain outline, and so are images 41 and 42. Both are transcribed in full rather than cross-referenced, so that the page-by-page sequence is unbroken.
A second, independent reading exists for images 7–12 and for images 59 and 69. Those were made when a reader was believed lost and another was sent over the same ground. They are kept beside this transcription rather than merged into it. On images 7, 9 and 10 the two readings agree exactly, figure for figure — the same items, the same rates, the same extensions and the same footing of $287.60 — which is as good a check on this edition as it is likely to get.