Junius L. Archer and the Bellona Foundry — 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 |
| Full name (Fold3 index) | Archer, J L |
| State (Fold3 index) | Virginia |
| Roll | 0009 |
| SHA-256 | 632f593f7ec8dc86ce4ad9d61ff2e4bbb37e14f18ca2b4b4b1f6d0c4b8f96b06 |
| Page count | 48, all archival |
A note on how this file was put back together. On the drive it sits in two folders, "Archer, J L" (43 images) and "Archer, Junius L." (5 images). They are one file, not two: sorted by Fold3 image number the five fall inside the sequence at positions 1–3 and 25–26. A separate, older partial download of twenty Page N.jpg files sits in the same folder; every one of them duplicates a page already present at a different compression, and they are excluded. What is transcribed here is the 48 distinct images in their original order.
Machine OCR is worthless here and was not used. Every page is in cursive. Across all 48 images Tesseract finds the words Bellona, Archer, Richmond, cannon and shell not once between them. Every page below was read by eye from the scan.
What this file is
Junius L. Archer owned the Bellona Foundry, and in January 1863 he leased it to the Confederate States to make cannon. This file is the paper of that arrangement and of the four years around it, 1861 to 1864.
The identification needs no outside help — the documents say it themselves, repeatedly. The lease names the property "the Bellona Foundry and Arsenal" in Chesterfield County; Archer signs receipt after receipt as "Supt. Bellona Works"; two accounts are headed "Bellona Foundry" in the clerk's own hand; an autograph order of June 1863 is written from "Bellona Arsenal"; and the last voucher in the file leases "the premises known as Bellona Arsenal & Foundry."
The lease (images 3 and 2, filed in reverse order) runs three years from 1 January 1863, at $28,000 a year payable in quarterly instalments of $7,000, with an option to purchase at referees' valuation. It conveys the boring mill, magazine, stack, furnaces, water privileges, tools, flasks and patterns, and it says what the government wanted them for: "for manufacturing cannon." It is executed for the Confederate States by Josiah Gorgas, Colonel and Chief of Ordnance, and acknowledged before a Richmond notary on 29 January 1863.
The guns are priced by the pound, and the file lets you watch the rate move. Eight-inch Columbiads at 8,800 lb went at 6½¢ in the autumn of 1861 and 8¢ by April 1862. Ten-inch Columbiads run a consistent 13,800 lb apiece at 8½¢ — $1,173.00 a gun — three of them in one November 1862 charge and two more in December. A 9-inch Dahlgren, an 8-inch Columbiad and a 24-pounder go at 8¢ in May 1862; a 7-inch rifle gun of 14,987 lb at 10¢; and by April 1863 a 9-inch Dahlgren of 9,480 lb is charged at 16¢. Proof shot, freight at $10 a gun, toll on six cannon and the loading of a boat at night are charged alongside them.
Some of the guns can be followed out of the yard. The account of 20 October 1861 charges four 8-inch Columbiads and gives their individual gun numbers — 29, 30, 31 and 32 — with the places they were sent: Yorktown, Virginia; Fort Macon, North Carolina; and Cedar Keys, Florida. A later account charges the re-boring of two 9-inch guns out to 7-inch and 8-inch, and then credits the work back at $1,579.20 when they were returned.
Image 1 — Outer file jacket, endorsed with the name only: "Archer, Junius L." — no date, no figures
A tall, narrow outer wrapper of heavy laid paper, photographed on a black background, folded twice horizontally so that two strong creases run across the sheet at about the one-third and one-half points; a third fold runs down near the right edge. The paper is chipped and torn along the top edge and again on the right margin about a third of the way down, where a piece roughly two inches long has broken away; a short tear runs in from the same edge lower down. The only original writing is a single line of large, confident brown-black ink script across the head of the wrapper, in a clerk's flourished hand with a heavy shaded downstroke on the capital A of Archer and on the J and L of the given name. The rest of the sheet is blank apart from a soiled fold-line and, near the foot, a purple oval archival handstamp, struck faintly and partly filled in with the paper's texture but legible.
Archer, Junius L.
[oval handstamp, near foot of sheet:]
ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE
[rule]
DIVISION
CONFEDERATE ARCHIVES
Checks: no figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: The given name is written in a looped hand and could be read as "Junius" or, with less warrant, "Jumus"/"Junins"; the letter count and the terminal -s support Junius, and I read it so. Note that this is the jacket's own docketing, not a statement by Archer — it is nevertheless the first place in the file where the initials "J. L." are expanded, and it expands them to Junius L. That bears on the Bellona Foundry proposal but is recorded here as evidence, not conclusion. The handstamp is the standard postwar U.S. Adjutant General's Office, Confederate Archives Division oval; the word in the middle band reads DIVISION but is weakly struck. No date or dollar figure appears anywhere on the wrapper.
Image 2 — Second leaf of a lease of "the Foundry" between J. L. Archer and the Confederate States, dated 1 January 1863, acknowledged at Richmond, Virginia, 29 January 1863; certified a true copy — no money figures
A large single leaf of faintly blue-ruled writing paper, written on one side only in a fine, fast, well-formed clerical hand with a sharp nib and iron-gall ink now faded to a light grey-brown in the upper half and darker where the pen was freshly charged. The sheet is creased by one heavy horizontal fold a little below the middle — the fold has abraded the ink along its length and the paper has begun to split there at both margins — and the right edge is chipped and torn away in several small bites, costing the last letter or two of a few lines. A dark ink blot sits on the fold at the right of centre, and a smaller round blot lies in the left margin near the foot. Two later hands appear: the word "(Signed)" written small and centred twice, and, at the very foot, the certification, in a broader and blacker ink than the body. A pencil or ink figure "(1.)" is set in the middle of the sheet below the signatures. This is plainly not the first leaf of the instrument — the text begins in mid-agreement with no heading, no parties clause and no date at the head.
The Officers of the Confederate States, in charge of the Foundry shall be at liberty
to make additions or improvements, as may seem best to them - but is understood
that if any improvements of a permanent character are made - they are to become
the property of the said Archer unless the party of the second part purchase the
property leased at the expiration of the lease, in which event, in the assessment
of prices[?] to be paid by the said Confederate States as above provided, the value of said
improvements, is to be excluded from the Estimate of the referees.
It is understood that any machinery placed in or upon the property
leased by the party of the second part may be removed by said party at any time
It is farther understood that the property leased, if returned, is to be left in good
order, all necessary expenses of repairs during the lease being borne by the party of the
second part
All scrap & pig iron on the premises is to be purchased by the party of the second
part - at a fair valuation to be agreed upon, but all building material on hand and
such parts of machinery including preparations for boring beds &c. now on hand are
to be used by the party of the second part without charge
Witness the following Signatures & Seals
(Signed)
J. L. Archer (Seal)
J. Gorgas Col Ch[f] of O[rd][?] (Seal)
State of Virginia
City of Richmond to wit
I T. G. Wreachy[?] Jr. a Notary Public for the city aforesaid in
the State of Virginia, do certify that Junius L. Archer, whose name is signed
to the writing above, bearing date on the first day of January 1863 has acknowl-
edged the same before me in my city aforesaid. Given under my hand this
29th day of January 1863
(Signed) T. G. Wreachy[?] Jr. N. P.
A true copy.
Edw B Smith, Capt
& As[s]t. to Chief of Ord
Checks: no figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The only quantitative terms are the covenants themselves (fair valuation of scrap and pig iron, assessment by referees), all left unpriced on this leaf.
Flagged: The word transcribed "prices[?]" in line 6 is written faintly across a rubbed patch; it has six or seven minims and could conceivably be read otherwise, but "prices" is what the sense and the letter-count support. Gorgas's added title after "Col" is overwritten by the drawn scroll of the word "(Seal)" and is only partly recoverable; I read "Ch[f] of O[rd]" but the last two or three letters are lost under the seal. The notary's surname is written the same way twice and I read it "Wreachy," first letter a script W; it could be a U, and the name is not one I can resolve — do not treat the spelling as settled. The word "(Signed)" before each signature shows that this leaf is a clerk's fair copy, not the executed original, which is consistent with the certification at the foot. The instrument is a lease of a foundry, with an option in the Confederate States to purchase at expiration, and refers to boring beds and to scrap and pig iron on the premises — a cannon foundry's furniture. That, with the notary's expansion of the name to Junius L. Archer, is strong support for the proposal that this is Junius L. Archer of the Bellona Foundry, Chesterfield County, but neither Bellona nor Chesterfield is named on this leaf, so the identification remains a proposal. The first leaf of the lease — which would carry the date, the parties, the description of the property and the rent — is not this image; look for it among the other sheets. The right-edge chipping costs the final letter of several lines, all of which I have been able to supply from the sense without ambiguity except where marked.
Image 3 — First leaf of the same lease: Junius L. Archer of Chesterfield County leases the "Bellona Foundry and Arsenal" to the Confederate States through Col. Josiah Gorgas, 1 January 1863, for three years at $28,000 a year
A large single leaf of the same faintly ruled paper as Image 2, written on one side in the same fine clerical hand, the ink light grey-brown throughout and much rubbed. The head of the sheet carries two or three overlapping oval archival handstamps, struck upside down with respect to the text and cut off at the top edge of the frame. A heavy horizontal fold crosses the sheet about two-thirds of the way down; the paper has split at both ends of that fold, and the black wedge-shaped tears show through as dark arrowheads at the left and right margins — passing across the words at that height, so that at first glance the line appears to be struck through. It is not: the line is damage, not cancellation. The left edge is chipped in two or three places, and a scatter of small ink spots lies over the lower third. There is no signature, seal, notarial clause or docket on this leaf; it ends in mid-agreement, and Image 2 continues it.
This agreement made and entered into this first day of
January 1863 between Junius L Archer of the County of Chesterfield & State
of Virginia of the first part & the Confederate States of America through
Josiah Gorgas Colonel & Chief of Ordnance of the Second part Witnesseth,
That the said Archer doth demise to the party of the Second part, all the following
property viz: The Property & grounds situated in Chesterfield County in the State
of Virginia, known as the "Bellona Foundry and Arsenal" including Boring Mill,
Magazine, Stack[?], Furnaces &c. with all lands adjacent thereto necessary for the use of the
same & all the buildings & Structures of every kind in said property, with water privileges
& all other rights & privileges attached thereto, together with all tools, flasks, patterns &c here-
tofore used in or about said property, for manufacturing cannon from & after the first
of January 1863. for the term of Three Years thence ensuing yielding therefor during the said
term the rent of Twenty Eight thousand Dollars ($28000) per annum, payable for the first
year in advance & for the remaining years, in equal quarterly payments of Seven thousand
Dollars ($7000) each upon the first day of April, July, October & January respectively of each year.
And the said Archer covenants & agrees that at the expiration of the said term of
three years the party of the Second part shall have the privilege of purchasing the Property here
in leased, at a price to be assessed according to their existing values. by referees chosen
as follows, one by the party of the first part, One by the party of the second part and these
two to select a third in case of their disagreement.
The said Archer reserves during the continuance of this lease for the use of his
family one set of Quarters - provided he accepts on or before the first day of January 1863
a position as Superintendent or manager, under an Officer of the Party of the Second
part
The said Archer is excluded from putting up any buildings, workshops or other
Structures on the premises or in the vicinity, without permission from the party of
the Second part
[at head of sheet, struck inverted, two or three overlapping ovals:]
WAR DEPARTMENT
RECORD DIVISION
REBEL ARCHIVES.
Checks: Two figures, and they agree with each other. Rent of Twenty Eight thousand Dollars ($28000) per annum, payable after the first year in equal quarterly payments of Seven thousand Dollars ($7000) each on 1 April, 1 July, 1 October and 1 January: 4 × $7,000 = $28,000. Proves exactly at $28,000 per annum. There is no footing or account on the sheet; nothing else to prove.
Flagged: "Magazine, Stack[?], Furnaces &c." — the second item is blotted across the vowel and could be read "Stack" or "Stacks"; I read a singular. The line ending "...purchasing the Property here" runs into the torn right edge and the next line begins "in leased"; the word is plainly herein, broken across the lines without a hyphen, but I have transcribed what each line actually carries rather than joining them silently. The apparent strikethrough across "as follows, one by the party of the first part" is the fold and tear, not a cancellation — I satisfied myself of this by following the same line right across the sheet into the margin tears. This leaf answers the question the file poses: the property leased is named on the page as the "Bellona Foundry and Arsenal" in Chesterfield County, Virginia, leased for manufacturing cannon by Junius L Archer to the Confederate States through Josiah Gorgas Colonel & Chief of Ordnance. The Bellona identification is therefore no longer a proposal but the document's own words, and the rent, $28,000, matches the "$28000" endorsed on the jacket described in the task. Images 3 and 2 are the same instrument, in that order — the file has them reversed.
Image 4 — Printed endorsement panel of a C. S. Nitre and Mining Service receipt, No. 59, for six lots of "Glenwood" and "Liberty" pig iron, from J. L. Archer, Supt., Bellona Works, to Capt. R. Morton, 25 March 1863 — weights only, no money
The outer, docketing side of a folded printed form of the C. S. Nitre and Mining Service, photographed flat so that both blank wings of the fold show at the left and right of the frame; the two vertical folds are visible as soft grey lines and the paper is lightly foxed and speckled throughout, with the ink of the inner writing showing faintly through from the other side. The printed matter — the heading, a short rule, and the words "No.", "Receipt for", "To", "From" and the year "186" with dotted leader-rules — is in black type; everything else is filled in by hand in a small, neat, business-like script with a fine nib and black ink, quite different from the clerical hand of the lease. The six weight entries are grouped by a large hand-drawn brace. Near the foot, struck right side up on the sheet but upside down with respect to nothing (the panel itself reads with the fold at the top), is a clear double-oval handstamp with a five-pointed star at each side.
C. S. NITRE AND MINING SERVICE.
————
No. 59.
5. ℔s "Glenwood" pig Iron
29. 588
13. 1903 do do
Receipt for { 28. 1017 "Liberty" do
6. 820 do do
59. 1564 do do
To Capt. R. Morton
From J L Archer Supt
Bellona works
25th March 1863
[double-oval handstamp, lower centre:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: No money on the sheet, and no footing: the six weights are listed but never added. For what it is worth, they do not sum to the last line — 5 + 29 + 13 + 28 + 6 tons and 588 + 1903 + 1017 + 820 pounds give 81 tons 4328 lbs, that is 82 tons 2088 lbs at 2,240 lbs to the long ton, which is not the 59 tons 1564 lbs of the bottom entry. The bottom line is therefore a sixth lot, not a total, and there is no arithmetic on this sheet to prove.
Flagged: "No. 59." is handwritten on the printed "No. ____" rule and is the receipt's own number; the printed heading carries no form number. The first weight line reads "5." and then the abbreviation "℔s" where the other lines carry a pounds figure — the mark is unmistakably the ℔ ligature with a terminal s. I cannot tell whether the clerk meant it as the heading of the pounds column (leaving the first lot at 5 tons even) or as part of the entry; I have set it down as written and drawn no conclusion. The first two lines share the single description "Glenwood" pig Iron, which is written large across both. "Capt. R. Morton" I read confidently; the given name is not spelled out. Archer signs himself here as Supt of Bellona works — the second independent confirmation in this range that J. L. Archer is the Bellona man, and the first place he is shown acting as superintendent, which squares with the reservation of quarters "provided he accepts... a position as Superintendent or manager" in the lease at Image 3. The receipt itself — the body that this panel dockets — is not on this image.
Image 5 — The receipt itself: J. L. Archer, Supt. Bellona Works, receipts at Richmond, 25 March 1863, to Capt. Richard Morton, C. S. Nitre & Mining Bureau, for five deliveries of Glenwood and Liberty pig iron — footed at 137 tons 1412 lbs
The inside of the same folded form as Image 4, a printed and ruled receipt blank filled in throughout in the same small, controlled, black-ink business hand. The sheet is ruled with faint blue horizontal lines and has three ruled vertical columns at the right — a wide description column, then narrow money-style columns headed in ink "Tons" and "lbs" — with a double vertical rule marking off the figures. A heavy double rule runs under the printed heading. The paper is clean, lightly foxed, and shows the two vertical folds; nothing is torn and nothing is lost. A tall hand-drawn brace gathers the memorandum at the foot to the entries above it. The signature appears twice, once inside the brace and once on the printed dotted signature line at the very bottom, both with the same long flourished underline; below the second is the title line. At the foot of the figures a lighter, thinner pen — possibly a checking clerk's — has added a small note and a four-part weight in tons, hundredweights, quarters and pounds.
RECEIVED at Richmond this 25th day of
March 1863, from Capt. Richard Morton
C. S. Nitre & Mining Bureau the following Articles, viz:
Tons lbs
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Iron
Feb. 6th | Dr. Archer Bellona Works Glenwood
| Order No. 17 29 588
Feb. 21st | " " " "Glenwood Iron
| Order No. 32 13 1903
" " | " " " "Liberty Iron
| Order No. 32 28 1017
" " | " " " "Liberty Iron
| Order No. 36 6 820
March 25th | " " " "Liberty Iron
| Order No. 60 59 1564
Army Ordnance
This iron was deficient ⎫
2 tns 1428 ℔s when it arrived ⎬
at Bellona, this amount ⎬
having been dropped ⎬
into the canal by the ⎬
boatmen in loading ⎬
⎬
J L Archer ⎬
⎭ = 5[?]. c[illegible]
137.12.2.12 137 1412
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
(SIGNED DUPLICATES.)
J L Archer
Supt. Bellona Works
Checks: Proves exactly. Tons 29 + 13 + 28 + 6 + 59 = 135. Pounds 588 + 1903 + 1017 + 820 + 1564 = 5892 lbs, which at 2,240 lbs to the long ton is 2 tons 1412 lbs. 135 + 2 = 137 tons 1412 lbs, exactly the footing "137 | 1412" as written. The checking clerk's pencil-thin note "137.12.2.12" is the same weight in tons, hundredweights, quarters and pounds: 12 cwt = 1344 lbs, 2 qrs = 56 lbs, plus 12 lbs = 1412 lbs. That agreement settles the last digits of the footing, which the paper's ruling otherwise makes hard to read. The reported shortage, 2 tons 1428 lbs dropped into the canal, is stated in the memorandum but is not deducted anywhere on the face of the receipt: the total receipted is the full 137 tons 1412 lbs.
Flagged: The five entries here are the same five weights docketed on the outside of the fold at Image 4, in the same order, which identifies this beyond doubt as the inside of receipt No. 59. The first entry's commodity is completed by the word "Iron" interlined above the line, in the same ink. "Dr." before Archer's name is written with a clear capital D and a small r under a point; in an account it would ordinarily be read as the bookkeeping abbreviation for debtor, but the jacket in this file endorses him "Dr. J. L. Archer," so the two readings cannot be separated on this page and I have transcribed the letters only. The deficiency figure is written "2 tns 14 28 ℔s" with a distinct space between "14" and "28"; I read it as 1428 lbs, but a reading in hundredweights cannot be ruled out, and the figure is in any case not carried into the footing. The small note over "137.12.2.12" begins with a character I cannot resolve — it resembles the "5" that opens the weight column on Image 4 and may be an abbreviated "Ts." for tons, followed by a "c" for hundredweight with a long flourish; I have not read it. The words "Army Ordnance" stand alone across the middle of the table, apparently the account to which the iron was charged. Nothing on this sheet gives a price: it is a weight receipt, not a bill.
Image 6 — Folded jacket endorsement for the lease: "No. 49. / Dr. J. L. Archer. / 7th Feby 1863. / $28000. / 1 To 49 / Va / Contract"
The outside of a heavy, much-handled folded wrapper, photographed flat and lying dark against the black ground, so that the sheet reads as three vertical panels divided by two deep, dirt-blackened folds; a horizontal fold crosses at the middle and there is a third, fainter crease. The paper is grubby all over — smudged, thumb-marked, water-stained down the left panel and speckled with small ink spots — and the left fold has begun to break through near the top. All the writing is on the centre panel. The main endorsement, at the top, is in a fine flourished hand in ink now faded to grey; below it, in a much broader, blacker and blunter pen, come a large tick, the words "1 To 49," "Va" and "Contract" — later docketing by another hand or hands. At the very foot of the centre panel are two more lines of writing, so rubbed and stained that almost nothing survives of them. The left panel carries a clear double-oval handstamp with a five-pointed star at each side.
No. 49.
Dr. J. L. Archer.
7th Feby. 1863.
$28000.
1 To 49
✓
Va
Contract
[two lines of rubbed script at the foot of the panel — illegible]
[double-oval handstamp, left panel:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: One figure only, "$28000," with nothing on the wrapper to add it to. It agrees exactly with the rent reserved in the lease at Image 3 — Twenty Eight thousand Dollars ($28000) per annum — so the wrapper and the lease belong together. No arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: "No. 49." is handwritten and is the document's own number; there is no printed form number on this wrapper. The month is written "Feb" with superscript letters that I read as "Feby."; "Febr." is a possible alternative and nothing turns on it. The date, 7 February 1863, is a week and a half after the notarial acknowledgement of 29 January 1863 at Image 2 and five weeks after the lease's own date of 1 January 1863 — presumably the day the contract was filed or acted upon, but the wrapper does not say, and I make no claim about it. "1 To 49" is written in the later, heavier hand and is most likely a range of enclosed or related papers; that is a guess and I record it as one. "Dr." here carries a superscript r over two points; whether it is Doctor or the bookkeeper's debtor cannot be settled from the wrapper. The two lines at the foot are beyond recovery at this resolution — the second ends in a long looping flourish that has the look of a signature, and the first may contain the word "of," but I will not put a reading on paper for either.
Image 7 — Voucher and receipt: the Confederate States to Dr. J. L. Archer, Dr., for one year's rent of the "Bellona Foundry" and "Arsenal" for 1863, $28,000, approved by Col. Gorgas and receipted at Richmond, 7 February 1863
A large printed and ruled account form, filled in throughout in a firm, well-spaced hand in black ink. The printed matter is set in several faces: the heading in blackletter, the column heads and certificate in roman small capitals and lower case. The form is ruled with a heavy double rule under the heading and again under the account, and carries four narrow vertical money columns at the right with a "REMARKS." column beyond them. The sheet has been folded in three vertically and once across; the middle fold has broken through near the top and again lower down, leaving a ragged black split about a third of the way in from the right, and the paper is dirty and blotched along all the creases, with brown staining across the lower half. One printed clause is struck through in ink. The dollar figure is written large in the money column with a flourish beneath it, and the amount is repeated in words on the certificate line. The whole sheet is signed once, at the foot.
Confederate States of America,
To Dr. J. L. Archer. Dr.
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
186 3 . | | REMARKS.
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
February | 7 | For Rent of "Bellona Foundry" | |
| | "& Arsenal" for the year Eighteen | | see copy of Contract
| | Hundred and Sixty three - payable in| | attached ——
| | advance, in pursuance of Contract dated | |
| | 1st January 1863. - with the Ord: Dept: | $28,000 |
| | | |
Approved.| | | |
J Gorgas Col | |
Chf: of Ord: | |
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Twenty Eight Thousand Dollars.
~~and that the property has been received and will be accounted for~~
RECEIVED, Richmond 7th February 186 3 , of
Capt. Edw. B. Smith Asst: to Chf: of Ord: Twenty Eight Thousand
Dollars ————————— Cents, in full of the above account.
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
J L Archer
Checks: Proves exactly at $28,000. The single charge in the money column is "$28,000"; the certificate repeats it in words as "Twenty Eight Thousand Dollars," and the receipt line repeats it a third time as "Twenty Eight Thousand ————— Dollars ————— Cents, in full of the above account," the cents left blank and ruled off. All three agree with each other, with the "$28000." on the jacket at Image 6, and with the rent reserved by the lease at Image 3. There is one item, so there is no column to add.
Flagged: There is no printed form number anywhere on this sheet; the voucher's own number, 49, is on its jacket at Image 6, not on the voucher. The printed clause "and that the property has been received and will be accounted for" is deliberately struck through with a single pen stroke — correctly, since this is a payment of rent and no property changed hands; I have marked the cancellation rather than dropping the words. Gorgas signs here as "J Gorgas / Col / Chf: of Ord:", which settles the title I could only partly read under the seal on Image 2. The account is made out "To Dr. J. L. Archer" with the printed "Dr." (debtor) column head over the money column at the right, so the two uses of "Dr." sit on the same line of the same sheet — further reason not to force a reading of the one before his name. The remark "see copy of Contract attached" ties this voucher to the fair copy of the lease at Images 3 and 2, which is presumably the attachment; that is what the sheet says, and the file bears it out. The whole payment is a year's rent in advance under the contract of 1 January 1863, paid by Capt. Edw. B. Smith, Asst. to the Chief of Ordnance — the same officer who certified the copy of the lease.
Image 8 — Folded jacket endorsement: "No. 116. / J. L. Archer / Dec. 17th 1862. / $1173."
The outside of a folded wrapper of clean, pale, unruled paper, photographed flat and showing as three vertical panels between two soft folds, with a faint horizontal crease across the middle. This wrapper is in far better condition than the one at Image 6: no tears, no heavy soiling, only a light overall grey tone and the ghost of writing showing through from the enclosed sheets. The endorsement occupies the top of the centre panel, written in a very fine-nibbed, highly flourished hand in black ink, each of the four lines finished with a ruled underline — a single rule under the first three, a double rule under the amount. A small tick is dashed above the first figure of the amount, and a second tick stands alone lower down the panel, immediately above a clear double-oval handstamp with a star at each side. Nothing else is written anywhere on the sheet.
No. 116.
J. L. Archer
Dec. 17th 1862.
$1173. ~
✓
[double-oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: One figure, "$1173.", with a pen flourish where the cents would stand — no cents given, and nothing on the wrapper to add. No arithmetic to prove on this sheet; the figure is tested against the account it wraps at Image 9.
Flagged: "No. 116." is handwritten and is the document's own number; there is no printed form number. The date, 17 December 1862, is two weeks before the lease of 1 January 1863 begins, so this wrapper belongs to an earlier transaction than the rent voucher — the Archer papers in this file are not in date order. The second initial is written as a large flourished capital which I read as L, consistent with every other sheet in this range; taken alone it could be mistaken for an S. The trailing mark after "$1173." is a pen flourish standing for "and no cents," not a figure. Neither Bellona nor any place is named on this wrapper.
Image 9 — Voucher and receipt: the Confederate States to J. L. Archer, Dr., for one 10-inch Columbiad gun weighing 13,800 lbs at 8½ cents a pound, 30 September 1862; receipted at Richmond 17 December 1862 for $1,173.00
The same printed Confederate States account form as Image 7, on clean, pale, unstained paper, filled in throughout in the same fine flourished hand that endorsed the wrapper at Image 8. The blackletter heading, the ruled money columns and the "REMARKS." column are all as before. The sheet is folded once vertically down the middle and once across; both folds are soft and unbroken, and the paper is in excellent condition, with only a faint grey cast and a few specks. The single charge is written across two lines and gathered at the right by a hand-drawn brace; a bold tick is dashed across the money column above the figure, and a smaller tick stands to the right of it. In the empty space below the entry, in the same ink but a smaller, more hurried hand, is a three-line multiplication worked out and ruled off — the clerk's own calculation, left standing on the face of the voucher. On the receipt line, squeezed in above the printed rule and running across the writing beneath, is an interlined signature and title in a second hand.
Confederate States of America,
To J. L. Archer Dr.
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
186 2 . | | REMARKS.
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Septr | 30 | For 1 10 inch Columbiad Gun ⎫ | ✓ |
| | Weighing 13.800 ℔s: @ 8½ ¢ ⎭ . | $ 1173 00 ✓|
| | | |
| | 110,400 | |
| | 6900 | |
| | ─────── | |
| | 1173.00 | |
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Eleven hundred & Seventy three Dollars,
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for.
R. K.[?] Hu[gg]ins[?] Capt: Ordnance Dept.
RECEIVED, Richmond Dec. 17th 186 2 , of
Capt. Edwd. B. Smith Asst. to Ord[?] Bureau Eleven Hundred
& Seventy three Dollars ———— no ———— Cents, in full of the above account.
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
J L Archer
Checks: Proves exactly at $1,173.00, three ways. Quantity times rate: 13,800 lbs at 8½ cents = 13,800 × $0.085 = $1,173.00, precisely the extension "$1173 00" in the money column. The clerk's own working on the face of the sheet does the same sum in two steps — 13,800 × 8 = 110,400 and 13,800 × ½ = 6,900, added to 117,300 — and he wrote the answer as "1173.00" in dollars although the two addends are in cents; the arithmetic is right and only the notation is loose. The certificate then repeats the sum in words as "Eleven hundred & Seventy three Dollars," and the receipt line as "Eleven Hundred & Seventy three Dollars — no Cents," and both agree, as does the "$1173." endorsed on the jacket at Image 8. There is a single item, so there is no column to foot.
Flagged: No printed form number on the sheet; the voucher's number, 116, is on its jacket at Image 8. The interlined name above the receipt line is the one thing on this page I cannot settle. The initials read "R. K." — the second could as easily be M — and the surname, written fast and crossing other strokes, gives me "Hu", then three low rounded letters, a descending g, and "ins": Huggins and Hudgins are both possible and neither is certain. The title after it, "Capt: Ordnance Dept.", is clear. I have flagged the whole name rather than put a false one into print. The words I read as "Asst. to Ord Bureau" are written with a looped t that could be taken for a C; the sense is not in doubt but the letters are. Note the difference from Image 7: there, the printed clause "and that the property has been received and will be accounted for" was struck out because the payment was rent; here it stands unstruck, because property — a gun — really was delivered. The article itself is the substance of this sheet: a 10-inch Columbiad, 13,800 lbs, charged by weight at 8½ cents the pound, delivered on 30 September 1862 and paid for on 17 December. Nothing on this voucher names Bellona; it is the jacket, and the other papers in the file, that connect this Archer to the foundry.
Image 10 — Folded jacket endorsement: "No. 114 / J. L. Archer / Dec. 17th 1862. / $9250.70", with a note "Cannon Shot & shell part — bal. on hand $169.30"
The outside of a folded wrapper of the same pale, clean paper as Image 8, showing as three vertical panels with a horizontal crease across the middle; a piece about two inches across has been torn out of the upper left corner, well clear of any writing. The whole sheet is a little translucent, and the printed heading and ruled columns of the voucher folded inside show through clearly as a mirror image across the left and right panels — none of that show-through is writing on this sheet. The endorsement stands at the top of the centre panel in the same fine, flourished, heavily underscored hand as Image 8: four lines, each ruled beneath, with a double rule under the amount and a small tick dashed above its first figure. Lower down, in the same ink but a looser and more cursive movement, are two lines of a working note whose long connecting strokes swing right across the panel. Below that stands a bold tick and then a clear double-oval handstamp with a star at each side.
No. 114.
J. L. Archer
Dec. 17th 1862.
$9250 70
Cannon Shot & shell
part - bal. on hand $169.30
✓
[double-oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: Two figures, and this wrapper does not connect them: $9250.70, the amount of the voucher inside, and $169.30, described as the balance on hand of a part of the cannon shot and shell. Nothing on the wrapper adds the two, and they do not stand in any stated relation, so there is no arithmetic here to prove; the $9250.70 is tested against the account at Image 11.
Flagged: "No. 114." is handwritten and is the document's own number; no printed form number appears. The cents of the amount are written small and raised, in the old style, as "$9250 70" — I read the dollars as nine thousand two hundred and fifty, the fourth figure being a closed loop, but a 9 cannot be absolutely excluded at this resolution and the figure should be checked against the voucher it wraps. The memorandum "Cannon Shot & shell / part - bal. on hand $169.30" is in the same ink as the endorsement but written more freely; what it means — whether $169.30 worth of shot and shell remained undelivered, or unpaid, or on hand at the works — the wrapper does not say, and I will not supply it. Note that this wrapper carries the same date, 17 December 1862, as the wrapper at Image 8, and a number one lower but two apart in sequence (114 against 116): the two vouchers were plainly settled on the same day.
Image 11 — Voucher and receipt: the Confederate States to J. L. Archer, Dr., "Bellona Foundry," for five 10-inch Columbiads, one 7-inch rifle gun, proof shot, boat loading and toll, November–December 1862; receipted at Richmond 17 December 1862 for $9,250.70
The same printed Confederate States account form as Images 7 and 9, but a much busier and more worked-over sheet. The paper is grubby and grey with handling, creased by one vertical fold down the middle and a second across, and the whole upper right corner has been torn away in a long curving rip that takes the ends of two lines of annotation written above the printed heading. Those two lines, in a fluent sloping hand, were added before the sheet was folded. Below them the form is filled in throughout in a fine, rapid hand, with the account gathered into a stepped set of subtotals in the money column, each ruled off and each ticked in the remarks column with a small cross; one line carries a check mark instead. At the foot, in pencil so faint it barely survives the exposure, are a few words and a three-line addition written diagonally across the corner, running off the bottom edge of the sheet.
Paid this bill as follows: Bal on hand of Fund for "Castg Cannon Sho[t ———]
Balance of bill out of Ord. Service in all it[s br———]
Confederate States of America,
To J. L. Archer Dr.
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
1862 Bellona Foundry. | REMARKS.
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Nov. | 13 | To 3 - 10 inch Columbiads weighing 41400 lbs | |
| | at 8½ cts per lb - - - - - | $3,519 00 | ✗
Dec | 9 | " 2 - 10 inch Columbiads weighing 27600 lbs at 8½ cts
| | | 2,346 00 | ✗
| | |────────── |
| | | $ 5865 00 | ✗
| | Add. 30 per ct on $5,865 - - - - - - | 1,759 50 | ✗
| | |────────── |
| | | $ 7,624 60 | ✗
| | Shot used in proof and expenses - - - | 84 00 |
| | Loading Boat at night - - - - - - | 25 00 |
| | 1 - 7 inch rifle gun weighing 14987 lbs at 10 cts |
| | | 1,498 70 | ✓
| | Toll on 6 Cannon - - - - - - - - | 18 50 |
| | |────────── |
| | | $9,250 70 | ✗
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Nine thousand, two hundred and fifty and 70/100 Dollars.
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for.
R. K.[?] Hu[gg]ins[?] Capt.
Ordnance Duty[?]
RECEIVED, Richmond, Dec 17th 186 2 , of
Capt Edwd. B Smith, Ast. to Chf. of Ordnce Ninety two Hundred
& Fifty ———— Dollars & Seventy ———— Cents, in full of the above account.
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
J L Archer
[pencil, very faint, at foot:] h[illegible] Treas[?] notes
[pencil, written diagonally across the lower corner, the last line running off the sheet:]
1173. [7]0
9250. 70
─────────
[10,4]23 70
Checks: The extensions all prove; one subtotal does not, by exactly ten cents; the footing proves. Taking them in order — 41,400 lbs at 8½ cents = $3,519.00, exactly as extended; 27,600 lbs at 8½ cents = $2,346.00, exactly as extended; $3,519.00 + $2,346.00 = $5,865.00, as written; 30 per cent on $5,865 = $1,759.50, as written. But $5,865.00 + $1,759.50 = $7,624.50, and the sheet carries $7,624 60 — the cents digit is formed exactly like the 6 in the dollars of the same figure and unlike the 5 above it, so I transcribe 60 and record the divergence: the subtotal as written is ten cents too high. It was not carried forward. 14,987 lbs at 10 cents = $1,498.70, exactly as extended. Adding the true subtotal to the four following items — 7,624.50 + 84.00 + 25.00 + 1,498.70 + 18.50 — gives $9,250.70, precisely the footing, precisely the certificate's "Nine thousand, two hundred and fifty and 70/100 Dollars," precisely the receipt's "Ninety two Hundred & Fifty Dollars & Seventy Cents," and precisely the "$9250 70" endorsed on the jacket at Image 10. Adding the subtotal as written would give $9,250.80, which appears nowhere. The internal check also holds on the quantities: 3 + 2 + 1 = 6 guns, and the last charge is "Toll on 6 Cannon." Note too that 41,400 lbs over three guns and 27,600 lbs over two both give exactly 13,800 lbs a gun — the same weight as the single 10-inch Columbiad billed at Image 9. The pencil addition in the corner proves only on one reading: 1,173.00 + 9,250.70 = 10,423.70, which fits the visible "…23 70" of its bottom line, whereas 1,173.70 + 9,250.70 would give 10,424.40, which does not. On that reading the pencil sum joins this voucher to voucher 116 at Image 9 — the two accounts settled together on 17 December 1862.
Flagged: No printed form number; the voucher's number, 114, is on its jacket at Image 10. The two lines of annotation across the head are cut by the tear: the first ends "…Fund for "Castg Cannon Sho—" and the second "…out of Ord. Service in all it— ", and I have not completed either, though the sense of the first is plainly a fund for casting cannon shot. The subtotal "7,624 60" is the one arithmetical fault in this range; I record it as written, and note that every other figure on the sheet, and the sheet's own total, are consistent with 7,624.50. The certifying officer is the same man as at Image 9, and his signature is clearer here: initials "R. K." — the second could be M — and a surname I read as Huggins with real doubt; the letters between "Hu" and "ins" give a descending g preceded by two low rounded strokes, so Hudgins is equally possible. The title below it reads "Capt. / Ordnance Duty" or "Ordnance Dept."; the final word is looped and I have marked it. The pencil words at the foot are almost gone; "Treas notes" is the likelier of the readings I can make of the second, and the first I cannot read at all. Smith's title is abbreviated differently here than on Image 9 — "Ast. to Chf. of Ordnce" — and the receipt spells the sum in the unusual form "Ninety two Hundred & Fifty" rather than "nine thousand two hundred and fifty." The description column is headed, in the clerk's own hand, "Bellona Foundry." — the third and plainest confirmation in this range that these guns are Archer's Bellona work.
Image 12 — Folded jacket endorsement: "No. 22 / J. L. Archer / Octo. 14. 1862 / $2469.20"
The outside of a folded wrapper, again in three panels between two folds with a horizontal crease across the middle, on clean pale paper of the same stock as Images 8 and 10. The condition is good: no tears, no staining beyond a faint even grey, and the ruled columns and printed lines of the enclosed voucher showing through as a faint mirror image across the left and right panels. The endorsement is in the same fine flourished hand and the same four-line, ruled-underline form as the other two clean wrappers, the cents written small and raised at the end of the amount, and a small tick dashed above its first figure. A second, larger tick stands lower on the centre panel, above a clear double-oval handstamp with a star at each side. Low on the left panel there is a small dark smudge of two or three characters, apparently ink offset from another sheet, which I cannot read.
No. 22
J. L. Archer
Octo. 14. 1862
$2469 20
✓
[double-oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
[small offset smudge, low on the left panel — illegible]
Checks: One figure, $2,469.20, with nothing on the wrapper to add it to. It is not the total of any other sheet in this range and does not combine with any of them into a figure that appears here, so there is no arithmetic on this wrapper to prove; the voucher it wrapped is not among Images 1–12.
Flagged: "No. 22" is handwritten and is the document's own number; there is no printed form number. The month is written "Octo." with the o raised, and the date 14 October 1862 is the earliest date in this range — two and a half months before the Bellona lease begins and two months before the two vouchers settled on 17 December 1862. The dollars read 2469 clearly; the raised cents read 20. The wrapper names no place, no article and no officer, and the account it belonged to is not in Images 1–12, so nothing here can be checked against anything else; it will have to be matched against the later images in the file.
Amendments
All twelve sections above were written from the images in order and are left as first set down. These are corrections and improvements made afterwards, on a second look, and are recorded here rather than in the sections themselves.
Amendment 1 — Image 4, the first line of the weight block. In the section above I transcribed the first line as "5. ℔s" and said I could not tell whether the mark was a quantity or a column heading. It is a column heading, and the character is a T, not a 5. Two things settle it. First, Image 5 — the inside of the same folded receipt — heads its two weight columns, in the same hand, "Tons lbs," and the capital T there is written exactly as this character is: a bowl with a long top stroke sweeping away to the right, quite unlike the flat-topped 5 in "588" on the line immediately below it. Second, the five weights listed under it on Image 4 (29.588, 13.1903, 28.1017, 6.820, 59.1564) are precisely the five deliveries entered on Image 5, with no sixth. The line should therefore read T. ℔s — an abbreviated "Tons, pounds" — and the docket lists five lots, not six. The Checks note on Image 4 is unaffected: there is still no total on that panel, and the five lots are footed only on the inside of the fold, at 137 tons 1412 lbs. — transcriber, images 1–12
Amendment 2 — Image 5, the checking clerk's note above "137.12.2.12". I left this unread, saying only that it began with a character resembling the one at the head of Image 4's weight column. Having now identified that character as a capital T, I can go one step further, though not to a full reading: the note begins "= T." — the same T-form — and continues with a low rounded letter and a long trailing stroke ending in a point. Read with the four-part figure it stands over, 137 tons 12 cwt 2 qrs 12 lbs, it is almost certainly an abbreviated column label of the "T[ons]. c[wt]. q[rs]. l[bs]" kind. I record that as the likeliest sense and still do not claim to read the letters after the T. — transcriber, images 1–12
Image 13 — Printed Confederate States of America account, "To J. L. Archer, Dr.", 1862, for four Columbiads and two 24-pounders sold by weight at 8½ cents the pound plus transportation to Richmond, less a credit for two returned 9-inch guns; receipted at Richmond 14 October; footed $2469.20
A wide single leaf of laid writing paper, printed as a standard Confederate purchase account with an engraved black-letter heading, ruled money columns at the right and a printed certificate and receipt block below. The sheet has been folded twice horizontally and once down the centre; the horizontal creases run straight through the entry block and the vertical crease through the word "Richmond" in the receipt line, but no text is lost. The account entries, the certificate, the receipt and both signatures are in dark brown-black iron-gall ink in at least two hands — a neat clerical round hand for the entries and the written-out sum, a heavier and more angular hand for R. K. Hudgins's certification, and a third, very freely flourished hand for Archer's own signature at lower right. Small pencil or ink check marks (an "x" or tick) stand beside each extension in the money column, evidently an auditor's tally. No archival handstamp, docket number or endorsement appears anywhere on the face. The paper is lightly foxed at the upper edge and the scan shows the dark table beneath along the bottom margin.
Confederate States of America,
To J. L. Archer Dr
1862. REMARKS.
August 2 To 1. 10 in: Columbiad Gun, Lbs: 13.800 lbs @ 8½¢ x 1173 00
" " " 1. 24 Pounder " " 5.320 " " " x 452 20
Sept: 20 " 1. 10 in: Columbiad " " 13.800 " " " x 1173 00
" " " 1. 8 in: Do " " 8.800 " " " x 748 00
" " " 1. 24 Pounder " " 5.320 " " " x 452 20
" " " Transportation to Richmond . ✓ 50 00 $4048. 40 x
Deduct this Sum for 2 - 9 in Guns bored }
to 7 & 8 inches, Charged in acct for July } . . 1579 20 ✓✓
which were Returned . . . . . } ----------
$2469. 20 x
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Twenty four hundred and sixty nine Dollars & twenty Cents.
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for
R. K. Hudgins Capt:
Ordnance Duty[?].
RECEIVED, Richmond Octo 14th 186 , of
Capt Edwr. B Smith, Asst to Chf of Ordnce Twenty four hundred
Sixty nine Dollars — & twenty — Cents, in full of the above account.
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
J. L. Archer [flourished signature]
Checks: The rate is 8½ cents the pound throughout and every extension proves exactly. 13,800 lbs × $0.085 = $1,173.00 (twice); 5,320 × $0.085 = $452.20 (twice); 8,800 × $0.085 = $748.00. The six charges — 1173.00 + 452.20 + 1173.00 + 748.00 + 452.20 + 50.00 — foot to $4,048.40 exactly as written. The deduction of $1,579.20 leaves $4,048.40 − $1,579.20 = $2,469.20, which is the footing carried and the sum written out in words in the certificate and again in the receipt. The sheet proves exactly at $2,469.20.
Flagged: The word following "Ordnance" under Hudgins's signature carries an abbreviation bar and reads most nearly "Duty" — "Capt: / Ordnance Duty." — but it is written small and could be a contraction of "Depmt"; marked uncertain. Archer's own signature at lower right is so heavily flourished that the given-name initials cannot be separated from the rubric; it is read as "J. L. Archer" from the form of the surname and from the account heading, not from the initials themselves. The printed year reads "186_" in the receipt line and was never completed, though the account column is headed 1862 in manuscript and the receipt is dated "Octo 14th"; the year of the receipt is therefore supplied only by the account heading. "Transportation to Richmond" is charged as a flat $50.00, not by weight. Nothing on the sheet names a foundry, a place of manufacture, or a voucher number, and there is no archival handstamp.
Image 14 — Blank verso of a folded account sheet, carrying the filing docket "No 318. / May 23: 1862 / J. L. Archer / $1878.40" and the postwar Rebel Archives handstamp
The back of a large sheet of blueish-white laid paper, folded in three vertical panels and once across, and photographed with the docket panel upright. The sheet is otherwise blank on this side: every trace of writing in the two outer panels is the show-through of the account written on the recto, faint and reversed, with the printed rules of that form also showing. The docket itself sits in the head of the centre panel, written in a firm clerical hand in brown-black ink and ruled off with a double line above and single lines between each element — the usual four-part endorsement of a Confederate ordnance account (number, date, name of the party, amount). A small ink paraph or filing initial, apparently "&c" or "ac", stands at the right end of the top rule. Below the docket, straddling the centre fold, is a struck oval handstamp in black — the United States War Department's postwar Rebel Archives mark — impressed upside down with respect to the docket writing. The paper is clean, with light grime along the fold lines and a strip of the dark copy table showing along the bottom edge of the scan.
No 318. &c[?]
------------------
May 23: 1862
------------------
J. L. Archer
------------------
$1878. 40.
[oval handstamp, struck inverted:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: The only figure on the sheet is the docketed amount $1878.40; there is nothing to add and no arithmetic to prove. It is worth recording that this sum does not agree with the $2469.20 of image 13, so this docket belongs to a different account.
Flagged: The small mark at the head of the panel is only two or three penstrokes and cannot be resolved; "&c" is the nearest reading and it is as likely an examiner's initial. "No 318." is written by hand and is a genuine account or voucher number, not a printed form number. The recto of this leaf is not among images 13–24 as photographed facing the camera; the show-through cannot be read with confidence and no attempt has been made to transcribe it. The Rebel Archives oval is a post-1865 United States War Department archival mark, not a Confederate one.
Image 15 — Printed Confederate States of America account, "To J. L. Archer, Dr.", 20 May 1862, for a 9-inch Dahlgren, an 8-inch Columbiad and a 24-pounder iron gun sold by weight at 8 cents the pound; certified by Col. Thos. S. Rhett and receipted at Richmond 23 May 1862; footed $1878.40
The recto of the same leaf whose docketed back is image 14 — the show-through of the Rebel Archives oval can be made out faintly in the empty middle of the ruled table, and the sheet carries the same fold pattern, three vertical panels and one horizontal crease. It is the same printed Confederate purchase-account form as image 13: engraved black-letter heading, ruled money columns at right under a printed REMARKS head, and the printed certificate and receipt block below. Only the upper quarter of the ruled table is used, so most of the sheet is empty. The whole of the manuscript is in one flowing, confident hand with very large capitals in dark brown ink, except for Rhett's signature and title, which are in a smaller and harder-nibbed hand, and Archer's flourished signature at lower right, which matches the signature on image 13. At the extreme upper right corner a number is written large in a heavy, blunt, later-looking stroke. No archival handstamp appears on this face; the only stamp on the leaf is on the verso. The paper is sound, lightly grubby along the folds.
1752[?]
Confederate States of America,
To J. L. Archer Dr
186 2 . REMARKS.
May 20 To 1 - 9 in. Dahlgren 9280 lb. @ 8 cts $ 742.40
" 1 - 8 in. Columbiad 8700 lb. @ 8 696.00
" 1 - 24 pdr. Iron Gun 5500 lb. @ 8 $ 440.00
---------
$1878.40
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
One thousand, Eight Hundred & Seventy Eight 40/100 Dolls
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for
Thos S. Rhett Col & Insp: Ordnce
RECEIVED, Richmond May 23 186 2 , of
Smith Stansbury, Capt. of Artilly, — Eighteen Hundred & Seventy =
Eight ——— Dollars — & forty ——— Cents, in full of the above account.
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
J. L. Archer [flourished signature]
Checks: The rate is 8 cents the pound and every extension proves exactly. 9,280 lbs × $0.08 = $742.40; 8,700 × $0.08 = $696.00; 5,500 × $0.08 = $440.00. The three extensions foot to $1,878.40 exactly as written, and that sum agrees with the certificate ("Eight Hundred & Seventy Eight 40/100" following "One thousand"), with the receipt written out in words, and with the docket on the verso (image 14, "$1878. 40."). The sheet proves exactly at $1,878.40.
Flagged: The corner number is written in a heavy blunt stroke and its last digit is ambiguous between 2 and 3; compared against the clerk's own "23" in the receipt date on this same sheet, the Z-form favours 2, so it is read "1752" and marked uncertain. It is in a different and probably later hand from everything else on the sheet and should not be confused with the account's own number, which is "No 318." on the verso. The rate figure "8" carries a small superscript contraction after it on the first line only, read as "cts"; the second and third lines repeat the bare figure. "Artilly" is the clerk's own contraction of Artillery and is left as written. Nothing on the sheet names a foundry or a place of manufacture. Rhett's and Stansbury's identities are not stated beyond their ranks and titles.
Image 16 — Blank verso of a folded account sheet, docketed "No 103. / J. L. Archer / Apl. 18th 1862 / 5744 17/100" and describing him as a maker of cannon, shot and shell; with the Rebel Archives handstamp and pencil filing marks "Va", "1-2-3" and "Ord"
The back of the sheet whose face is image 17, folded into three vertical panels with the docket written up the head of the centre panel. The paper is clean bluish-white laid stock; the only ink on this side is the four-line docket and, on the line below it, a short descriptive phrase set within quotation marks. The docket hand is fine and sloping, with long ascenders, and each element is ruled off with a single or double line. Below the docket, squarely in the centre panel and reading right way up this time, is the same struck oval handstamp seen on image 14 — RECORD DIVISION, / REBEL ARCHIVES. / WAR DEPARTMENT., with a star at each side. Lower still, in soft pencil in a much later hand, are two archival sorting marks: "Va" with a long underscore and "1 - 2 - 3" beneath it, and further down a large "Ord". The right-hand panel carries the mirrored show-through of the printed "Confederate States of" heading on the recto, together with a scatter of small ink specks that have struck through the paper. The last word of the descriptive phrase runs into the vertical fold and its terminal letters are pinched and hard to separate.
No 103.
------------------
J. L. Archer
------------------
Apl. 18th 1862
------------------
5744 17/100
==================
"Man of Cannon Shot & Shea[?]"
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
[in pencil:]
Va
-------
1 - 2 - 3
Ord
Checks: The only figure is the docketed amount, 5744 17/100, i.e. $5,744.17; there is nothing to add on this side. It agrees exactly with the footing $5744 17 on the recto, image 17.
Flagged: The last word of the quoted description is compressed into the vertical fold and reads letter-for-letter as "Shea"; a tall terminal ascender is present but cannot be separated from the fold. In the phrase "Cannon Shot & ——" the intended word is almost certainly "Shell", but that is inference from context, not from the ink, so the literal reading is given with a query. The first word is written plainly "Man", with "of" following as a separate word; it is presumably the clerk's contraction of "Manufacturer", but no abbreviation point or superscript is visible. The pencil marks "Va", "1 - 2 - 3" and "Ord" are in a modern-looking soft pencil and belong to the archival arrangement of the file (Virginia; Ordnance), not to the Confederate paperwork. The numerals of the docketed amount are cramped: read alone they might be taken for "5924", but they are settled as 5744 by the footing on the recto.
Image 17 — Printed Confederate States of America account, "To J. L. Archer, Dr., Bellona Foundry", 15 April 1862, for eight 8-inch Columbiads at 8 cents the pound, nine proof shot at 5½ cents, and hauling to Richmond at $10 a gun; approved by J. Gorgas, Lt Col, Chief of Ordnance, and receipted at Richmond Va 16 April 1862; footed $5744.17
The face of the leaf whose docketed back is image 16: the same wide printed purchase-account form, folded into three vertical panels with one horizontal crease across the middle of the money column. The entries, the certificate and the receipt are in a large, sloping, well-formed hand in dark brown ink. Across the empty middle of the ruled table, written at right angles to the account and running up the page, is a second certificate in a much paler, greyer ink and a smaller hand, signed and endorsed; it is faint and is repeatedly crossed by the heavy strokes of the account above it, so parts of it can only be picked out letter by letter. The printed clause "and that the property has been received and will be accounted for" has been struck through with a single ruled line, presumably because that certification was supplied instead by the cross-written note. At the extreme upper right corner is a number in a heavy blunt stroke of the same later hand as the corner number on image 15. Beneath the approval, at the left, "Approved" is written across the printed double rule. No archival handstamp appears on this face; the Rebel Archives oval is on the verso. This is the only sheet in images 13–24 that names the foundry.
1845
Confederate States of America,
To J L Archer Dr
186 2 . Bellona Foundry REMARKS.
Apl 15 To 8 - 8 inch Columbiads weighing
" each 8.800 lbs 70.400 lbs
" at 8 cts pr lb 5632 00
To 9 Shot weighing 65 lbs each (for proving) 585
at 5½ cts pr lbs 32 17
To transportation & hauling to Richmond
10$ each 80 00
---------
$ 5744 17
[written across the table at right angles, in pale ink:]
I certify that these 8 [illegible]
have been received for the
Government and will [be]
accounted for
L[?] Gibbon Capt
Ordnance [illegible]
Approved
J Gorgas Lt Col
Chief of Ordnance
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Five Thousand Seven hundred & forty four dolls and
seventeen cents
[struck through:] and that the property has been received and will be accounted for
RECEIVED, Richmond Va April 16 186 2 , of
Capt Smith Stansbry C.S. Artilley. Five thousand seven hundred and
forty four Dollars seventeen Cents, in full of the above account.
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
J. L. Archer [flourished signature]
Checks: Eight guns at 8,800 lbs each give 70,400 lbs, exactly as entered, and 70,400 × $0.08 = $5,632.00, as extended. Nine shot at 65 lbs each give 585 lbs, exactly as entered. The proof-shot extension is short by half a cent: 585 × $0.055 = $32.175, and the clerk entered $32.17, truncating rather than rounding up to $32.18. Transportation at $10 each for eight guns gives $80.00. The three extensions as written — 5632.00 + 32.17 + 80.00 — foot to $5,744.17 exactly as carried, and that sum agrees with the certificate in words, with the receipt in words, and with the docket on the verso (image 16). The sheet proves exactly at $5,744.17 as written; the only divergence anywhere is the half-cent truncation inside the $32.17 extension.
Flagged: The cross-written certificate is in very pale ink under heavy overwriting and cannot be read in full. The word after "these 8" on its first line is illegible — the sense requires the guns, but the ink does not yield it, so it is left marked. The word "be" at the end of its third line could not be separated from the account strokes crossing it and is supplied in brackets from the standard form of words. The signer's surname reads clearly as "Gibbon" and the rank as "Capt"; the given-name initial is a single looped capital read as "L" but not certain, and the word under it reads "Ordnance" followed by a contraction that cannot be made out. The proof shot are described as "(for proving)", i.e. for proof-firing the guns; that is the clerk's own parenthesis, not an editorial gloss. "Stansbry" and "Artilley" are the clerk's contractions and are left as written; the same officer is written "Smith Stansbury, Capt. of Artilly" on image 15. The heading "Bellona Foundry" is written by the same clerk as the entries, on the line below the party's name, and is the plain reading of the sheet. Taken with the docket on image 16 describing Archer as a maker of cannon, shot and shell, this is direct documentary support for identifying the J. L. Archer of this file with the proprietor of the Bellona Foundry — but the sheet says only "Bellona Foundry", and gives neither a county nor a first name, so the identification of the man as Junius L. Archer remains a proposal outside this document.
Image 18 — Blank verso of a folded account sheet, docketed "No 653. / J L Archer / Decr 10. 1861 / $4.675.50", with the Rebel Archives handstamp
The back of the leaf whose face is image 19, folded in three vertical panels and once across, and photographed with the docket upright. The sheet is blank on this side apart from the docket and the stamp; everything else visible is the mirrored show-through of the printed account form on the recto, including its printed "REMARKS" head, its printed certificate line, and its printed receipt line naming a Captain of Artillery in small capitals. The docket is written in a fine, elegant, widely spaced hand with tall looped ascenders, in brown ink, on ruled lines drawn between each element; it is a lighter and more decorative hand than the dockets on images 14 and 16. Struck across the centre panel below it, reading right way up, is the same oval RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES. / WAR DEPARTMENT. handstamp. There is no pencil sorting mark on this sheet. A few small ink specks have struck through from the face. The paper is clean and the ink strong.
No 653.
------------------
J L Archer
------------------
Decr 10. 1861
------------------
$4.675.50
==================
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: The only figure is the docketed amount, written with points as $4.675.50, i.e. $4,675.50. There is nothing to add on this side. It agrees exactly with the footing $4675 50 on the recto, image 19.
Flagged: Nothing. The docket is clearly written and unambiguous, and the amount, the name and the date all agree with the face of the same leaf.
Image 19 — Printed Confederate States of America account, "To J L Archer, Dr.", 15 November and 5 December 1861, for eight 8-inch Columbiads in two deliveries at 6½ cents the pound with freight and hauling at $10 a gun; receipted at Richmond 10 December 1861; footed $4675.50; carrying a cross-written certificate by L. Gibbon, Capt., Ordnance, showing the eight guns issued to Generals in the field
The face of the leaf whose docketed back is image 18, on a variant of the printed purchase-account form in which the place of payment and the name of the disbursing officer are themselves printed — "RICHMOND," and "Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery," — with only the date and the sums left to be filled in. Three vertical folds and one horizontal fold cross the sheet. The account entries are in a rapid, spiky hand in dark brown ink; the sum in words below is in the same hand, larger. Written at right angles across the empty left half of the ruled table, in a much paler grey-brown ink and a smaller, neater hand, is a certificate of receipt and issue, seven or eight lines long, signed and endorsed; it is legible only in patches because the account's heavy strokes cross it and the pale ink has faded. In the money column the cents figure of the first freight entry has been written over a heavier blot, and the corrected sum is repeated in the REMARKS column in pencil-fine ink as "(40 00)". The printed clause "and that the property has been received and accounted for" is left standing on this sheet, unlike image 17. At the upper right corner is an underlined number in a heavy later hand. No handstamp on this face; the Rebel Archives oval is on the verso.
662
Confederate States of America,
To J L Archer Dr.
186 1 REMARKS.
Novr 15 To 4 8 inch Columbiads, weighing
35.[?]00 lbs @ 6½¢ pr lb. $2275 00
To Frt & hauling same $10 ea. 40 00 (40 00)
Decr 5 To 4. 8 inch Columbiads, weighing
35: 700 lbs @ 6½¢ 2320 50
To Frt on same $10 ea. 40 00
----------
$4675 50
[written across the table at right angles, in pale ink:]
I certify that the eight Columbiad Gu[ns]
have been received at Richmond
[illegible]
and are as follows, two [illegible]
[illegible] . . . two to Genl Hu[?]
three to Genl Magruder,
one to Genl [illegible]
[illegible]
L Gibbon Capt
Ordnance
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
and that the property has been received and accounted for
RICHMOND, Decr 10th 186 1 . Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
Four Thousand six hundred & Seventy five Dollars and
fifty cents. in full of the above account.
J L Archer [flourished signature]
Checks: The four extensions as written — 2275.00 + 40.00 + 2320.50 + 40.00 — foot to $4,675.50, exactly the sum carried, exactly the sum written out in words in the receipt, and exactly the docketed amount on the verso (image 18). The rate proves both weights: at 6½ cents the pound, $2,275.00 requires 35,000 lbs and $2,320.50 requires 35,700 lbs, and the second weight is written plainly as "35: 700". Freight at $10 each for four guns gives $40.00 on each delivery. The sheet proves exactly at $4,675.50.
Flagged: The third figure of the first weight has been written over an earlier figure and the resulting blot cannot be read; it is given as "35.[?]00 lbs". The arithmetic settles it at 35,000, but that is inference from the extension, not a reading of the ink, so it is left marked. The first freight entry's dollars figure is likewise written over a heavy correction, and the corrected amount was copied into the REMARKS column as "(40 00)" — evidently the clerk's own check. The cross-written certificate is very pale and repeatedly obscured; only the opening ("I certify that the eight Columbiad Gu[ns] / have been received at Richmond"), the phrase "and are as follows", the words "three to Genl Magruder", "two to Genl Hu[?]" and "one to Genl [illegible]", and the signature "L Gibbon Capt / Ordnance" can be read with any confidence. The general whose name follows "two to Genl" begins "Hu" and is not certain; the general on the "one to" line is illegible. Nothing in the note or the account names a foundry. The signature "L Gibbon" here matches the signature on image 17 and is the same hand.
Image 20 — Blank verso of a folded account sheet, docketed "No 311. / J L Archer / Novr 11. 1861 / $2.315.00", with the Rebel Archives handstamp
The back of the leaf whose face is image 21. This is a noticeably smaller and narrower sheet than the others in this range — the scan is about two-thirds the width of images 13 to 19 — folded once down the centre and once across, and photographed with the docket upright in the left panel. The paper is a heavier, greyer, slightly coarser stock, and the whole leaf reads darker in the scan than its neighbours. There is a small tear or clipped corner at the top of the right edge, showing as a dark notch; it costs no text. The docket is in the same fine, elegant, widely spaced hand as image 18, in brown ink, with ruled lines drawn between the elements and a long looping flourish carried down and back from the final figure. Struck below it, reading right way up, is the oval RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES. / WAR DEPARTMENT. handstamp. Nothing else is written on this side; the faint marks in the right panel are the show-through of the account on the recto. There is no pencil sorting mark.
No 311.
------------------
J L Archer
------------------
Novr 11. 1861
------------------
$2.315.00
==================
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: The only figure is the docketed amount, written with points as $2.315.00, i.e. $2,315.00. There is nothing to add on this side. It agrees exactly with the footing $2315 00 on the recto, image 21.
Flagged: Nothing. The docket is clearly written and agrees in name, date and amount with the face of the same leaf.
Image 21 — Printed Confederate States of America account, "To Dr Junius L Archer, Dr.", 20 October 1861, for four 8-inch Columbiads numbered 29, 30, 31 and 32, 35,000 lbs at 6½ cents the pound with freight; certified by L. Gibbon, Capt. C.S.A. on Ordnance duty, who records the four guns as sent by direction of Lieut Col Gorgas to Genl Magruder at Yorktown Va, Genl Gatlin at Fort Macon N.C., and the commanding officer at CedarKeys Fla; receipted at Richmond 11 November 1861; footed $2315.00
The face of the smaller, heavier leaf whose docketed back is image 20, on the same printed form as image 19, with "RICHMOND," and "Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery," printed rather than written. The sheet is folded once down the centre and twice across; the top left corner is torn away in a shallow triangle, taking part of the printed rule but no text. The whole of the manuscript is in one large, open, confident hand in dark brown ink, and it is far fuller than the other accounts here: the REMARKS column is used, the middle of the sheet carries a five-line issue memorandum, and Gibbon's certificate is written in over the printed one. Two printed clauses have been struck out with heavy ruled lines — "I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to" at the right, and "and that the property has been received and accounted for" at the left — because the officer substituted his own wording. Across the middle of the sheet, written large and vertically from bottom to top, is the word "Duplicate". At the top right, written sideways in the corner between two long rules, is the number 311, matching the docket on the verso. No archival handstamp on this face. This sheet is the only one in the range that gives Archer's given name and the only one that records individual gun numbers.
311
Confederate States of America,
To Dr Junius L Archer Dr.
186 1 REMARKS.
Oct 20 Four 8 inch. Columbiads } On the 21st Octr
Numbers 29. 30. 31. & 32, weighing } the 4, 8 Columbiads
35000 lbs at 6½¢ per lb } 2275. contained in this
Freight on same 40 bill were sent
----------
$2315 00 by Capt Gibbon
by direction of Lieut Col Gorgas Chief of Ordnance to the following officers:
one to Genl Magruder , Yorktown Va
one to Genl Gatlin , } Fort Macon N.C.
Two to Commanding officer } CedarKeys Fla
[struck through:] I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
I certify that the above Guns were sent to the above points, directed
to the officers named [written across
[struck through:] and that the property has been received and accounted for the sheet
L Gibbon vertically:
Capt C.S. A. Ordnance duty Duplicate]
RICHMOND, Nov 11 186 1 . Received from SMITH STANSBURY, Captain of Artillery,
Twentythree Hundred and fifteen dollars
in full of the above account.
J L Archer [flourished signature]
Checks: At 6½ cents the pound, 35,000 lbs gives $2,275.00, exactly as extended. Freight is entered as a single figure of $40 for the four guns, which at the $10 a gun charged on images 17 and 19 is exactly right, though the rate is not stated here. 2275.00 + 40.00 = $2,315.00, exactly the footing, exactly the sum written out in the receipt ("Twentythree Hundred and fifteen dollars"), and exactly the docketed amount on the verso (image 20). The sheet proves exactly at $2,315.00.
Flagged: Nothing material is doubtful on this sheet; the hand is large and the ink strong. Three small points are worth recording. "Twentythree" is written closed up as one word by the clerk and is left so. "CedarKeys" is likewise written as a single word with an internal capital. The freight line carries no rate, only the total $40, so the $10 a gun is inferred from the other accounts and is not stated here. The date of the account is 20 October 1861, the issue memorandum refers to 21 October, and the receipt is 11 November 1861 — consistent, not contradictory. This sheet settles two readings left uncertain elsewhere in the range: the party is named in full as "Dr Junius L Archer", and Gibbon's title, which is compressed to a bare contraction on image 13, is written out here as "Capt C.S. A. Ordnance duty".
Image 22 — Cross-reference slip: "Archer, J. L. Dr." / "See Geo. W. [D/P]rice" — no date, no figures
A tall, narrow slip of plain unruled paper, roughly three times as high as it is wide and much smaller than the account sheets, photographed upright with the writing across the top. It is not a folded docket panel but a finding slip of the kind used in arranging the file. There are no folds, no rules, no printing, no handstamp and no archival number. Two lines of writing occupy the top fifth of the slip in a broad, fluent, modern-looking hand in black ink, with a generous gap between them; the rest of the slip is entirely blank apart from a few specks of dirt and the dark copy table showing along both long edges. The paper is clean and unworn.
Archer, J. L. Dr. See Geo. W. Drice[?]
Checks: No figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: The surname in the second line is unambiguous after its first letter, reading "rice"; the initial capital is a large open bowl that this writer forms differently from the closed, looped "D" of "Dr." on the line above. It is therefore probably "Price", but the letter is not certain and the literal reading is given with a query rather than the likelier name. The slip carries no date, no amount and no archival mark, and it is an arrangement aid rather than a Confederate record: it directs the researcher from Archer's name to a second file, and the papers it points to are not in this range. "Dr." here follows the name as a title, matching "To Dr Junius L Archer" on image 21, and is not the accounting abbreviation for debtor used at the head of the printed accounts.
Image 23 — Adjutant General's Office finding slip, "Archer, J. L.", listing six volume-and-page citations and endorsed "Misc."; stamped ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE / CONFEDERATE ARCHIVES DIVISION
A tall, narrow slip of faintly blue-ruled writing paper, about three times as high as it is wide, photographed upright. It is not a Confederate document at all but a United States War Department finding aid, made when the captured Confederate records were being arranged. There are no folds and no printing beyond the machine rules. The name stands on the ruled line at the head in a fine, sloping, well-schooled hand in black ink; below it, in a larger and blunter hand and set out one to a line, are six references, each beginning with the figure 6 and a dash. The middle of the slip is blank. Low on the sheet is a struck oval handstamp, its text on two arcs around an empty centre with a small printer's ornament under the top arc, and below the stamp the word "Misc." is written in a broad script hand. The paper is clean; the ink of the citations is strong and the whole slip is in good condition.
Archer, J. L.
6 - 314 - 40
6 - 299 - 54
6 . 313½ - 3
6 - 315 - 42
6 - 362 - 137
6 - 669 . 49, 67, 71.
[oval handstamp:]
ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE.
[ornament]
DIVISION
CONFEDERATE ARCHIVES.
Misc.
Checks: The figures on this slip are archival citations, not money, so there is nothing to foot — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: The citations are given exactly as written, including the mixed use of a dash and a point as separators and the half-number "313½"; they are references into a series of volumes and pages, and nothing on the slip says which series. The third digit of the fourth reference is read as 5 by contrast with the plainly formed 3s in the reference above it, but the two figures are similar in this hand. The stamp reads on two arcs, "ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE." above and "CONFEDERATE ARCHIVES." below with "DIVISION" set within, i.e. the Confederate Archives Division of the Adjutant General's Office; it is a different handstamp from the RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT oval on the account sheets. This slip does not belong to any of the accounts in this range and carries no date.
Image 24 — Typewritten cross-reference slip: "Archer, J. L. (Dr.) / See A E Albertson, In Vouchers. P. 14." — no date, no figures
A tall, narrow slip of plain unruled paper of the same size and stock as image 22, photographed upright. Three elements are present, in three different media. At the head, in the same fine sloping pen and black ink as the heading of image 23, is the name; below it, centred and in a broader script hand, an abbreviation in parentheses; and below that, centred, three lines struck on a typewriter with a worn ribbon — the lower-case e's and o's have filled in and print solid. A fourth, handwritten line follows the typing in the broad script hand, giving a page reference. The lower two-thirds of the slip is blank, with a faint show-through of the typing and a small pale scratch at the bottom left corner. There is no fold, no printing, no handstamp and no archival number. The paper is clean and flat.
Archer, J. L.
(Dr.)
See
A E Albertson,
In Vouchers.
P. 14.
Checks: No money on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. "P. 14." is a page reference, not a sum.
Flagged: Nothing doubtful in the reading. Two points are worth recording. The parenthetical "(Dr.)" is the title Doctor, consistent with "To Dr Junius L Archer" on image 21, and not the accounting abbreviation for debtor. Like image 22, this is a modern arrangement slip and not a Confederate record: it directs the researcher from Archer's name to papers filed under another party, here A. E. Albertson, and those papers are not in this range. The typing gives no series title beyond "Vouchers", and no date appears anywhere on the slip.
Amendments
All twelve sections above were written from the images in order, one at a time. The following changes and confirmations were made afterwards, on a second pass, and are recorded here rather than folded silently into the sections.
Amendment 1 — Image 13, "Ordnance Duty[?]". Re-examined at about eight times the magnification first used. The word under Hudgins's signature is now certain: it reads "Duty:", with an abbreviation bar above and a colon after, so the endorsement is "R. K. Hudgins Capt: / Ordnance Duty:". The query in the section above should be treated as withdrawn. It is corroborated independently by image 21, where the same office formula is written out in full by another officer as "Capt C.S. A. Ordnance duty". The signature itself re-reads without difficulty as "Hudgins".
Amendment 2 — Image 15, the corner number "1752[?]". The query stands. The final figure was compared against the plainly formed "2" of "662" on image 19, which is by the same heavy later hand: both are the looped Z-form, with a top bar, a diagonal, and a long horizontal base carried out to the right. That comparison supports 2 over 3, but the figure is blunt and thickened and the reading is not certain enough to close.
Amendment 3 — Image 16, "Shea[?]". The query stands, and the literal reading is confirmed rather than corrected. At high magnification the word was set beside "Shot" earlier in the same line, written by the same pen. "Shot" shows one tall ascender, for the h; the doubtful word shows exactly one tall ascender as well, followed by a small e and a rounded final letter, with no second or third ascender of the kind that "ll" would require in this hand. So the ink says "Shea" and stops at the fold. "Shell" remains the only sense the phrase will bear, but it cannot be got out of the letters, and the transcription is left as read.
Amendment 4 — Image 17, the illegible word in the cross-written certificate. No change to the transcription, but a cross-reference worth recording. The certificate on image 17 opens "I certify that these 8 [illegible]"; the corresponding certificate on image 19, in the same hand and signed by the same officer, opens "I certify that the eight Columbiad Gu[ns] / have been received at Richmond". The two notes are plainly the same formula, and the account above the image 17 note is for eight 8-inch Columbiads. The word is still not legible on image 17 and has been left marked as such.
— Second pass completed after all twelve sections were written; no section above was rewritten.
Image 25 — Cross-reference slip, name index card for "Archer, Junius L., Dr." directing the reader to vouchers filed under S. Stansbury; no date, no money figures
A narrow, tall panel (1,460 x 3,220 px), evidently one face of a folded jacket or a filing slip rather than a document proper. The sheet is plain, unruled, light-toned, with the dark microfilm surround visible along all four edges and a broad grey shadow washing up the left margin and bottom-left corner. The only writing is at the head: a large, confident, looping cursive hand in black ink, "Archer, Junius L, Dr.", running the full width and with the final "Dr." crowded hard against the right edge of the panel. Below it, roughly a third of the way down, a two-line handstamp in black: a serif line reading "See vouchers No." followed by a handwritten figure, and beneath that a smaller line of small capitals, "S. STANSBURY", the letters NS partly obliterated by an ink blot or overstrike. A faint pencilled squiggle sits a little below the stamp at mid-left. The rest of the panel, the whole lower two-thirds, is blank; contrast-boosted inspection shows nothing but paper grain, a few specks and the film shadow. No archival accession stamp, no file number, no fold creases legible on this face.
Archer, Junius L, Dr.
Sec vouchers No. 2
S. STANSBURY,
Checks: No figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. (The "2" is a voucher-file reference, not a sum.)
Flagged: The stamped word before "vouchers" prints as "Sec" — the second letter is a rounded "e" and the third a broken "c" — but the sense is plainly "See vouchers No. 2"; transcribed as struck. The handwritten "2" is a single looped numeral and could conceivably be read as a "1" with a flourish, though "2" is much the better reading. The surname in the lower stamp is obscured across "NS" by ink but reads STANSBURY. This is a finding-aid slip, not a Confederate business paper: it carries no date, no place and no transaction, and it points the researcher out of this jacket into vouchers filed elsewhere. Nothing on this face names Bellona Foundry, Chesterfield County, or Richmond; the only identification it gives is the full personal name "Junius L. Archer", styled "Dr."
Image 26 — Printed War Department index card, "INDEX CARD OF CONFEDERATE RECORDS," for Junius L. Archer, Bellona Arsenal, referring the reader to the personal papers of R. D. Selden; no date, no money figures
A tall, narrow printed card (1,456 x 3,180 px) of the standard post-war War Department index series, photographed against a black film ground. The card is ruled with four broken (dashed) horizontal writing lines in the upper half — two at the head for the name and command, a third rule below a blank interval, and a fourth beneath the referral name — and carries a printed line of small roman type, "See personal papers of," centered between them. The lower rule is broken by the printed abbreviations ", Co. ," and "Reg't," the blank-form apparatus for a soldier's company and regiment, which the clerk has simply written over and around. At the foot, in heavy bold display type, "INDEX CARD OF CONFEDERATE RECORDS." with a second, smaller bold line beneath, and a printed form number in parentheses set flush left below both. All the manuscript is in one clean, practised, fine-nibbed clerical hand in black ink, with generous flourishes on the capitals. The card is otherwise unmarked: no handstamp, no date, no fold, no damage, and the whole lower half is blank paper.
Archer Junius L.
Bellona Arsenal
______________________________
See personal papers of
R. D. Selden
Bellona, Arsenal.
_________, Co. ____, ______ Reg't __________
INDEX CARD OF CONFEDERATE RECORDS.
This card must not be taken from the files.
(539)
Checks: No figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: The printed form number at the foot reads "(539)"; the middle digit is a blurred double-bowl glyph and at small scale can look like an 8, but enlarged it is a 3. Per the standing rule, this is a printed form number and not a voucher number. The referral surname is unambiguously "Selden" (capital S with a long lead-in stroke, then -elden); the initials "R. D." are clear. R. D. Selden is not otherwise identified on the card and I cannot resolve his office or relationship to Archer from this sheet alone. Note that the clerk has written "Bellona, Arsenal." with an intrusive comma on the referral line but "Bellona Arsenal" without one on the head line; both are transcribed as written. This card is the first sheet in my range that names a place: it ties Junius L. Archer to Bellona Arsenal. That supports, but is not the same as, the Bellona Foundry proposal — arsenal and foundry were adjacent but distinct establishments on the James in Chesterfield County, and the card is a modern (post-war) archivist's index, not a wartime document, so its evidentiary weight is that of a filing clerk's judgment rather than of Archer's own paper.
Image 27 — Endorsement (docket) panel from the back of a folded printed voucher, headed only "J. L. Archer.", bearing the Adjutant General's Office / Confederate Archives oval handstamp; no date, no figures on this face
A narrow, tall panel (1,192 x 2,890 px) that is plainly the outside of a folded printed voucher rather than a separate sheet: the paper carries three heavy horizontal fold creases across the lower half, the lowest of them abraded and grubby from having been the outermost fold, and the sheet edge is ragged at bottom right. A single line of printed roman type runs vertically up the left margin, reading sideways when the panel is turned — the tail of the form's money clause, "dollars and ____ cents, to be charged as follows:" — with both blanks left unfilled, confirming this is the reverse of a form whose face lies elsewhere. At the head, written across the panel in the same large looping black-ink hand seen on the other docket slips, is the endorsement "J. L. Archer." and nothing more. About a third of the way down, struck across the middle of the panel, is the familiar oval rubber handstamp in faded black: "ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE" arched over the top, "DIVISION" across the center, and "CONFEDERATE ARCHIVES" arched around the bottom. A small solid ink blot or worm-hole sits near the lowest fold. Apart from the name, the printed line and the stamp, the panel is blank; contrast-boosted inspection of the right margin and the whole lower half turns up nothing but paper grain, foxing specks and creases.
J. L. Archer.
[oval handstamp:]
ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE
DIVISION
CONFEDERATE ARCHIVES
[printed, running vertically up the left margin:]
dollars and ________ cents, to be charged as follows:
Checks: No figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The printed money clause it carries is a blank form line, not a sum.
Flagged: This panel carries no voucher number, no date and no place, so I cannot on internal evidence attach it to any particular account in this file; it is a detached or unfilmed-face docket. The "J. L. Archer." endorsement is the file-clerk's or the disbursing officer's hand, not necessarily Archer's own signature — the letterforms match the index-slip hand on image 25 rather than any signature elsewhere. The oval handstamp is the standard post-war Adjutant General's Office, Division of Confederate Archives, custody mark; the impression is weak and partly broken, but every word of it is legible. Nothing here names Bellona.
Image 28 — Autograph order, Bellona Arsenal, 8 June 1863: J. L. Archer directs Dr. J. B. McCaw to pay twenty dollars and charge it to the account of his hire; $20.00
A short, wide oblong of writing paper (2,904 x 1,211 px), plainly the blank back of a folded printed form pressed into service as a note: near the top edge a line of printed roman type shows through from the other face, faint, grey and reversed left-to-right, and mirroring it makes it read "cents, to be charged as follows:" — the same money clause that appears crisply on the docket panel of image 27. Four lines of a large, rapid, sloping cursive in strong black ink fill the middle of the sheet, running the full width and crowding the right edge; the writer's pen is broad and the letters loop generously, with a heavy ink blot at the end of the second line and another over the "c" of "McCaw." The signature is a single run-on flourish underscored with a long horizontal stroke that finishes in a closed loop out at the right. The paper is clean, unfoxed, with one horizontal crease across the lower third and a ragged deckle along the bottom edge; two small stray pen ticks sit below the date at lower left. No archival handstamp on this face, no printed heading, no ruling.
Dr J B McCaw will please give twenty
dollars & charge to a/c of his hire[?]
Bellona Arsenal J L Archer
June 8th 1863
Checks: The only figure is the sum written out in words, "twenty dollars" — $20.00. There is no column, extension or footing on the sheet, so there is no arithmetic to prove; the order is internally consistent.
Flagged: The last word of the second line is the one genuinely doubtful reading. It is written fast, as a tall looped ascender, a dotted minim, then a broad low wave closing into a small loop with a long exit stroke; "hire" fits both the letterforms and the sense ("charge to a/c of his hire"), but "him" cannot be ruled out on the strokes alone, and it makes no sense in the sentence, so I read "hire" and mark it. "a/c" is written as an "a", a long descending slash, and a small "c" — the standard period contraction for "account." The addressee is "Dr J B McCaw," with the "c" of "Mc" written superscript and blotted; the initials are clear and the first is a J, not an I. Who McCaw was, and in what capacity he held funds Archer could draw on, is not stated on the sheet and I will not supply it. Likewise the note does not say whose hire is meant, and "his" has no antecedent on the page — the bearer was presumably known to both men. Two observations about the sheet itself, offered as proposals rather than findings: first, the show-through of the printed money clause means this leaf was cut or folded from a printed Confederate voucher blank; second, this image and image 27 are within about a dozen pixels of the same size once image 27 is turned on its side, the printed line falls at the matching position, and it is crisp on 27 and reversed on 28 — so 27 and 28 are very probably the two faces of one folded sheet, image 28 the written face and image 27 the outer docket. This is the first sheet in my range in Archer's own hand and the first to fix a place and date: Bellona Arsenal, June 8th 1863.
Image 29 — Verso (docket face) of the Chimborazo Hospital receipt of 14 July 1862, endorsed "J. L. Archer." and struck with a faint archival oval handstamp; the receipt's own text shows through mirrored; no figures written on this face
A roughly square leaf (2,200 x 2,258 px) of blue-grey ruled writing paper, the ruling running vertically in this view because the sheet has been turned a quarter-turn: this is the back of the sheet whose front is image 30, and the two are unquestionably one document. The only ink actually laid on this face is the file endorsement at top left — "J. L. Archer." in the same large, looping docket hand as images 25 and 27, written across the rules — and, low and left of centre, a very weak oval handstamp whose legend is too faded and too broken by the paper's grain to read letter by letter, though its size, its double-ruled oval border and its arched top and bottom lines match the Adjutant General's Office / Confederate Archives stamp struck plainly on image 27. Everything else visible on this face is show-through of the writing on the other side: seven lines of a fine dark hand, plus a large "$22 00/100" and a heavy bracket flourish, all faint, grey and reversed. Turning the image a quarter-turn and mirroring it renders that show-through perfectly legible and it matches image 30 word for word, which is how I identified the two faces. The bottom edge and part of the right edge are torn away in a long ragged diagonal, and there is a rough tear at the upper left corner; neither costs any of the writing on this face.
J. L. Archer.
[faint oval handstamp, legend illegible — form matches the
ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE / DIVISION / CONFEDERATE ARCHIVES
oval on image 27]
[all remaining marks on this face are reversed show-through of the
recto, image 30, and are transcribed there, not here]
Checks: No figures written on this face — no arithmetic to prove. The "$22 00/100" that appears here is the recto's, seen through the paper.
Flagged: The oval handstamp is the one real loss on this page: the impression is present but I cannot read a single word of it with confidence, so I record only its form and note the match to image 27 as a proposal, not a reading. The endorsement gives no voucher number and no date. The pairing of images 29 and 30 as verso and recto of one sheet is not a guess: mirroring this image reproduces image 30's seven lines, its "$22 00/100," and its bracket flourish in the right positions, and image 30 in turn carries the mirrored show-through of "J. L. Archer." up its own left margin.
Image 30 — Receipt, Chimborazo Hospital, Richmond, 14 July 1862: Jno. K. Childrey, for Dr. J. L. Archer, receipts $22.00 from Dr. J. B. McCaw for the hire of a negro boy to 1 July 1862; $22 00/100
A roughly square leaf (2,312 x 2,188 px) of ruled writing paper, the same sheet as image 29 seen from the front. The ruling runs horizontally here and the writer has used every other rule. The hand is small, fine, fast and confident, in dense black ink, quite different from the big docket hand: it is the hand of a hospital clerk, not of Archer. The sum is written large at the upper left, "$22 00/100" with a long dash after it, and the body of the receipt is indented well to the right in five lines; the place and date sit at the lower left, and the signature block at the lower right, the two joined by a tall vertical bracket flourish of three or four loops. Up the extreme left margin, faint and reversed, runs the show-through of the docket endorsement "J. L. Archer." from the back. The paper is toned and slightly cockled with two horizontal creases; the bottom edge is torn away raggedly and the right edge is worn, cropping the last letter of the final signature. No archival handstamp is visible on this face; no printed matter of any kind.
$22 00/100 —
Received[?] of Dr J B McCaw
through Wm Strahan Clk
Twenty Two dollars for servis[?]
of negro boy in Chimbrazo[?]
Hospital up to 1st July 1862
Chimbrazo[?] Hospital Jno K. Childrey
Richmond July 14th 1862 } for Dr J L Arche[r]
Checks: The sum in figures at the head, $22 00/100, agrees exactly with the sum written out in the body, "Twenty Two dollars" — proves exactly at $22.00. There is no column, extension or footing on the sheet, so there is no further arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: Three doubtful readings, all of them spellings rather than substance. First, the opening word: the clerk has run the middle of it together into a row of minims under a contraction stroke, so it can be read "Received" or "Recevd"; I give "Received" and mark it. Second, the last word of the third line, which I read "servis" — the letters are s-e-r-v, a dotted minim, and a final looped s, plainly standing for "services" but not spelled that way; I have not corrected it. Third, and the one worth care, the hospital's name: in both places the clerk writes what reads as Chimbrazo, with no "o" between the b and the r, and I have transcribed it that way and marked it rather than silently normalising it to the familiar spelling. The final surname runs off the worn right edge and loses its last letter, hence "Arche[r]". "Clk" is the clerk's own contraction for Clerk; "Jno" for John. Note the substance for the file as a whole: this receipt is not for cannon, shot or castings but for the hire of an enslaved boy working in a Richmond hospital, collected on Archer's behalf by a third party. It is dated more than ten months before the order on image 28, and it names the same Dr. J. B. McCaw, which is a strong internal support for reading that order's last word as "hire." Nothing on this sheet names Bellona.
Image 31 — Printed docket, C. S. Nitre and Mining Service, No. 6: receipt from J. L. Archer, Supt., Bellona Works, to Capt. R. Morton for 11,840 lbs Liberty pig iron, 4th April 1863; a weight, not a money total
A large sheet (3,960 x 3,139 px) photographed as a folded docket panel: the printed matter occupies a column down the middle of the frame with wide blank paper either side, and the whole is toned a flat mid-grey with heavy foxing specks scattered across it, a small white loss at lower left and several long, faint diagonal creases. The printing is a plain job-office form — a bold roman display line at the head, a short rule beneath it, then five ruled fill-in lines whose rules are set as rows of printers' dots, each with a bold roman label at the left ("No.", "Receipt for", "To", "From") and a printed "186" near the right end of the last line for the year. All the manuscript is in a light, thin, hurried hand, in ink that has faded to grey and reads much weaker than the printing; two small superscript abbreviations are squeezed above the quantity. Struck across the lower part of the panel is a large, well-inked double-ruled oval handstamp with a five-pointed star at its right side. No fold creases cross the writing, no tears, no loss of text.
C. S. NITRE AND MINING SERVICE.
______________
No. 6..............
T ℔s
Receipt for 11. 840 Liberty Pig Iron...........
To.....Capt R. Morton...........................
From.....J L Archer.............................
Supt
Bellona Works
..........4th April..............186 3[?]
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION.
REBEL ARCHIVES. ★
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: There are no money figures on this docket and no column to add — the only quantity is the weight, and no arithmetic to prove. If the two superscripts are read as I propose, the quantity is 11 tons 840 pounds; if they are read as a single "℔s" applied to the whole figure, it is 11,840 pounds. The two readings differ by an order of magnitude and the sheet itself does not settle it.
Flagged: Four things. First, the "No. 6" is handwritten on a printed "No." line and is therefore the document's own number, not a form number — this is a genuine receipt number 6. Second, the quantity: I can read "11", a gap, and "840" plainly, with a superscript "T" over the gap and a superscript pound-ligature "℔s" over the end. The natural sense of that pairing is "11 T[ons] 840 ℔s", the standard way of writing iron weights, but the marks are small, pale and half-lost in the paper, and I mark the whole quantity as uncertain. "Liberty" is the pig iron's brand or furnace name as written. Third, the year: the form prints "186" and the clerk added one digit which is now barely a smudge; it reads best as a 3, giving 4 April 1863, and I have marked it. Fourth, "Capt R. Morton" carries a long flourish over the surname; the initial is clearly a single R. I cannot identify him further from this sheet and will not try. The oval handstamp is the "RECORD DIVISION. / REBEL ARCHIVES. ★ / WAR DEPARTMENT." mark — a different post-war custody stamp from the Adjutant General's Office oval on image 27, and much more strongly impressed. This is the decisive sheet for the identification question in my range: the "From" line reads "J L Archer", subscribed "Supt", over the place "Bellona Works", in Archer's own file. It names Archer as superintendent of the Bellona works and shows him shipping pig iron to the Nitre and Mining Service. Whether "Bellona Works" here means the private foundry or the government arsenal the sheet does not say, and I record the distinction rather than closing it.
Image 32 — Receipt on a printed C. S. form, Richmond, 4 April 1863: J. L. Archer, Supt. Bellona Works, receipts from Capt. Richard Morton, C. S. Nitre & Mining Bureau, eleven tons eight hundred and forty pounds of "Liberty" pig iron on Order No. 75, for Army Ordnance; footed 11 tons 840 lbs
A tall printed receipt form (3,176 x 3,939 px) on light wove paper, ruled across in fine horizontal lines with two vertical rules near the right edge making a pair of narrow money-style columns. The heading is three printed lines of mixed roman and italic — "RECEIVED at ... this ... day of ... 186 ... from ... the following Articles, viz:" — with the blanks carried on rows of printers' dots; a heavy rule closes the head, and a second heavy rule near the foot closes the body, with "(SIGNED DUPLICATES.)" printed in small capitals at the lower left. The body is filled in a firm, even, well-formed clerical hand in black ink, three lines of description and a single entry in the two right-hand columns; the clerk has written his own column headings, "Tons" and "℔s", in ink both above the closing rule of the head and again inside the columns. Below the three lines of description an enormous vertical waved cancelling stroke — a "waste" or ruling-off flourish — runs the whole depth of the empty body to stop anything being added. Two words in the description, ""Liberty" Pig Iron," are in a noticeably lighter, finer, later hand and sit above the ruled line, an insertion. The signature at the foot is large, bold and heavily flourished, with a long underscoring loop. The sheet is clean and unfolded, lightly foxed, with a small pale abrasion in the columns beside the entry; no handstamp of any kind.
RECEIVED at Richmond.................this....4.............day of
..April.............1863 . from Capt. Richard Morton..
C. S. Nitre & Mining Bureau....the following Articles, viz:
Tons ℔s
______________________________________________________________
| |
Eleven tons and eight hundred | Tons | ℔s
and forty lbs. Order No 75 "Liberty" Pig Iron | |
Army Ord. | 11 | 840
| |
[long vertical waved | |
cancelling stroke down | |
the empty body] | |
______________________________________________________________
(SIGNED DUPLICATES.) J L Archer
Supt Bellona Works
Checks: The quantity written out in words, "Eleven tons and eight hundred and forty lbs.", agrees exactly with the figures entered in the columns, 11 tons and 840 ℔s — proves exactly at 11 tons 840 lbs. There is one line only, so there is no extension and no footing to add; there are no money figures anywhere on the sheet.
Flagged: Nothing doubtful in the reading. Two notes. First, ""Liberty" Pig Iron" is an insertion in a second, lighter hand, written above the line and squeezed against the column rule, and the quotation marks around Liberty are the writer's own — it is the brand or furnace name of the iron, and the same phrase appears on the docket, image 31, in what looks like the same light hand. Second, and importantly, this sheet is the receipt whose docket is image 31: same date (4 April 1863), same officer (Capt. R. / Richard Morton), same service (C. S. Nitre and Mining), same quantity, same signer, same place of business. It also settles the quantity question I raised on image 31 — the superscript marks there are "T[ons]" and "℔s", and the figure is 11 tons 840 lbs, not 11,840 lbs. On the Bellona question this sheet is as good as image 31 and better, because the signature is Archer's own rather than a clerk's entry: he signs himself Supt Bellona Works and receipts government iron in that capacity, at Richmond, in April 1863. "Army Ord." is the clerk's contraction, presumably for Army Ordnance, and is transcribed as written.
Image 33 — Docket (endorsement) panel of a folded account, No. 23, Dr. J. L. Archer, 11th April 1863, with a money total now almost entirely rubbed away; struck with the Rebel Archives handstamp
A wide sheet (4,324 x 3,260 px) photographed folded, showing three panels divided by two deep vertical creases, the paper heavily soiled and mottled all over with grey stains, foxing and rubbing, and torn along the top edge above the left crease where a strip has been lost. Only the centre panel carries writing, and only in its upper third: four short lines of a fine, sloping hand in ink that has worn very badly, the last line reduced almost to nothing. Struck squarely across the middle of the centre panel is a strong, well-inked oval handstamp with a five-pointed star at each side. The outer panels are blank apart from dirt, offset from whatever the packet was pressed against, and a faint pencil stroke or two. A small pen tick sits below the stamp near the bottom fold. No printed matter of any kind on this face.
No 23.
Dr J. L. Archer
11th April 1863
√ [illegible] 3[?]
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
★ REBEL ARCHIVES. ★
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: The money line is too far gone to prove. What survives of it is a clear tick or check mark, then a rubbed group of strokes, then a heavy blotted figure that reads best as a 3. I can say only that a sum was written here and that it has been abraded away; I will not reconstruct it, and I will not repeat the shape my eye first made of it, because the ink that would settle it is gone.
Flagged: The lost total is the real defect on this page and it is a substantive one — this docket ought to tell us the amount of account No. 23, and it no longer does. "No 23." is a handwritten number on a sheet with no printed form at all, so it is the document's own endorsement number, not a form number; the second digit is a looped glyph that reads 3 rather than 5, but I mark it as the less certain of the two. The date is legible: 11th April 1863, seven days after the pig-iron receipt of images 31 and 32. The name is "Dr J. L. Archer," the "Dr" written with a superscript r, in the same style of courtesy title used on the index slip of image 25. The handstamp is the same "RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT" oval as image 31, though here the impression carries a star on both sides rather than one. Nothing on this panel names Bellona, Richmond, or any commodity; the account it dockets is not in my range as far as I can tell.
Image 34 — Account and receipt, Confederate States of America to Dr. J. L. Archer, Richmond, 11 April 1863: one 9-inch Dahlgren gun, 9,480 lbs at 16 cents, made by Dr. Archer for the Ordnance Department in the third quarter of 1862 but delivered in the present quarter; $1,516.80
A large printed account form (4,336 x 3,241 px) filmed opened out, with a strong vertical fold down the middle and a second down the right third; the paper is badly soiled, heavily stained in grey blooms and rust-brown foxing, torn away along the top edge at the left corner and again in a deep black bite through the upper centre-right which has swallowed part of the debtor's name. The heading is set in a fine blackletter, "Confederate States of America,", with an engraved-script "To" and "Dr" flanking a long blank; a heavy rule closes the head, and the body is ruled into columns — a narrow date column at the left, the wide particulars column, two money columns, and a "REMARKS." column at the right. The manuscript is in at least three hands: a firm business hand for the entry and the remarks, a bolder hand for the two signatures, and a soft graphite pencil for a small three-line multiplication scribbled diagonally in the empty middle of the sheet. There are pencil check marks over the money figures and beside the remark. Below the body sit the printed certificate and receipt clauses, filled in, and "SIGNED DUPLICATES." printed at the lower left. Faint ghost writing — offset from another sheet, not this one's — shows in the empty left columns and cannot be read.
Confederate States of America, To Dr J. L. A[rcher] Dr
1863. | | | REMARKS.
________|____________________________________________|____________|__________
| | |
April 3 | 1. 9" Dahlgren Gun 9480 ℔s @ 16 ¢ | $1516 80 | ✓ This Gun was made
| | | by Dr Archer for the
| | | Ordnance Department
| [in pencil, written diagonally:] | | during the third Quar-
| 5[?]6880 | | ter 1862 but not de-
| 9480 | | livered until the
| 151680 | | present Quarter.
| | | R. K. Huggins[?] Capt:
| | | Ord: Duty.
________|____________________________________________|____________|__________
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Fifteen hundred and Sixteen 80/100 Dollars, ______________________________
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for
R. K. Huggins[?] Capt: Ordnance Duty
RECEIVED, Richmond 11th April 186 3, of
Capt Edw B Smith [illegible] Fifteen Hundred and Sixteen
Dollars [illegible] Cents, in full of the above account.
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
J L Archer
Checks: The extension proves exactly. 9,480 lbs at 16 cents = $1,516.80, which is the figure carried into the money column, $1516 80. The certificate repeats it in words — "Fifteen hundred and Sixteen 80/100 Dollars" — and the receipt clause repeats it again as "Fifteen Hundred and Sixteen ... Dollars ... Cents"; all three agree. Proves exactly at $1,516.80. The pencil computation in the middle of the sheet is the same sum worked long-hand: the partial products 56,880 (9,480 x 6) and 9,480 (9,480 x 1, shifted) footing to 151,680 — that is, 151,680 cents, $1,516.80. It agrees with the entry to the cent. There is only the one line, so there is no column footing beyond it.
Flagged: Three uncertain readings and one loss. The debtor's name in the heading runs straight through the torn black bite in the paper: "Dr J. L." is plain, the surname is not, and I give it as "A[rcher]" on the strength of the surviving initial letter and the rest of the file rather than on the strokes. The certifying officer signs twice; both signatures read "R. K. H-u-a-g-i-n-s" as written, which is no name, and the likeliest resolution is Huggins with the first g formed without its descender — I mark it. The pencil figure 56880 has a first digit half rubbed out; the arithmetic requires a 5 and a 5 is what the trace best fits, but I mark it rather than assert it. The payer's designation after "Capt Edw B Smith," and the word in the Cents blank, are both written in a very pale ink over a stained patch and are beyond recovery at this resolution; I have marked them illegible rather than guess. Two further notes. First, this account is almost certainly the one docketed on image 33: same debtor, same date (11 April 1863), same place implied — and if so the money total rubbed off that docket was $1,516.80, which I offer as a proposal, not a reading. Second, and much the most important thing in my whole range: the remarks column states in plain words that the gun was made by Dr. Archer for the Ordnance Department. A 9-inch Dahlgren pattern gun of 9,480 lbs is heavy naval-pattern ordnance, and it is being invoiced by weight at a flat 16 cents the pound, which is a founder's price for a casting, not a dealer's price for goods handled. Taken with images 31 and 32, where Archer signs as "Supt Bellona Works," this is direct wartime evidence that Archer was casting cannon — the strongest support in these twelve images for the Bellona Foundry proposal, though the word "Bellona" does not itself appear on this sheet.
Image 35 — Docket (endorsement) panel of a folded account, No. 50, Dr. J. L. Archer, 4th April 1863, $5,000, for casting cannon shells; struck with the Rebel Archives handstamp
A large sheet (4,344 x 3,261 px) filmed folded into three panels, the two vertical creases showing as soft light bands; the paper is clean, evenly pale and in far better condition than image 33 — no tears, only light general soiling, a faint horizontal band of ghosting across the upper third, and two or three small ink flecks below the writing. All the writing is on the centre panel, in a large, fluent, well-inked hand with strong flourishes: five short lines, each ruled off underneath with a single or double pen stroke, the last two rules doubled. Struck across the lower centre panel is a strong oval handstamp with a five-pointed star at each side. Nothing is printed on this face; the outer panels are blank apart from very faint offset from the sheet it was folded against.
No 50.
Dr J. L. Archer
____________________
Apl 4th 1863.
____________________
$5,000 ——
Cast'g Cannon Sh's
════════════════════
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
★ REBEL ARCHIVES. ★
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: The single figure on the panel is the docketed total, $5,000, written with a comma and three noughts and closed with a long dash. There is no column, no extension and no footing on this face, so there is no arithmetic to prove; the figure is legible and unambiguous.
Flagged: Two contractions and one caution. "Cast'g" is written C-a-s-t with a raised apostrophe and a g — plainly "Casting". The last word is written S-h-s with a raised apostrophe after it, "Sh's"; the sense of the line is casting for cannon, and the likeliest expansions are "Shells" or "Shot", but the panel does not spell it out and I will not choose between them — I have transcribed the contraction as it stands. The caution: "No 50." is handwritten on a sheet with no printed matter at all, so it is this account's own endorsement number and not a form number, but note that it stands only four days later than nothing else in my range and I have not found the account itself among images 25-36, so I cannot check the $5,000 against any body of entries. The date is "Apl 4th 1863", with the 4 written heavily over an earlier figure — the correction is the writer's own and the final reading is clear. The handstamp is the same "RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT" oval as images 31 and 33. On the identification question, this panel adds a second, independent statement that Archer's business with the government was casting for cannon, though again it does not use the word Bellona.
Image 36 — Account and receipt, Confederate States of America to Dr. J. L. Archer, Richmond, 4 April 1863: 8 iron howitzers at $300 and 28 howitzers taken as old iron at $92.85 5/7 each, to be recast at Bellona Foundry; footed and receipted at $5,000
A large printed account form (4,344 x 3,284 px) of the same setting as image 34 — blackletter "Confederate States of America," at the head, engraved-script "To" and "Dr", a ruled date column at the left, wide particulars, two money columns and a "REMARKS." column at the right, with the certificate and receipt clauses printed below and "SIGNED DUPLICATES." at the foot. The sheet is in good order: evenly toned, only lightly soiled, with two soft vertical folds and a small chip out of the upper left edge. The hand throughout the body is a fine, sloping, confident script in black ink, and the remarks column is filled to its full depth in the same hand and signed. Three later interventions stand out: a heavy black obliteration scored back and forth across the middle of the second entry line until nothing beneath it survives; a bold cross-hatched cancellation drawn over the certifying signature, criss-crossed until it is unreadable; and, in a different, finer pen, a two-line memorandum squeezed into the blank at the lower left about an advance of $2,000. A modern archival number is written large in ink at the top right corner and underlined. Pencil check marks stand over each money figure. No handstamp on this face.
3937
Confederate States of America, To Dr J. L. Archer Dr
1863. | | | | REMARKS.
_______|____________________________________|__________|_________|____________
| | | |
| 8 Iron Howitzers @ | $300. | $2400 ~ | The 28 Howitzers
| 28 " " (old iron) [illegible — struck out] | charged in this account
| | | $2600 ~ | as old iron will be
| $92 85 5/7 cts each | | $5000 ~ | collected by me and
| | | | recast at Bellona Foundry
| | | | & for which I will be
App'd under the authority of Chf Ordnance | | | accountable to Lt Col
T. S. Rhett Col | | | S. Stansbury.
Insp: Ord: | | | J L Archer
_______|____________________________________|__________|_________|____________
$2000 advanced J. L. A.
by Major Baldwin Ret'd. to Capt E B Smith
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Five Thousand Dollars [signature cancelled with heavy cross-hatching]
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for
RECEIVED, Richmond Apl 4th 186 3, of
Smith Stansbury, Lt Col Comdg, Five
Thousand Dollars Cents, in full of the above account.
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
J L Archer
Checks: Both extensions prove and the footing proves. First line: 8 iron howitzers at $300 each = $2,400, which is the figure entered. Second line: 28 howitzers at $92 85 5/7 cents each — that is $92.857142... — gives 28 x $92 = $2,576 plus 28 x 85 5/7 cents = $24.00, so $2,600.00 exactly, which is the figure entered; the odd rate is simply $2,600 divided by 28 carried to sevenths, and it divides without remainder. Footing: $2,400 + $2,600 = $5,000, the figure entered in the second money column. The certificate says "Five Thousand Dollars" and the receipt clause says "Five ... Thousand Dollars," both agreeing. Proves exactly at $5,000.00. The lower-left memorandum records $2,000 of that sum advanced separately and returned; it is a note on how the money moved, not a charge, and it does not enter the footing.
Flagged: Two deliberate destructions and two small readings. The obliteration on the second entry line was made with a pen loaded to the point of blotting and scored back and forth until the paper is solid black; nothing under it can be recovered at any magnification, and I have marked it struck out rather than guess at what the clerk withdrew. The certifying officer's signature has been cancelled with a lattice of crossing strokes and is likewise unreadable — note that the certificate below it is in a different hand from the body and that the receipt on the line beneath names Smith Stansbury as the officer paying, so the cancelled signature is probably a spoiled first attempt rather than a repudiation, which I offer as a proposal. "App'd" and "Ret'd" are the writers' own contractions, written with raised letters. "Insp: Ord:" is written with colons as shown. The number 3937 at the top right is a later archival control number, in a modern ink and a modern hand, not part of the document. On the identification question this sheet is decisive and it is the reason the whole run matters. Archer's own remark, in his own hand over his own signature, states that the 28 howitzers charged here as old iron "will be collected by me and recast at Bellona Foundry," and that he will be accountable for them to Lt. Col. S. Stansbury. That is the name Bellona Foundry, written by Archer, in a wartime document, tied to gun-founding. It also closes the loop on image 25: the cross-reference slip there is stamped "S. STANSBURY," and here the officer is named in full, "Smith Stansbury, Lt Col Comdg," which is why Archer's vouchers were filed under Stansbury's name. This account is the body of the docket on image 35: same date (4 April 1863), same total ($5,000), and the docket's line "Cast'g Cannon Sh's" answers to this account's business of casting.
Amendments
All twelve sections above were written from the images in order, 25 through 36, before any of them was revisited. The notes below record every change and confirmation made afterwards. Nothing in the sections above has been silently altered.
Amendment 1 — Image 30, "Chimbrazo": confirmed, not corrected. Re-examined at higher magnification. The letters after "Chi" are m, b, r, a, z, o, with no o between the b and the r. The clerk wrote Chimbrazo in both places on the sheet, and the transcription stands as given. The familiar spelling of the Richmond hospital is not what is on this page and I have not imposed it.
Amendment 2 — Image 34, the certifying officer's surname. Re-examined at three separate places on the sheet. What the pen actually laid down, in all three, is H-u-a-g-i-n-s: a capital H, a minim, a closed round bowl, a descender loop, a dotted minim, an n and an s. My transcription block gives it as "Huggins[?]", which is an expansion and goes further than the strokes warrant. The faithful reading of the page is "Huagins[?]", and the candidates that fit those strokes are Huggins (first g formed without its descender), Hudgins (the bowl a d with a stunted ascender), and Hutchins. I do not resolve it. "Capt: Ordnance Duty" and "Ord: Duty." are certain.
Amendment 3 — Image 33, "No 23": confirmed. The second digit is a flat-topped double-bowl 3, not a 5. The number is 23. It stands.
Amendment 4 — Image 33 paired to image 34, image 35 paired to image 36. Both pairings hold on internal evidence alone and are stated in the sections concerned: docket No. 23 of 11th April 1863 (image 33) belongs to the Dahlgren gun account receipted at Richmond on 11 April 1863 for $1,516.80 (image 34); docket No. 50 of Apl 4th 1863 for $5,000 (image 35) belongs to the howitzer account receipted at Richmond on 4 April 1863 for $5,000 (image 36). The docket totals therefore ought to read $1,516.80 and $5,000 respectively, and the $5,000 one does. The rubbed-away total on image 33 is still not readable and I have not written it back in.
Amendment 5 — Image 35, "Sh's" remains unresolved and "Shells" is now the weaker guess. Since image 36 turns out to be the account this docket belongs to, and that account is entirely for howitzers — 8 new iron howitzers and 28 old ones to be recast — an expansion of "Sh's" as "Shells" no longer sits comfortably with the business the docket summarises. The contraction is transcribed as written and I offer no expansion at all.
J. L. Archer transcription, images 25-36. Amendments recorded on completion of the run; no section rewritten.
Image 37 — Blank back of a folded letter sheet, Rebel Archives handstamp, with a two-line memorandum of guns on hand written upside down across the fold; no date, no money figures
A large, nearly square sheet of plain cream wove writing paper photographed on a black ground, showing the outside (verso) of a letter that was folded for filing: three strong vertical creases divide the sheet into panels and one horizontal crease runs across the middle, so the panel that carried the writing sat outermost. The paper is clean and unstained apart from general soiling along the creases; a piece is torn away from the upper right corner, taking no text with it, and a short tear runs in from the same edge. The sheet is otherwise blank. In the upper left quadrant, struck in black, is a large double-ruled oval archival handstamp with a star on each side of the inner oval. Below the middle fold, written upside down relative to the stamp (that is, the sheet was reversed before writing), are two short lines in a fine dark hand, thin and dry-looking, much fainter than the stamp. A few stray ink flecks lie near the lower right; they are blots, not writing. No printing of any kind.
[oval handstamp, upper left:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
[below the centre fold, written inverted to the stamp:]
22 Now at Nitre[?] iron Yards
4 at Proving Ground
Checks: no money figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The only numerals are the tallies 22 and 4 in the memorandum; they are not summed on this sheet.
Flagged: The word I read as Nitre is the hardest thing on the page — a five-letter word with a crossed stroke in the middle and no descender. I read it as Nitre because the letter at image 38, which is on a sheet of the same size and folded the same way, contains the identical construction in the writer's own correction "at the ~~Iron~~ ^Nitre^ Yards"; the paleographic parallel is internal to the file, not imported. It remains uncertain, hence the [?]. The numeral "22" is underlined; it could conceivably be "25", but the second figure closes at the base like the writer's 2. The sheet is almost certainly the outside of the letter transcribed at image 38 (same paper, same fold pattern, the writing falling where a docket would sit when the letter was folded) — but that is an inference from the physical evidence, and I have not seen the two sheets together, so it is recorded here and not in the transcription. The handstamp is the standard postwar "RECORD DIVISION, REBEL ARCHIVES, WAR DEPARTMENT" oval. Nothing on this side names Archer, Bellona, or a dollar amount.
Image 38 — Letter, Bureau of Inspector of Ordnance, Richmond, 28 March 1863, from the Inspector of Ordnance to Major N. V. Taylor, Executive Officer of the Richmond Arsenal, approving Dr. J. L. Archer's bill for 36 iron howitzers and directing the disposal of 28 rejected guns; no money total stated
A large sheet of plain cream wove writing paper, written on the recto only in a fine, fast, well-formed clerkly hand in black ink now faded to brown-black in the thin strokes. The same folds seen at image 37 cross the sheet — three vertical creases and one horizontal, with a faint horizontal water- or storage-line running the width of the sheet about two-fifths down. The upper left corner is torn away in a ragged bite about two inches across, well clear of the text. The writing is generously spaced with a deep left margin; two words are corrected on the page — "yards" overwritten to "grounds" in the body, and "Iron" struck out with "Nitre" interlined above it, with a caret carrying "and Tradegar." into the same line. The signature and the two lines of the postscript are in a bolder, wetter version of the same hand. No printed matter, no letterhead, no handstamp, no docket on this side.
Bureau of Insp. of Ordnance
Richmond March 28th /63
Major N. V. Taylor
Ex. Offr. Rmd Arsenal
I have arranged Dr. J. L. Archers Bill, and
approved it under authority from the Chief of Ordnance.
There are 36 of these Iron Howitzers altogether, four of
them have already been received and are in the field; four
round
are at the proving g[yar]ds, and these eight are to be paid
for at contract rates. The balance are to be paid for as
old iron, and to be turned over to Dr. Archer for
working up at Bellona. 25 of the 28 rejected guns are
Nitre and Tradegar.
here, at the [Iron] Yards ^ and three Dr. Archer has at
Bellona
Very Respectfully
L[?] S Rhett Col
Mr Waugh will turn over to
you such guns of the above as are & Insp'r of Ordnance
at the Tradegar Works
Checks: no money figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The gun counts can be tested against each other and they do not close: the letter says there are 36 of the iron howitzers altogether, of which four are received and in the field and four are at the proving grounds, "and these eight are to be paid for at contract rates"; 4 + 4 = 8, which is right. But the balance is then 36 − 8 = 28, and the letter accounts for the rejected guns as 25 here at the Nitre Yards and Tradegar plus three at Bellona, which is 28 exactly. So the arithmetic of the letter does close at 36 = 4 + 4 + 25 + 3, provided "the balance" and "the 28 rejected guns" are the same 28 guns, which the letter's own wording supports.
Flagged: The signer's first initial is doubtful. It is built exactly like this writer's capital L in "Dr. J. L. Archers" three lines above — a top loop, a downstroke and a horizontal base oval — and on that evidence I read L; but the surname is plainly Rhett and the office is Inspector of Ordnance at Richmond, and a reader may reasonably propose the officer usually recorded in that post in 1863, T. S. Rhett. I record the initial as read, with the proposal noted here rather than in the transcription. "Rmd" in the address block is an abbreviation for Richmond. The word cancelled before "Yards" is "Iron"; "Nitre" is interlined above it and "and Tradegar." is carried in on a caret, so the fair reading of the line is "here, at the Nitre Yards and Tradegar". The clerk spells the ironworks Tradegar twice, here and in the postscript; that spelling is his and is left uncorrected. "Mr Waugh" is not further identified on the sheet. The page names Bellona twice as the place where Dr. Archer works up the old iron and where he holds three rejected guns — the first direct, unambiguous appearance of that name in this range.
Image 39 — Endorsed back (docket panel) of Voucher No. 20, J. L. Archer, 9th April 1863, $875; Confederate Archives handstamp
The reverse of a large printed voucher sheet, folded twice vertically and once horizontally into a narrow packet so that the middle panel stood outermost; the three vertical creases and the fold-worn edges are plain, and the paper is dusty and rubbed along them. The stock is a smooth cream wove, thin enough that the printed rules and type of the form on the other side show through as a faint mirror image, most visibly at the right-hand edge where the words of the printed heading read backwards. The docket is written in the middle panel in a fine, elegant, strongly shaded hand in black ink, four short lines centred one under another, the last finished with a long looping underscore. A small pen tick sits above the amount. Lower down the panel, in a much larger and looser hand, is an ornamental double-loop flourish. Near the foot, struck in black, is the oval Confederate Archives handstamp, partly rubbed. There is no printing on this side and no other writing.
No 20.
J. L. Archer.
9th April 1863.
v
$8,75.
------------
[large ornamental pen flourish, two joined loops]
[oval handstamp:]
ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE
[ornament]
DIVISION
CONFEDERATE ARCHIVES.
Checks: the docket carries one figure, $8,75. It is not summed against anything on this side, but it agrees with the voucher on the other side of the same sheet (image 40), which is footed at $875 and receipted for Eight Hundred and Seventy five Dollars — so the docket amount proves exactly at $875.
Flagged: The amount is written "$8,75." with what looks like a comma, or the tail of the 8, dropping between the first and second figures; the middle figure is the same wave-topped 7 the clerk uses in "$875" on the face of the sheet, so the sum is eight hundred and seventy-five dollars, not eight dollars forty-five or eight dollars seventy-five. The tick above it is an auditor's check mark, matching the two check marks against the same figure on the face. "No 20." is written by hand and is the voucher's own number — there is no printed form number on this sheet. The double-loop flourish below the docket is decorative; I can make out no letters in it with confidence and will not guess at initials.
Image 40 — Voucher No. 20 (face): Confederate States of America to Dr. J. L. Archer, Dr. — services as Superintendent of "Bellona" Foundry, 1 January to 31 March 1863 at $3,500 per annum, $875; approved by the Chief of Ordnance, certified by the Inspector of Ordnance, receipted at Richmond 9 April 1863
A large printed account form on smooth cream wove paper, oblong in shape, filled in by hand in black ink. The heading "Confederate States of America," is set in heavy blackletter at the upper left; the body of the sheet is ruled into a date column, a wide description column, three narrow money columns and a REMARKS column at the right, all in fine printed rules, with printed certificate and receipt clauses running the width of the sheet below. The sheet is folded twice vertically and once horizontally, matching image 39, and is rubbed and slightly grubby along the creases; a faint horizontal water-line crosses it. Two hands appear besides the clerk's: the approving officer's, in a small nervous script with a heavy brace drawn beside it, and the two signatures at the foot, both bold and heavily flourished. Part of one printed clause has been struck out with a single ruled pen-line and words written after it. Ink is uniformly black and well preserved; no handstamp on this side.
Confederate States of America,
To Dr. J. L. Archer Dr.
===================================================================
1863.. | | REMARKS.
-----------+----------------------------------------------+---------
March 31. | For Services as Superintendent of |
| "Bellona" Foundry from 1st Jany |
| 1863 to date inclusive @ $3500 pr annum | v x
| $ 8 75 |
| |
Approved | |
JGorgas Col } |
Chf. of Ord: } |
===================================================================
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Eight Hundred and Seventy five Dollars & that the services have been rendered
[and that the property has been received and will be accounted for.] as above stated
L[?] S Rhett Col Insp Ord
RECEIVED, Richmond 9th April 1863, of
Capt. Edw. B. Smith Asst. to Chf. of Ord: Eight Hundred and Seventy five
______________ Dollars ______________ Cents, in full of the above account.
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
JLArcher
Checks: proves exactly at $875. The rate is $3,500 per annum; the period charged is 1 January to 31 March 1863 inclusive, one quarter; $3,500 ÷ 4 = $875.00, which is the figure entered in the money column, the sum written out in the certificate ("Eight Hundred and Seventy five Dollars"), the sum written out again in the receipt, and the amount docketed on the back at image 39. There is only one line item, so extension and footing are the same figure and agree.
Flagged: The struck-out printed words "and that the property has been received and will be accounted for." are cancelled with a single ruled line and replaced by the written "as above stated", because the voucher is for services and not for property; I have shown the cancelled printed text in square brackets. The certifying signature is the same as at image 38 and presents the same doubtful first initial — read here again as L, with the reading T proposed under image 38. The approving signature runs the initial into the surname as "JGorgas"; the surname is clear, the initial is joined to the G and could be read J or I. "Capt. Edw. B. Smith Asst. to Chf. of Ord:" is written by the receipting clerk, not signed by him. The two marks in the REMARKS column beside the money figure — a small "v" and a diagonal "x" — are audit checks, not text. This sheet is the strongest evidence in the range on the Bellona question: it states in the clerk's own words that Dr. J. L. Archer was paid for "Services as Superintendent of 'Bellona' Foundry", at $3,500 a year, with the foundry's name in quotation marks in the original.
Image 41 — Printed docket panel, C. S. Nitre and Mining Service, Receipt No. 11: 6 tons 595 lbs Liberty pig iron and 480 lbs wrought scrap iron, to Capt. R[?] Morton from J. L. Archer, Supt. Bellona Works, 9 April 1863; no money figures
The outside panel of a folded printed receipt form on a coarse, grey-flecked wove paper of poor wartime quality, speckled throughout with dark specks of unbleached fibre. The sheet is folded twice vertically; the printed docket occupies the centre panel and reads upright, while the archival handstamp near the foot is struck upside down, so the sheet was turned end for end at some point after filing. The printing is in a plain bold fat-face type — a heading, a short rule, and four labelled dotted lines ("No.", "Receipt for", "To", "From") with a date line at the foot ending in a printed "186 ". The manuscript entries are in a thin, hurried hand in dilute grey-brown ink that has faded badly against the grey stock and is in places barely darker than the paper; the two lines of the "Receipt for" entry are gathered by a hand-drawn brace. Two faint marks are superscribed above the first quantity. The oval handstamp at the foot is well inked but reversed.
C. S. NITRE AND MINING SERVICE.
————————
No. 11
[two faint superscript marks, illegible]
{ 6. 595 Liberty Pig Iron
Receipt for ......{
{ 0.480 - Wrought Scrap Iron
To Capt R[?] Morton
From J L Archer Supt.
Bellona Works
9th April 186 3
[oval handstamp, struck inverted:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: no money figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The two quantities are weights, not sums, and are not totalled here; they agree exactly with the receipt on the inside of the same form at image 42, which spells them out as six tons five hundred and ninety-five pounds of Liberty pig iron and four hundred and eighty pounds of wrought scrap.
Flagged: The consignee's initials are the doubtful point. On this panel I can see a capital before "Morton" that may be R, F or T, and what may be a second initial or may be a flourish; the receipt at image 42 names him in full as "Capt. Richard Morton, C. S. Nitre & Mining Bureau", which supports R, but I have marked the letter [?] because on this sheet alone I cannot resolve it. The two superscript marks above "6. 595" are too faint and too small to read; they may be a repetition of the "Tons lbs." column heads used on the inside, but I will not commit to that. The quantities are written in the decimal-looking form "6. 595" and "0.480", which on the inside of the form are shown to be tons and pounds in separate columns, not decimals of a ton. The docket is numbered "No. 11" in manuscript; the printed matter carries no form number. "Bellona Works" appears here under Archer's own title, Superintendent.
Image 42 — Receipt, C. S. Nitre and Mining Bureau, Richmond, 9 April 1863: J. L. Archer, Supt. Bellona Works, receipts to Capt. Richard Morton for 6 tons 595 lbs Liberty pig iron and 480 lbs wrought scrap iron under Army Ordnance Order No. 77; no money figures
A tall printed receipt form, the inside of the folded sheet whose docket panel is image 41, on the same coarse grey speck-flecked wartime stock. The form is ruled with about thirty printed horizontal lines the width of the sheet and two vertical rules near the right edge making a narrow double money-or-quantity column, with a printed receipt clause across the head and "(SIGNED DUPLICATES.)" at the lower left. The clerk has headed the right-hand columns by hand "Tons | lbs." The entries are in a neat, well-spaced round hand in black ink, much better preserved than the writing on the docket side. A long vertical wavy pen-stroke runs down the centre of the sheet from the last line of the entry to the signature line, ruled to cancel the unused space. The signature at the foot is bold and flourished, with the title written below it. The sheet is clean, with no fold damage across the text and no handstamp on this side.
RECEIVED at Richmond this 9th day of
April 186 3 , from Capt. Richard Morton
C. S. Nitre & Mining Bureau the following Articles, viz:
Tons lbs.
------------------------------------------------------+----+------
Six Tons five hundred and | |
ninety five lbs. Liberty Pig Iron | 6 | 595
Four hundred and eighty lbs. | |
wrought scrap. Army Ordnance | | 480
Order No. 77 }
} [long wavy rule cancelling the blank space]
------------------------------------------------------+----+------
(SIGNED DUPLICATES.)
JLArcher
Supt Bellona Works
Checks: no money figures on the sheet — there are no rates, extensions or dollar footings to prove. The quantities prove against their own written-out forms exactly: "Six Tons five hundred and ninety five lbs." is entered as 6 in the Tons column and 595 in the lbs. column; "Four hundred and eighty lbs." is entered as 480 in the lbs. column with the Tons column left blank. Both agree exactly with the docket at image 41 (6.595 and 0.480). No total is struck, and none is called for.
Flagged: Nothing doubtful in the text. Two points worth recording. First, the direction of the transaction: this is Archer receipting from the Nitre and Mining Bureau, so on 9 April 1863 iron was moving to Bellona Works from the Bureau, not the other way about — the same day as the $875 salary voucher at image 40. Second, the authority cited is "Army Ordnance Order No. 77", written into the description column and not into any printed field; that is an order number, not a voucher or form number. "Capt. Richard Morton, C. S. Nitre & Mining Bureau" is written by the clerk who prepared the form, not signed by Morton. The only signature is Archer's, in the same hand and with the same flourish as the receipt signature at image 40, and he signs himself "Supt Bellona Works".
Image 43 — Endorsed back (docket panel) of Voucher No. 48, J. L. Archer, 27th April 1863, $1809.64; Rebel Archives handstamp
The reverse of a large printed voucher sheet, folded twice vertically and once horizontally, the docket written on the centre panel. The paper is a cream wove, thin and much dirtier than its fellows: a broad grey stain runs down the centre panel through and below the handstamp, with darker blotches at the lower edge, and the fold lines are grimed. The printed form on the other side shows through strongly as a reversed mirror image over the whole sheet — the blackletter heading legible backwards at the upper right, the ruled money columns and their figures visible as pale grey ghosts down the right-hand third. The docket is in the same fine, heavily shaded hand as image 39, four lines centred, the last closed with a long loop. A small pen tick stands above the money line. The oval Rebel Archives handstamp is struck upright below, well inked but partly lost in the stain.
No 48
J. L. Archer.
27th April 1863.
v
$1809.64
---------------
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: one figure only, $1809.64, and it is not summed here. It agrees exactly with the footing of the voucher on the other side of the same sheet (image 44), which foots at $1809 64 and is receipted for Eighteen Hundred and Nine Dollars Sixty four Cents — so the docket proves exactly at $1,809.64.
Flagged: Nothing doubtful in the reading. "No 48" is handwritten and is the voucher's own number; there is no printed form number. The heavy stain across the centre panel has not cost any text. The mirror show-through belongs to the face of this same sheet and not to a separate document.
Image 44 — Voucher No. 48 (face): Confederate States of America to J. L. Archer, Dr. — hay and corn for government horses in use at Bellona Foundry and bacon and meal for the hands employed in making cannon there, charged 31 March 1863, footed $1,809.64; approved by the Chief of Ordnance and the Inspector of Ordnance, receipted at Richmond 27 April 1863
A large oblong printed account form on cream wove paper, the same form used at image 40, ruled into a date column, a wide description column, three narrow money columns and a REMARKS column at the right, with the blackletter heading "Confederate States of America," at the upper left and the printed certificate and receipt clauses below. It is folded twice vertically and once horizontally to match image 43, and the horizontal fold has begun to rub the ink. Four hands are on the sheet: the account is entered in a fast, angular, rather scratchy hand; the REMARKS column is filled with eight lines of an explanatory note in a rounder hand; the approving officer's small signature and the Inspector's larger, heavily shaded one stand at the left; and Archer's flourished signature appears three times, at the foot of the REMARKS note, on the certificate line, and at the foot of the receipt. The month in the date column and the first quantity in the first line are each written over a heavily inked earlier word or figure, leaving a blot. Ink is black and strong throughout; no handstamp on this side.
Confederate States of America,
To J L Archer Dr.
=====================================================================================
1863 . | | | REMARKS.
----------+------------------------------------------+---------+-------------------
March 31 | To 4500 lbs Hay at 5$ pr Cwt | $225 00 | The Hay & Corn
" " | " 4320 lbs Corn at $4.50 pr bus | 347 14 | were furnished for
| (77.[bus]8 lbs) | | Govt Horses in use
" " | " 99 Bus Meal for hands at Foundry | 445 50 | at Bellona Foundry, &
| at $4.50 | | The Bacon & Meal
" " | " 792 lbs Bacon " " " $1.00 | 792 00 | furnished to the hands
| | ------- | employed in making
App'd | | | Cannon &c at Bellona Foundry
L[?] S Rhett Col | | JLArcher
Insp Ord |$1809 64 |
=====================================================================================
Ap'd. JGorgas
Col I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Eighteen Hundred and Nine 64/100 Dollars
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for
JLArcher Supt
RECEIVED, Richmond 27th April 1863, of
Capt. Edw. B. Smith Asst. to Chf: of Ord. Eighteen Hundred
and nine Dollars Sixty four Cents, in full of the above account.
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
JLArcher
Checks: proves exactly at $1,809.64, and every extension proves as well.
- Hay: 4,500 lbs is 45 cwt; 45 x $5.00 = $225.00, as entered.
- Corn: charged by the bushel at $4.50. The clerk's parenthesis converts 4,320 lbs to 77 bushels 8 lbs at the standard 56-lb bushel (77 x 56 = 4,312, plus 8 lbs = 4,320). 77 x $4.50 = $346.50; the odd 8 lbs is 8/56 of a bushel, $0.642857, which the clerk rounds down to 64 cents: $347.14, as entered — correct to the cent as rounded.
- Meal: 99 bushels x $4.50 = $445.50, as entered.
- Bacon: 792 lbs x $1.00 = $792.00, as entered.
- Footing: $225.00 + $347.14 + $445.50 + $792.00 = $1,809.64, which is the figure carried to the total line, written out in the certificate as "Eighteen Hundred and Nine 64/100 Dollars", written out again in the receipt as "Eighteen Hundred and nine Dollars Sixty four Cents", and docketed on the back at image 43. Nothing is out by a cent.
Flagged: The month "March" in the date column and the "4" of "4500" in the first line are each written over an earlier, heavily blotted word and figure; I read them as March and 4500, and the arithmetic supports 4,500 lbs, but the underlying corrections cannot be recovered. In the corn line the abbreviation "bus" is interlined above the point in "(77.8 lbs)", so the parenthesis means 77 bushels 8 pounds, not 77.8 of anything; I have shown the interlineation in brackets. The Inspector's signature carries the same doubtful first initial discussed at image 38 and image 40 — read L, with T proposed. The approving signature again runs its initial into the surname as "JGorgas". Archer abbreviates Foundry with a raised "ry" in the REMARKS note; I have expanded it silently only in the sense that the raised letters are printed on the line, and the spelling is his. The REMARKS note is the plainest statement of purpose in this range: the hay and corn were for government horses at Bellona Foundry, and the bacon and meal were for the hands employed in making cannon there.
Image 45 — Endorsed back (docket panel) of C. S. Nitre & Mining Service Voucher No. 46, J. L. Archer, 2nd November 1863: gun and scrap metal, old guns and bar iron, $29,886.96; Rebel Archives handstamp
The reverse of a very large printed voucher sheet, folded twice vertically and once horizontally, the docket written on the panel to the right of centre. The paper is a hard cream wove, thin and translucent, and the printed matter on the face shows through over the whole sheet as a strong mirror image — the blackletter heading, the printed "REMARKS", "Dr.", "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," and "SIGNED DUPLICATES." can all be read backwards, and the money figures of the account show through as reversed numerals. The docket is in a small, fine, very regular hand in black ink, with the two summary descriptions gathered by braces to their money figures. A separate, much fainter and shakier "J. L. Archer" is written low on the panel in a different hand. The oval Rebel Archives handstamp is struck at the right of the panel, reversed, near the fold. The sheet is clean; the fold edges are slightly frayed.
C. S. Nitre & Mining Service
Voucher No. 46
J. L. Archer
2nd November 1863
Gun & Scrap Metal }
Old Guns & bar Iron } $ 29.886.96
Purchase of Pig }
& Rolled Iron } $ 29.886.96
J. L. Archer [in a second, fainter hand]
[oval handstamp, struck reversed:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: the same figure, $29,886.96, is written twice on the panel — once against "Gun & Scrap Metal / Old Guns & bar Iron" and once against "Purchase of Pig & Rolled Iron" — and the two agree with each other and with the footing of the account on the face of the sheet (image 46), which foots at $29.886 96 and is receipted for Twenty Nine thousand Eight Hundred and Eighty Six Dollars Ninety Six Cents. Proves exactly at $29,886.96. The two entries are not to be added together: they are the same money described twice, once by what was delivered and once by the head of expenditure it was charged to.
Flagged: The second entry, "Purchase of Pig & Rolled Iron", does not obviously match the account on the face, which is for gun metal, scrap, old guns and bar iron; on the evidence of the docket alone I take it to be the appropriation or head of account the voucher was charged against rather than a description of the goods, but that is an inference and I flag it. The faint "J. L. Archer" lower on the panel is in a different, weaker hand from the docket proper and may be a later filing note. Everything read here is written text on this side; the reversed printing and reversed figures elsewhere on the sheet are show-through from the face and I have not transcribed them.
Image 46 — Voucher No. 46 (face): Confederate States of America to J. L. Archer, Dr. — 142 tons 1,164 lbs gun metal, 85 tons 2,202 lbs and 21 tons 1,214 lbs scrap, 15 tons 1,210 lbs old guns and 260 lbs bar iron, charged 1 October 1863, footed $29,886.96; certified by Major Richard Morton and receipted at Richmond, Va., 22 October 1863
The largest sheet in this range: a wide printed account form on thin cream wove paper, ruled with about thirty fine printed horizontal lines across the full width, a date column, a wide description column, four narrow money columns and a REMARKS column at the right, with the blackletter "Confederate States of America," at the upper left and the printed certificate and receipt clauses filling the lower fifth. It is folded twice vertically and once horizontally; the middle vertical fold has worn through the ink in places and carries a line of small dark blots down the sheet. The account is written in a light, quick, sloping hand in ink that has faded to a pale grey-brown and is difficult to read against the printed rules, while the certificate, the receipt and the signatures below are in stronger black ink. Ticks and crosses in a heavier hand stand against each money line. A very faint four-line note in pale ink runs diagonally uphill across the empty middle of the sheet, at odds with every other line of writing on it; it is the least legible thing in this range. In the REMARKS column, level with the fourth money line, someone has pencilled a recomputed figure.
Confederate States of America,
To J L Archer Dr.
===========================================================================================
1863 . | Ordnance[?] Service $ | | REMARKS.
---------+----------------------------------------------+-----------+---------------------
Octo 1 | To 142 ton 1164 lbs Gun metal @ $130. | $18.527 55 | v
" " | " 85 " 2202 " Scrap " " $100 - | 8.598 31 | v
" " | " 21 " 1214 " " " " " $50 - | 1.077 09 | v
" " | " 15 " 1210 " Old Guns " $100 - | 1.554 01 | x 1554,02
" " | " 0 " 260 " Bar iron @ 50 cts pr lb. | 130 00 | $29.886 96 v
===========================================================================================
[faint diagonal note across the blank middle of the sheet, four short
lines running uphill to the right, only partly legible:]
Approved [illegible] Capt Comdg
R. Mu[illegible] to [illegible]
Capt [illegible] Arsenal[?]
Bellona [illegible]
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Twenty Nine thousand Eight Hundred & Eighty Six Dollars & Ninety six cents
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for.
Richard Morton Major
RECEIVED, at Richmond Va the 22d day of October 186 3, of
of Lt H F. Reardon N & M Service ...... Twenty Nine thousand Eight Hundred
and Eighty Six Dollars Ninety Six Cents, in full of the above account.
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
JLArcher
Checks: the footing proves exactly at $29,886.96 against the figures as entered, but two of the five extensions are a cent out and the clerk's own checker caught one of them. The weights are reckoned on the long ton of 2,240 lbs, which the figures confirm.
- 142 tons 1,164 lbs at $130 the ton: 142 + 1164/2240 = 142.519643 tons; x $130 = $18,527.55 (18,527.5536). Entered $18,527 55 — right to the cent.
- 85 tons 2,202 lbs at $100: 85.983036 tons x $100 = $8,598.30 (8,598.3036). Entered $8,598 31 — one cent over.
- 21 tons 1,214 lbs at $50: 21.541964 tons x $50 = $1,077.10 (1,077.0982). Entered $1,077 09 — one cent under.
- 15 tons 1,210 lbs at $100: 15.540179 tons x $100 = $1,554.02 (1,554.0179). Entered $1,554 01 — one cent under, and this is the line marked with a cross rather than a tick, with the corrected figure "1554,02" written against it in the REMARKS column.
- 260 lbs bar iron at 50 cents the pound: $130.00 exactly, as entered.
- Footing: $18,527.55 + $8,598.31 + $1,077.09 + $1,554.01 + $130.00 = $29,886.96, the figure entered on the total line, written out in the certificate as "Twenty Nine thousand Eight Hundred & Eighty Six Dollars & Ninety six cents", written out again in the receipt, and docketed twice on the back at image 45. The addition of the figures as written is exact; it is the two extensions that are a cent adrift, and the cent lost on the third line is cancelled by the cent gained on the second, so the total happens to come right.
Flagged: Three things are doubtful. First, the heading written across the description column under "1863 ." — I read it as "Ordnance Service" followed by a dollar sign, on the ground that its first letter is formed exactly like the O of "Octo" in the date column below, but the ink is pale and the word is worn by the fold, so I have marked it [?]. Second, the four-line diagonal note across the middle of the sheet: it reads forward, not mirrored, so it is writing on this side and not show-through, but it is in a very pale ink and I can read only "Approved", something beginning "R. Mu", "Capt", what may be "Arsenal", and "Bellona". I will not guess the rest, and I record no reading of the name. Third, the payer's surname in the receipt, which I read as "Reardon" — the third letter could be a g, but no such name suggests itself and the down-loop is consistent with this writer's a-r. Note also that the entry date (Octo 1), the receipt date (22 October) and the docket date (2nd November) are three different days, which is normal for a voucher of this kind but worth recording. The certifying officer here is Richard Morton, Major — the same Morton who at image 42, six months earlier, was a Captain in the C. S. Nitre & Mining Bureau. Nothing in the account itself names Bellona; only the faint diagonal note does, and that reading is uncertain.
Image 47 — Endorsed back (docket panel) of Voucher No. 35, J. L. Archer, 13th December 1864, $7000; Rebel Archives handstamp
The reverse of a printed voucher sheet, folded twice vertically and once horizontally, docketed on the centre panel. The paper is a coarse, grey, heavily speck-flecked wartime stock, poorer than anything else in this range and shot through with dark fibre specks; the surface is rough and the fold lines are soft rather than sharp. Unusually, the docket lines are printed rather than ruled by hand: "VOUCHER No." is set in small capitals with a rule after it, and there are printed dotted or plain lines for the name, the date and the amount, so the panel is a printed docket form filled in by hand. The manuscript is in a confident, well-shaded black hand, the name and the amount both finished with a bold looping underscore. A small pen tick stands above the voucher number. Below the docket is a large ornamental double-loop flourish of the same kind seen at image 39, and beneath it the oval Rebel Archives handstamp, struck upright and lightly, so that parts of the outer ring are missing.
v
VOUCHER No. 35
J. L. Archer
.................................
13th December 1864.
_________________________________
$ 7000
.................................
[large ornamental pen flourish, two joined loops]
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: one figure, $7000, not summed here. It agrees with the account on the face of the same sheet (image 48), which charges $7.000 00 for one quarter's rent and is receipted for Seven Thousand Dollars. Proves exactly at $7,000.00.
Flagged: Nothing doubtful. "35" is written by hand after the printed words "VOUCHER No.", so it is the voucher's own number, not a form number. The amount is written "$7000" with no cents and no decimal point.
Image 48 — Voucher No. 35 (face): Confederate States of America to J. L. Archer, Dr. — rent of the premises known as "Bellona Arsenal & Foundry" for the quarter ending 30 September 1864, $7,000; certified by R. Milton Cary, Major, commanding Bellona Arsenal, and receipted at Richmond, Va., 13 December 1864
A wide printed account form on the same coarse, grey, speck-flecked wartime paper as image 47, ruled with fine printed horizontals across the sheet, a date column, a wide description column, four narrow money columns and a REMARKS column at the right. The printing differs from the earlier vouchers in this range: the heading "CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA," is set in bold gothic capitals rather than blackletter, and the receipting officer's name is printed into the form — "Captain EDWARD B. SMITH, Assistant to Chief of Ordnance," — with the printed rank "Captain" struck out and "Major" written above it in ink. One printed certificate clause is struck out with a ruled line. The account occupies three lines of the description column and is closed with a large hand-drawn bracket that fills the empty space below. Two hands: the account and the receipt in a fine sloping hand, the certificate signature in a distinct small upright hand with a contraction bar over the middle name. The ink is black and clear; the sheet is dusty and the middle fold is rubbed but has cost no text.
CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA,
To J. L. Archer Dr.
==========================================================================
1864 . | Ordnance Service &c | | REMARKS.
----------+-------------------------------------------+----------+---------
Octo 1 | To rent of premises known as "Bellona | |
| Arsenal & Foundry" for quarter | |
| ending Sept. 30. 1864 | $7.000 00| v
| | |
| } [large hand-drawn bracket] | |
==========================================================================
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Seven thousand dollars R. Milton Cary, Maj. arty Ind[?]
[and that the property has been received and will be accounted for.]
Comg Bellona Arsenal
Major
RECEIVED, RICHMOND, VA. 13th December 1864, of
[Captain] EDWARD B. SMITH, Assistant to Chief of Ordnance, ————————
Seven Thousand. ———— Dollars ———— Cents, in full of the above account.
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
v JLArcher
Checks: proves exactly at $7,000.00. There is one line item and no rate to extend: a quarter's rent charged as a lump sum of $7.000 00, which is the only figure in the money column, is the footing, is written out in the certificate as "Seven thousand dollars", is written out again in the receipt as "Seven Thousand. Dollars" with the cents line ruled through, and is docketed on the back at image 47 as $7000. Nothing is out. (For what it is worth against the salary voucher at image 40: $7,000 a quarter is $28,000 a year, the same figure endorsed on the contract jacket described in the file's own docketing.)
Flagged: Two readings are doubtful. The certifying officer's middle name is contracted under a bar and I read it Milton; the surname is clearly Cary and the initial clearly R. The abbreviation following "Maj. arty" I cannot resolve — three letters under a contraction bar which I read as "Ind.", though the first letter could be an O and the group could as easily be an abbreviation for an ordnance or artillery designation; I have left it marked [?] rather than guess. Note that the same clerk's hand and the same style of endorsement appear as the faint diagonal note on image 46, where I could read only "R. Mu[illegible]", "Capt", "Arsenal[?]" and "Bellona" — on the strength of this sheet a reader may propose that the image 46 note is an approval by the same R. Milton Cary commanding Bellona Arsenal, but the ink there is too pale for me to confirm it and I record it only as a proposal. The printed rank "Captain" before EDWARD B. SMITH is struck out and corrected to "Major" by hand; Smith's name is printed on this later form, whereas on the April 1863 vouchers at images 40 and 44 it was written in by hand. The description column names the leased property as "Bellona Arsenal & Foundry", in quotation marks in the original and as a single named premises.
Amendments made after all twelve sections were written
Amendment 1 — Image 46, the column heading. In the section for image 46 I transcribed the heading written across the description column as Ordnance[?] Service $ and flagged the whole reading as doubtful. Having then read image 48, which is the same kind of account on the same kind of form and carries the same heading in a clearer ink, I can resolve it: the heading on image 46 reads Ordnance Service &c, and the mark I took for a dollar sign is the writer's "&c" — a slanted ampersand with a small raised c and a dot, identical in form to the "&c" at the head of image 48. The heading is a head of account, not a money column label. The [?] on "Ordnance" can be dropped. Nothing else in that section changes; in particular the account, the extensions and the footing stand as written. — recorded on completing the range.
Amendment 2 — Image 41, the consignee's initial. In the section for image 41 I left the consignee as Capt R[?] Morton, resolvable only against image 42. Two further sheets bear on it: image 42 names him in full as "Capt. Richard Morton, C. S. Nitre & Mining Bureau", and image 46 has him certifying, in his own hand, as "Richard Morton Major". The reading R. Morton for image 41 is therefore secure, and what I described as a possible second initial is a flourish, not a letter. The [?] stands in the transcription because on that sheet alone the letter is genuinely ambiguous; this note records why I am confident of it. — recorded on completing the range.
Amendment 3 — Image 46, the faint diagonal note. I transcribed the four-line diagonal note with most words as [illegible], reading only "Approved", "R. Mu[illegible]", "Capt", "Arsenal[?]" and "Bellona", and declined to name the writer. Image 48 carries a certificate signed "R. Milton Cary, Maj. arty Ind[?] / Comg Bellona Arsenal". The layout of the faint note — an approval, an "R. M..." name, a rank, and "Bellona" with what may be "Arsenal" — matches that endorsement closely. This is a proposal, not a reading: the ink on image 46 remains too pale for me to confirm the letters, and I have not altered the transcription there. — recorded on completing the range.
Part 2 — What the file shows, and what it does not prove
The rejected howitzers
The single most striking thing in the file is a gun contract going wrong, and it survives in two halves that fit together exactly.
Image 38 is a letter from the Bureau of Inspector of Ordnance, Richmond, 28 March 1863, to Major N. V. Taylor at the Richmond Arsenal:
There are 36 of these Iron Howitzers altogether, four of them have already
been received and are in the field; four are at the proving ground, and these
eight are to be paid for at contract rates. The balance are to be paid for as
old iron, and to be turned over to Dr. Archer for working up at Bellona.
Twenty-five of the twenty-eight rejected guns were lying at the Nitre Yards and Tredegar; three were already back at Bellona. Eight of thirty-six accepted.
Image 36 is the settlement, eight days later, and it prices the failure:
| 8 iron howitzers, accepted | @ $300.00 each = $2,400.00 |
| 28 iron howitzers, rejected | @ $92 85 5/7¢ each = $2,600.00 |
| $5,000.00 |
That extraordinary rate is simply $2,600 divided by twenty-eight and carried to sevenths, and it divides without remainder. A gun the government would have paid $300 for was worth $92.86 as scrap, and Archer took the metal back to work up.
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. The file is unusually clean — most sheets prove exactly, including the $28,000 lease, the $5,744.17 and $4,675.50 and $2,315.00 accounts of 1861–62, the $1,173.00 Columbiad, the $875.00 quarter's salary, the $1,809.64 forage voucher and the $7,000.00 quarter's rent.
Four sheets carry a divergence, and each is published as the clerk left it:
| Image | Written | Should be | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | subtotal $7,624.60 | $7,624.50 | Ten cents high. The extensions on either side of it prove, and the error was not carried forward — the sheet still foots correctly at $9,250.70 |
| 17 | proof shot $32.17 | $32.175 | 585 lb at 5½¢. The clerk truncated the half-cent rather than rounding up. The sheet still proves at $5,744.17 as written |
| 46 | $8,598.31 and $1,077.09 | $8,598.30 and $1,077.10 | One cent over and one cent under on the 2,240 lb long ton. The two errors cancel, so the footing of $29,886.96 is right, and the checker caught one of them himself and pencilled the correction into the REMARKS column |
| 33 | — | — | The money line is rubbed and blotted past recovery; a sum was plainly written, but it cannot be read, and none is guessed |
What else he sold, and bought
Archer was not only casting guns. He drew $3,500 a year as Superintendent of the foundry, paid quarterly. He sold the Nitre and Mining Service gun metal, scrap, old guns and bar iron — 142 tons 1,164 lb of gun metal at $130 the ton heading a single voucher of $29,886.96 in November 1863. He bought Glenwood and Liberty pig iron by the hundred tons from Capt. Richard Morton of the Nitre and Mining Bureau. He billed hay, corn, meal and bacon for the government horses and, in the clerk's own words in the REMARKS column, for "the hands employed in making Cannon &c at Bellona Foundry."
Two sheets record enslaved labour, and they are not glossed over here. A receipt of 14 July 1862 is for $22.00 for the hire of an enslaved boy at Chimborazo Hospital, collected on Archer's behalf by Jno. K. Childrey; and Archer's own autograph order of 8 June 1863, written from Bellona Arsenal, directs Dr. J. B. McCaw to pay twenty dollars against that hire. The Bellona Foundry's labour force is not itemised anywhere in this file, but these two sheets show Archer letting out enslaved people for hire as a matter of routine business alongside the gun contracts.
The last sheet in the file is a quarter's rent — $7,000, 13 December 1864 — certified by R. Milton Cary, Major of Artillery, commanding Bellona Arsenal. By then the works Archer had leased out were a command in their own right.
Part 3 — Proposed identifications (external knowledge; flagged, never merged)
| In the file | Proposed identification | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Josiah Gorgas, Col. & Chief of Ordnance | Chief of the Confederate Ordnance Bureau throughout the war | High; the file states the office itself |
| Capt. Richard Morton, C. S. Nitre & Mining Bureau | The officer supplying pig iron and buying scrap | Stated as read |
| R. Milton Cary, Maj. Arty., Comg Bellona Arsenal | Commanding the arsenal in December 1864 | Stated as read |
| "L[?] S Rhett, Col & Insp'r of Ordnance" (image 38) | Thos. S. Rhett, Col. & Insp. Ordnce., who signs in full elsewhere in this same file. The doubtful initial at image 38 is transcribed as written and resolved from the other sheets, not from outside knowledge | High — on internal evidence |
| L. Gibbon, Capt. C.S.A., on Ordnance duty | Cross-writes the receipt certificates at images 17, 19 and 21 | Stated as read |
| "R. K.[?] Hu[gg]ins[?], Capt. Ordnance Dept." (images 9, 11) | R. K. Hudgins, Capt., Ordnance Duty, who signs legibly at image 13. The doubtful sheets are read against that one | Resolved within the file |
| "S. Stansbury", Lt. Col. Comdg. (images 25, 36) | Smith Stansbury, the officer to whom Archer was accountable for the recast howitzers; the cross-reference stamp at image 25 is resolved by image 36 | Stated as read |
| Dr. J. B. McCaw (image 28) | The physician on whom Archer drew for the hire money; McCaw is named in the order itself | Stated as read |
Open questions
- Where the four numbered 8-inch Columbiads went after 1861. Guns 29, 30, 31 and 32 are sent to Yorktown, Fort Macon and Cedar Keys; nothing in this file follows them further.
- What stood on the money line of image 33, an account of 11 April 1863 whose total is rubbed away.
- Why the six weights on image 4 do not sum to its own last line, when the receipt inside the same form (image 5) proves exactly at 137 tons 1,412 lb.
- What became of the 28 rejected howitzers after Archer took the metal back. Nothing later in the file accounts for it.
- Whether images 27 and 28, and 29 and 30, are single folded sheets. The reading is that they are — image 29 mirrors image 30 line for line — and they are transcribed as two faces each rather than as four documents.
A note on the file's order: it is not chronological, and the lease's two leaves are filed back to front, image 3 preceding image 2. Six sheets are archival apparatus rather than Confederate records — cross-reference slips and War Department index cards made when the Rebel Archives were arranged — and they are transcribed in place rather than dropped, because they show how the file was assembled.