T. M. Brennan, Nashville, Tennessee — 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) | Brennan, T M |
| State (Fold3 index) | Tennessee |
| Fold3 document number | 233 |
| Roll | 0095 |
| SHA-256 | d6292d30d3cdf052aebe65242c9713c6fb2e15db00ef07280ec7f5802f6ed379 |
| Page count | 42, all archival |
The folder holds 42 numbered page images and no Fold3 PDF, so there is no vendor cover sheet in this file and nothing has been omitted: every one of the 42 images is an archival page. The images were assembled into a single PDF in page order before ingest, and that assembly is recorded in the file's metadata.
Machine OCR is worthless here and was not used. Every page is in cursive. Across all 42 images Tesseract found the words Nashville, Brennan, gun, cannon and shell exactly nil times between them. Every page in what follows was read by eye from the scan.
What this file is
Thomas M. Brennan ran a Nashville foundry that cast field artillery for the Confederacy, and this file is the record of it — the offer, the contracts and the bills, from September 1861 to the loss of Nashville and a little beyond.
It opens with a letter to Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk on the printed letterhead of The Claiborne Machine Works, Nashville, 2 September 1861, and several of the early sheets carry the stamp GEN. POLK'S PAPERS — they reached the archives through Polk's own headquarters papers rather than through the Ordnance Bureau's files. In it Brennan sets out what his works can do: cast-iron field guns melted from Tennessee cold-blast iron in an air furnace, 6-pounder guns and 12-pounder howitzers, with capacity offered up to 32-pounder siege and garrison guns; carriages, limbers, caissons, travelling forges and battery wagons; shot, shell and canister. He mentions getting up patterns for a rifling machine, and says he holds detailed drawings of the Parrott gun.
The accounts show he was as good as his word. The great sheet of the file is the account of 31 January 1862 — sixty-nine charges on one leaf, footed at $16,361.43, certified by Lt. M. H. Wright and receipted by Brennan at Nashville on 8 February 1862, three weeks before the city fell. It carries eight 6-pounder field guns at $250 apiece and four 12-pounder howitzers at $250, two battery wagons at $550 each, gun carriages, travelling forges, and across dozens of lines the projectiles themselves: solid shot, shell, Read shell, percussion shell, rifle shell leaded and shotted, canister with its sheet-iron tops and bottom plates, and stands of grape for 24- and 32-pounders.
Earlier, in the autumn of 1861, the same shop was building the plant for the government powder works — cast-iron retorts and their arch settings for distilling willow charcoal, boiler-plate kettles for refining saltpetre, and slip cylinders for making charcoal.
Image 1 — Folder wrapper (jacket) endorsed with the name of the firm, "Brennan, T. M."
A tall, narrow sheet of heavy laid paper — the outer wrapper in which the loose vouchers and correspondence of this file were folded and filed. It is photographed folded, so the sheet reads roughly twice as tall as it is wide, with soft horizontal creases visible across the middle where the packet was folded down. Only the top few inches carry ink: a large, confident copperplate endorsement in dark brown-black iron-gall ink, written across the width of the wrapper by a filing clerk. The upper edge is chipped and torn away in a shallow bite at the left, just clipping the descender of the initial B, and the top edge is grubby and foxed with a band of dark handling-soil. The rest of the sheet is blank, faintly discoloured, with a few small fly-specks. No printed matter, no stamp, and no docketing beyond the name.
Brennan, T. M.
Checks: no figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: A small superscript flourish sits above and slightly left of the "T", resembling a tiny "u" and a loop; it is most likely a pen-flourish or the tail of a struck-through false start rather than a letter, and it is not transcribed as text. The two dots over the "M" are likewise decorative. Nothing else uncertain — the endorsement is plainly "Brennan, T. M."
Image 2 — Letter, The Claiborne Machine Works, Nashville, Sept 2, 1861, to Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk, C.S.A., offering cast-iron field guns, carriages, shot and shell (first leaf, recto)
A large single leaf of good white unruled writing paper, filling almost the whole frame, written on the recto only in a fine, fast, well-schooled copperplate hand in pale grey-brown iron-gall ink that has faded considerably — the down-strokes are readable but the hairlines are ghostly, and the ink is noticeably lighter at the top of the sheet than at the bottom. The sheet is clean: no printed letterhead (the firm's name is written out by hand as a heading), no revenue or file stamp on this face, and no docketing. A small ink tick or figure "1" sits in the upper left corner. The upper edge is slightly ragged where the sheet was torn or trimmed, and the left edge shows a shallow chipped margin. There are no folds crossing the text hard enough to cost letters. Lines run to the full width and the writer crowds the right margin, letting the last two or three letters of several lines run off into a rising flourish. This is the first leaf of a letter that continues on the following image.
The Claiborne Machine Works
Nashville Sept 2, 1861
To Major General Leonidas Polk,
C. S. A.
General
I have much pleasure
in informing You that I am now manufacturing a very Superior Cast
Iron Gun from the best Tennessee Cold blast Iron thoroughly mixed
and Manipulated in an Air Furnace put up expressly for the
manufacture of Guns and combining all the recent improvements.
This Gun has been successfully tested with a Quadruple
Service Charge, it is of a new & highly approved pattern, accurately
bored out, and finished on the exterior, and does not exceed
in weight the average of Bronze field Guns, I am at present
engaged on 6 pounder field Guns & 12 pounder Howitzers but
have facilities at my Command for making Siege & Garrison
Guns up to 32 pds. The Carriages & Limbers & Caissons &
Limbers turned out at my establishment have been pronounced
by Competent Judges superior to any yet produced in the
South not excepting Richmond, the Same flattering testimony
has been volunteered with regard to my Shot & Shell.
I am now getting up Patterns for a very Complete Rifling
Machine which will rifle Guns of any Caliber. I have also
Checks: no figures on the sheet beyond the calibres named (6 pounder, 12 pounder, 32 pds.) — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: The heading reads plainly "The Claiborne Machine Works," not Brennan & Co.; the sheet is filed under Brennan, and the letter's continuation and signature fall on the next image, so the connection between the two names should be confirmed there before the letter is described as Brennan's own. Brennan's Nashville foundry did stand on Claiborne Street, which would explain the trade name, but that is a proposal from outside the document and is not in the transcription. "Carriages & Limbers & Caissons & Limbers" is written as it stands — the clerk repeats "Limbers"; not corrected. "Quadruple Service Charge" is clear. The ink is very pale in the upper third, but every word above was read at magnification and none is a guess.
Image 3 — Same letter continued and signed: T. M. Brennan to Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk, Nashville, Sept 2, 1861 (second leaf, recto)
The conjugate leaf of the letter on image 2, the same white unruled writing paper in the same fine copperplate hand and the same faded grey-brown ink. Only the upper half of the sheet is written; the lower half is blank apart from the long flourish that runs out beneath the signature and one clean horizontal fold-line about two-thirds of the way down, where the letter was folded for filing. A large ink numeral "2" stands in the upper left corner, matching the "1" on the previous leaf. The right edge of the sheet is trimmed close and a few line-ends run into the margin. A short emulsion scratch crosses the capital W of "Waggons" on the third line but does not destroy the word. No stamp, no endorsement, no docketing on this face. The signature at the foot is written larger and darker than the body, followed by a wide looping paraph.
2 Complete detailed drawings of the Parrot Gun which
I can make to order, as also Travlling[?] Forges and
Battery Waggons, having a large force employed I am in a
position to turn out large quantities of War material on Short
Notice, I have much pleasure in referring You by permission
to The State Military & Financial Bureau; and to Our
State Ordnance Officers.
The high Command You enjoy in the Army of the
South renders it important that You Should be duly
advertised of what is being done in this Section in the production
of Munitions of War, and this I trust will be at once
my justification and apology for trespassing upon Your
time & attention with this present Communication;
I have the honor to be
General
with the highest Sentiments of Respect,
Your Obt Sevt
T M Brennan
Checks: no figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: "Parrot" is written with a single t; not corrected to Parrott. "Travlling[?]" — the middle of the word is compressed and, even at 4× with the contrast pushed, resolves only to a run of T-r-a-v, two tall l's, and -ing; it is either "Travlling" or "Travelling", and the sense (travelling forges, the standard companion to battery wagons) is not in doubt, but the exact letters are. "advertised" is written where a modern reader would expect "apprised"; transcribed as written. The signature reads "T M Brennan" with no periods after the initials, and settles the question raised on image 2 — the Claiborne Machine Works letter is Brennan's own. The two bodies he offers as references, "The State Military & Financial Bureau" and "Our State Ordnance Officers", are Tennessee state agencies as written; no further identification is proposed.
Image 4 — Docket (verso/outer fold) of the Sept 2, 1861 Brennan letter to Polk, with the "GEN. POLK'S PAPERS" and Rebel Archives stamps
The back of the letter as it was folded for filing, photographed flat and much wider than tall. Two strong vertical folds divide the sheet into three panels, and a horizontal fold crosses at the middle; the paper is grey and rubbed along the fold ridges, with faint diagonal scoring visible across the whole sheet in raking light. The middle panel carries the file docket in a broad, blunt-nibbed hand in heavy black ink — quite unlike the fine copperplate of the letter itself — laid out in short lines with ruled pen-strokes under the date line and again under the name. The name line has been struck through with two firm horizontal strokes. The left panel carries a second, later filing endorsement in the same heavy black ink, "Brennan, T. M." with "Tenn" written below and underscored, which is the National Archives arrangement caption. Below the docket, straddling the middle fold, is an oval rubber stamp in grey ink, largely legible: a double oval with a star at top and bottom, the outer legend reading RECORD DIVISION, ... WAR DEPARTMENT. and the inner REBEL ARCHIVES.. At the foot of the middle panel is a straight-line handstamp, GEN. POLK'S PAPERS, in the same grey ink, partly rubbed but plain. The right panel is blank. Two short pen-strokes cross the oval stamp diagonally.
[left panel:]
Brennan, T. M.
Tenn
———
[middle panel:]
Nashville Septr 2nd '61
———————————————
A[?]. T. Brennan [struck through with two lines]
———————————————
Alludes to his ability
to make guns and
shot & shell
———————————————
[oval stamp, grey ink:]
RECORD DIVISION, * * WAR DEPARTMENT.
REBEL ARCHIVES.
[straight-line handstamp, grey ink:]
GEN. POLK'S PAPERS.
Checks: no figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: The struck-through name reads "A. T. Brennan" or possibly "H. T. Brennan"; the first initial is a single looped capital that will not resolve further even at 3× with contrast pushed, and it is plainly not the "T. M." of the signature on image 3 — this looks like a clerk's error in the initials, caught and cancelled, and the correct arrangement caption "Brennan, T. M. / Tenn" then written on the left panel. The letters within the Rebel Archives oval are read from a weak, blind impression; rotating the crop upright resolves the legend as RECORD DIVISION, / REBEL ARCHIVES. / WAR DEPARTMENT., with a five-pointed star at each side of the oval and nothing else in the ring. (An identical, much sharper strike of the same stamp appears on image 7, which confirms the wording.) The date is written "Septr 2nd '61", with the year abbreviated, matching the letter of Sept 2, 1861 on images 2 and 3; this sheet is that letter's own docket.
Image 5 — Printed voucher jacket (outer fold) for a payment of $35 to T. M. Brennan, paid Octr 15th 1861
A wide, low sheet — the outer fold of a voucher folded into three panels, photographed flat, so the picture is much wider than tall. Two vertical fold ridges divide it, and the paper is grey, foxed, and heavily soiled through the right-hand third, where a dark ink-blot or wet stain has spread over the surface. The middle panel carries a printed jobbing-type ornament — a scrolled ribbon banner with a beaded border enclosing the word "No." — with a voucher number written into it in ink; below that are three engraved script headings, "Name", "$" and "Paid", each with a dotted leader-line filled in by hand in the same dark ink. A faint oval rubber stamp, largely blind and partly reading in reverse, sits low on the middle panel with its bottom legend WAR DEPARTMENT still readable; a pencil or fine-pen annotation is written across the middle of that oval, its last word swallowed by the stain. The left and right panels are blank apart from soiling and a few small ink flecks.
[printed ornamental banner:] No. 57[?] Name T. M. Brennan $ 35 Paid Octr 15th 1861 [written across the oval stamp:] 1 Borman Fuse Press [oval stamp, blind/reversed:] [illegible] ... ORD ... / WAR DEPARTMENT.
Checks: the only figure on the sheet is the single sum $35 — there is nothing to extend or foot, so no arithmetic to prove. The $35 is not broken into quantity and rate on this jacket; the detail belongs on the voucher inside.
Flagged: The voucher number in the printed banner is written over the banner's own beaded border and reads most probably "57", but the first figure could be an 8 and the reading is not secure; it is recorded as 57[?]. Note also that "No." here is part of the printed ornament of the jacket, and the figure written into it is the voucher's own number — this is not one of the "(No. 12.)" style Confederate form numbers. The fine-pen annotation across the oval stamp was at first read here as "1 Roman[?] Gun [illegible]"; the voucher itself, on image 6, spells the same three words out plainly as "1 Borman Fuse Press", and on going back to this sheet at 3× that reading fits every stroke — the capital is B, not R; the second word is Fuse, its looped F misread as "Gu"; and the terminal word, though half swallowed by the stain, still shows the long-s ligature of Press. It is transcribed above in the corrected form, established from the companion document rather than guessed. The oval stamp is a blind impression, partly mirrored (an offset from a facing sheet rather than a direct strike), and only "WAR DEPARTMENT" and a fragment reading "ORD" can be made out; it is a weaker relative of the RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT oval seen on images 4 and 7. No firm name appears on this face — the attribution to Brennan rests on the "Name" line.
Image 6 — Confederate States of America printed account/receipt: T. M. Brennan, one Borman fuse press, $35, Nashville, Oct 15, 1861, paid by Lt. M. H. Wright
The voucher itself: a single large sheet of white wove paper, printed as a Confederate States account form and ruled into money columns, filled in by hand and photographed flat. The heading is set in heavy blackletter, "Confederate States of America,", with an engraved-script "To ______ Dr." line beside it; the column heads are printed small capitals, "1861" over the date column and "REMARKS." over the wide right-hand column, and the foot of the form carries the certificate and receipt paragraphs in a light engraved script face, closing with "SIGNED DUPLICATES." in small capitals at the lower left. The paper is grey and rubbed with a long horizontal fold across the lower third and a vertical fold at the right; there is dark foxing and staining down the extreme right edge and a few ink flecks in the blank ruled body. Only one line of the account is used; the remaining nine or ten ruled lines are empty. Two hands appear: a fine, sloping business hand for the account line and the certificate, and Brennan's own bolder signature at the foot. A pen check-mark stands beside the money column.
Confederate States of America,
To T. M. Brennan Dr.
1861 | | REMARKS.
----------------------------------------------------------------|---------|----------
Octr 15 For 1 Borman Fuse Press | 35 - | ✓
----------------------------------------------------------------|---------|----------
I certify that the above Account is correct and just, amounting to Thirty five Dollars
M H Wright
1 Lt Arty, C.S.a.
and that the Property has been received and will be accounted for.
Received at Ordnance Office, Nashville Tenn. Octr 15th 1861 of
Lt. M. H. Wright Ord. Officer C.S.A.
Thirty five Dollars ______________ Cents, in full of the above Account.
T M Brennan
SIGNED DUPLICATES.
Checks: the account has a single item, 1 Borman Fuse Press, entered at 35 in the dollars column with a dash in the cents column. There is no separate rate column filled in, so quantity × rate cannot be tested independently; the one extension of $35 is also the whole account, and it agrees exactly with the certificate ("Thirty five Dollars"), with the receipt ("Thirty five Dollars"), and with the "$ 35" on the voucher jacket at image 5. Proves exactly at $35.00.
Flagged: Wright's rank line under his signature was hard to read on this sheet — the letters after "1 Lt Arty," looked like "of a". The same officer signs the same rank line far more clearly on image 8, where it reads "1st Lt. Arty. C.S.a."; on that comparison the letters here are the same contraction, and it is transcribed as C.S.a. (with the lower-case final a the writer actually forms). The item is "Borman Fuse Press" as written, the Confederate spelling of Bormann; not corrected. This sheet has no printed Confederate form number in the corner, so no form number is reported; the voucher's own number is the figure written into the ornamental banner on the jacket at image 5, read there as 57[?]. Reading this sheet also settles the doubtful annotation on image 5, which has been corrected there. M. H. Wright is named as ordnance officer at Nashville; no further identification is proposed here.
Image 7 — Printed voucher jacket (outer fold) for $4,861.85 paid T. M. Brennan for ordnance and ordnance stores, 9 Nov 1861
Another voucher jacket of the same printed pattern as image 5, folded into three panels and photographed flat. The paper is grey and much handled, with heavy diagonal scoring across the whole sheet and a torn, ragged bite out of the lower left fold; the fold ridges are dark. The middle panel carries the printed scrolled ribbon enclosing "No.", with a voucher number written boldly across it in dark ink and a second, lighter number written outside the ribbon to the right; below that the engraved script headings "Name", "$" and "Paid" with dotted leaders, filled in the same dark ink. Lower down are a large pen check-mark, a short flourished mark beneath it, and a written line naming the class of expenditure. Across the foot of the middle panel is a sharp black oval handstamp, the clearest impression of it in this range: a double oval with a five-pointed star at each side. Both outer panels are covered with the mirror-image show-through of a densely written account on the reverse — long columns of figures and words legible as shapes but reversed, and not transcribed here.
[printed ornamental banner:] No. 441[?] 350[?]
Name T M Brennan
$4861 85
Paid 9 of Nov 1861
✓
[flourished mark, illegible]
Ordnance & Ord Stores
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION, * * WAR DEPARTMENT.
REBEL ARCHIVES.
Checks: the only figure on this jacket is the single sum $4861.85 — there is nothing to extend or foot on this face, so no arithmetic can be proved here. The detail supporting the sum belongs on the account inside.
Flagged: Both numbers at the head are doubtful. The bold figure written across the printed ribbon reads most naturally "441", but it is laid over the ribbon's own engraved shading and the third figure could be a 7; recorded as 441[?]. The lighter figure to the right of the ribbon reads "350", though the first figure could be a 9; recorded as 350[?]. Note again that the printed "No." is part of the jacket's ornament, not a Confederate form number — the handwritten figure in it is the voucher's own number. The short mark below the check is a flourish or initial and will not resolve; it is not transcribed as a word. The reverse of this sheet is written all over, and its show-through covers both blank panels; that account is presumably one of the following images. The dollar figure is written "$4861 85" with no point, the cents raised — read as $4,861.85.
Image 8 — Confederate States printed account, T. M. Brennan to the Ordnance Office, Nashville, Nov 9, 1861: guns, howitzers, castings, carriages, canister and shot, $4,861.85
The account inside the jacket at image 7, and the substantial document of this run. A single large leaf of white wove paper printed as a Confederate States purchase account: a heavy roman heading "The Confederate States", a script "To ______ Dr." line beneath it, then a ruled table with printed heads "Date of Purchase." at the left, a wide unheaded description column, and money columns headed "Dollars." and "Cents." at the right. At the foot are the printed certificate and receipt paragraphs, with "[Signed Duplicates.]" at the lower left. The sheet is grey and rubbed with a broad dark band of soiling down the right edge, a torn nick in the right margin about halfway down, and a horizontal fold across the certificate; a few small white paper losses and scratches show in the left margin, along with the faint show-through of writing from the reverse. Sixteen lines of the account are filled in a rapid, sloping commercial hand in dark ink, with a small pen check beside every extension in the Dollars column and a second column of checks in the outer margin — the ordnance clerk's audit ticks. The footing is drawn off with a long sweeping rule and the total written large. Brennan's own signature closes the receipt at the foot.
The Confederate States
To T M Brennan Dr.
Date of Purchase. | Dollars. | Cents.
1861 To 12 Lint Stocks ———— ✓ | 18 | 00 ✓
" 6 Gunners Pincers 2.00 ✓ | 12 | 00 ✓
Nov 9 " 2 BBLs Cannister Shot
" 12 pdr. 1861 @ 10c ✓ | 186 | 10 ✓
" 2 6 pdr. Guns @ $250 ✓ | 500 | 00 ✓
" 2 12 " Howitzers 250 ✓ | 500 | 00 ✓
1 Limber & Gun Carriage ✓ | 550 | 00 ✓
3 Tar buckets Extra @[?] 2.50 ✓ | 7 | 50 ✓
1 Port fire Stock Extra ✓ | 2 | 50 ✓
100 32 pdr. Shot 3260 @ 5 ✓ | 163 | 00 ✓
50 do do — 1630 @ 5[?] ✓ | 81 | 50 ✓
1 BBl Cannister Shot 511 — 10 ✓ | 51 | 10 ✓
178 32 pdr. Shot 5803 5 ✓ | 290 | 15 ✓
4 6 pdr. Gun Castings $150 ✓ | 600 | 00 ✓
2 12 " Howitzers do $150 ✓ | 300 | 00 ✓
2 12 " do 250 ✓ | 500 | 00 ✓
2 Carriages & Limbers for do ✓ | 1,100 | 00 ✓
✓ | 4,861 | 85 ✓
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, and that the articles have been ac-
counted for on my Property Return for the quarter ending on the 31
of December 1861.
M H Wright
1st Lt. Arty. C.S.a.
RECEIVED at Ordnance Office Nashville the 9th
Novr 1861, of M H Wright 1st Lt Arty
C. S. A., the sum of Forty Eight Hundred &
Sixty One Dollars and Eighty five Cents in full of the
above account.
[Signed Duplicates.]
T M Brennan
Checks: every extension that carries a written rate proves. 6 Gunners Pincers @ $2.00 = $12.00; 1861 lbs 12-pdr canister @ 10c = $186.10; 2 6-pdr guns @ $250 = $500.00; 2 12-inch [12-pdr] howitzers @ $250 = $500.00; 3 tar buckets @ $2.50 = $7.50; 3260 lbs @ 5c = $163.00; 1630 lbs @ 5c = $81.50; 511 lbs @ 10c = $51.10; 5803 lbs @ 5c = $290.15; 4 6-pdr gun castings @ $150 = $600.00; 2 12-pdr howitzer castings @ $150 = $300.00; 2 12-pdr @ $250 = $500.00. Four lines carry no rate — 12 lint stocks at $18.00 (implying $1.50 each), 1 limber and gun carriage at $550.00, 1 port fire stock extra at $2.50, and 2 carriages and limbers at $1,100.00 (implying $550 each, exactly the single-set price above) — and cannot be tested independently, but each is internally consistent. The sixteen extensions foot to 4,861.85, which is the total written on the sheet, the "$4861 85" on the jacket at image 7, and the "Forty Eight Hundred & Sixty One Dollars and Eighty five Cents" written out in the receipt. Proves exactly at $4,861.85.
Flagged: The rate figure on the "50 do do — 1630" line is a tiny blurred mark that could as easily be read 4 as 5; it is recorded as 5[?] because 1630 lbs at 5c is what produces the written extension of $81.50, while 4c would give $65.20. The word between "Extra" and "2.50" on the tar-buckets line is written over and smudged and is read as the @ sign, marked @[?]. "Cannister" is the clerk's spelling throughout and is not corrected; so are "Lint Stocks" for linstocks and "Pincers" for pinchers. The calibre marks written as 12 " are the clerk's ditto for pounder, not inches. Shot weights are consistent with the calibre: 3260 lbs for 100 32-pdr shot, 1630 for 50, and 5803 for 178, all working out at about 32.6 lbs a round. Wright's rank line reads "1st Lt. Arty. C.S.a." with a lower-case final letter, as written.
Image 9 — Blank verso of a printed voucher jacket, carrying only the mirror-image show-through of the account and jacket on the other side
A nearly square sheet, thin and translucent, photographed from its blank side. There is no original ink on this face at all. What the camera records is the whole of the other side reading through the paper backwards: the engraved ornamental ribbon of the jacket appears reversed at the right, and beside it the engraved script words Name, $ and Paid with their dotted leader lines, all mirrored; behind and across them, in fainter grey, comes the show-through of a long handwritten account in the same hand as the accounts elsewhere in this file, in two blocks separated by a horizontal rule about three-quarters of the way down. The top edge of the sheet is heavily blackened by scalloped bands of stain or emulsion damage, and darker bands of soiling run down the left and right. A faint horizontal crease crosses the lower third. Held to a mirror the show-through resolves as a Brennan account of about a dozen lines with a money column at the right — figures such as 12 00, 113 00, 500 00, 1100 00, 3300 00, 600 00 can be picked out — but the strokes are grey, doubled and broken, and the sheet itself carries none of it.
[no original writing on this face; all visible text is reversed show-through
from the other side of the sheet, and is not transcribed here.]
[reversed engraved jacket printing, right of centre:]
No.
Name ___________
$ ___________
Paid ___________
Checks: no figures on this face — no arithmetic to prove. The money figures visible are show-through from the reverse and belong to that account, not to this side.
Flagged: Nothing on this face is transcribable, and nothing has been read across from the reverse into the transcription. The page is not blank in the archival sense and must not be dropped from the sequence — it is the back of a jacket whose front carries writing — but it holds no text of its own. The show-through account has amounts that do not match the $4,861.85 account at image 8 (1100, 3300 and 600 appear together), so this is the reverse of a different and larger account, most likely the one whose jacket appears at image 10.
Image 10 — Two printed voucher jackets photographed together: No. 329, T. M. Brennan, $24,860.95, paid Decr 186[-]; the second jacket blank
Two jackets of the same printed pattern lying side by side under one exposure, the join between them visible as a vertical edge a little right of centre. Both sheets are grey, thin and much rubbed, with heavy diagonal creasing and, over their whole surface, the ghost of a densely written account showing through from behind — the same show-through seen from the other side at image 9. The left jacket is filled in: the printed scrolled ribbon at the head carries a boldly written number, and the engraved script headings "Name", "$" and "Paid ____ of ____ 186_" are completed in a firm dark hand. A large pen check-mark stands in the middle of the panel. Across the lower half is a strong, wholly legible oval handstamp with a five-pointed star at each side. The right-hand jacket is blank — its ribbon, "Name", "$" and "Paid ... of ..." lines are all unfilled, with only a small pen tick on the Name leader — and it carries a second impression of the same oval stamp, struck sideways so that it reads bottom-to-top.
[left jacket:]
[printed ornamental banner:] No. 329
Name T M Brennan
$24,860 95
Paid 9/16 of Decr 186
✓
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION, * * WAR DEPARTMENT.
REBEL ARCHIVES.
[right jacket — blank form:]
[printed ornamental banner:] No.
Name ______________
$ ______________
Paid __________ of __________
[oval handstamp, struck sideways:]
RECORD DIVISION, * * WAR DEPARTMENT.
REBEL ARCHIVES.
Checks: the only figure is the single sum $24,860.95 on the left jacket — no extensions and no footing on either face, so no arithmetic can be proved here. The account supporting it is not on these sheets.
Flagged: The voucher number in the ribbon is clear and reads 329 — this is the jacket's own handwritten number, not a printed form number. The entry on the "Paid" line reads "9/16", which cannot be a single day of the month; it may record two payments, or a warrant or abstract reference, and it is transcribed exactly as written without interpretation. The month is written "Decr" with a raised r. The year is left as the form's "186" with the final digit never filled in; the digit is absent, not lost to damage, so no year is supplied here — the file context and the neighbouring vouchers point to 1861, but that is a proposal, not a reading. The sum $24,860.95 is much larger than anything else in this range and does not correspond to the account at image 8; the account behind it is presumably the one showing through from the reverse at image 9 and continuing at image 11.
Image 11 — Blank reverse of the two voucher jackets at image 10, carrying only show-through and one reversed archival stamp
The back of the pair photographed at image 10, and like image 9 a face with no original writing on it. The sheets are thin, grey and translucent; a heavy black stain or emulsion burn eats into the upper left, another runs down the right edge, and horizontal fold lines cross the sheet at about a third and two-thirds of its height. Everything the camera records comes from the other side. Two engraved ornamental "No." ribbons show at the right, lying on their side and unfilled; the engraved script words Name, Paid and the "$" of the money line appear in reverse near the centre; the printed year stub "186" of each jacket shows twice, turned on its side; and the RECORD DIVISION oval reads through the paper backwards, its ring legible in mirror as RECORD DIVISION, / REBEL ARCHIVES. / WAR DEPARTMENT. Behind all of it, in soft grey, lies the ghost of the long written account belonging to these jackets — a money column at one side, and lines in which words such as Guns, Carriages and Howitzers and figures such as 1000 00 and 650 00 can be made out when the image is mirrored, but never with enough certainty to transcribe. A few white scratches and specks in the emulsion complete the surface.
[no original writing on this face; every mark visible is either show-through
from the reverse of the two jackets or a stain in the paper, and none of it
is transcribed as text of this page.]
[reversed engraved jacket printing:]
No.
Name ___________
$ ___________
Paid __________ of __________ 186
[reversed impression of the archival oval:]
RECORD DIVISION, * * WAR DEPARTMENT.
REBEL ARCHIVES.
Checks: no figures on this face — no arithmetic to prove. The money figures that can be glimpsed are show-through from the other side.
Flagged: Nothing here is transcribable and nothing has been read across from the reverse into the transcription. Two things this face does settle, however: the "186" that appears twice, rotated, is printed on the jacket form, not written — which confirms that the year on the left-hand jacket at image 10 was left with its final digit unfilled rather than damaged; and the reversed oval matches the two impressions on those jackets, so this is certainly their own back and not a stray. The page holds no text of its own but must stay in the sequence.
Image 12 — Docket (endorsement) panel of a folded Confederate voucher form, made out in the name of T. M. Brennan; all money and date blanks left empty
A single leaf photographed as the back of a folded voucher, so what is shown is the narrow docket panel that faced outward when the paper was folded in three. The printed matter is a small engraved ribbon-and-scroll device at the head enclosing the word "No.", below which are three ruled fill-in lines in a printed blackletter/roundhand display face: "Name", a "$" line, and a "Paid ______ of ______ 186_" line. Only the Name line is filled in, in a light pencil that has faded badly and reads grey rather than black. Across the lower left the modern oval handstamp "RECORD DIVISION, / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT" is struck in black ink, its "REBEL ARCHIVES" band partly filled in by the paper's grey tone. A white filament or scratch on the film crosses the stamp diagonally. Turned ninety degrees on the right-hand third of the sheet is a second pencil endorsement written along the fold, in the same soft grey pencil. The whole sheet carries heavy show-through from the writing on the reverse, which appears as mirrored ghost strokes across the lower half and must not be mistaken for writing on this face; there are also several ink or damp stains in the left margin. No "GEN. POLK'S PAPERS" stamp on this face. There are no figures anywhere on the sheet.
[engraved ribbon device] No.
Name T M Brennan
------------------------------
$ ----------------------
Paid ---------- of ------------- 186
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
REBEL ARCHIVES.
WAR DEPARTMENT.
[written vertically along the right-hand fold, pencil:]
Ordnance Office Nashville[?]
Checks: No figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The "$" and "Paid" lines are printed blanks and were never filled in.
Flagged: The printed "No." in the ribbon at the head is the form's own device and was left blank — no voucher number appears anywhere on this face. The vertical pencil endorsement is very faint; "Ordnance Office" is secure, but the third word is read only from its stroke pattern (an initial two-stroke capital, an i-dot two-thirds along, and a doubled ascender before the final letter) and is given as Nashville[?]. It may be a place or it may be the opening of a longer heading that the fold has taken. The mirrored strokes filling the lower half of the sheet are show-through from the reverse and are not transcribed; nothing legible can be recovered from them on this image. The Name is written "T M Brennan" without periods after the initials.
Image 13 — Itemized account, The Confederate States to T. M. Brennan, Nashville, dated Nov. 30, 1861 and receipted at the Ordnance Office, Nashville, Dec. 16, 1861 — field guns, howitzers, carriages, caissons, harness, shot, shell and canister — $24,860.95
One very long sheet — a printed Confederate account-current form to which extra length has been added, photographed whole at roughly 3,496 × 12,615 pixels, so the image is a tall ribbon nearly four times taller than wide. The printed matter is the standing form: "The Confederate States" in spaced Roman capitals and lower case at the head, "To ______ Dr." below it, ruled columns headed "Date of Purchase.", "Dollars." and "Cents.", and at the foot the printed certificate and receipt paragraphs. Everything else is a clerk's hand in brown-black iron-gall ink, small, fluent and consistent through all forty-odd lines, with a second, heavier hand only in the two signatures. The top edge is trimmed close above "The Confederate States" and shows no form number. The upper left quarter is badly darkened — a broad scorch- or damp-stain that runs down the left margin and across the date column, and the film has burned out to near black at the extreme left and top edges; the text survives but the "Date of Purchase" column reads only with effort. Horizontal fold lines cross the sheet at intervals of roughly a page's depth, and one runs through the middle of the second date block. There are two clusters of ink blots low on the sheet, near the totals. Struck upside down across the right-centre of the sheet, over the "1107 lbs" and "851" lines, is the oval handstamp "RECORD DIVISION, REBEL ARCHIVES, WAR DEPARTMENT" — it reads inverted and is only partly legible. There is no "GEN. POLK'S PAPERS" stamp on this face. Nearly every line carries one or two small examining check marks in the left margin and another in the right margin, added by the officers who audited the account; these are marks, not text. Two faint pencil figures — one in the left margin, one interlined above the "120 8 in Shell" line — are later working, not part of the clerk's account.
The Confederate States
To T M Brennan Dr.
Date of Purchase. Dollars. Cents.
Nov 30th 1861 To 6 Laborers testing Guns $2 12 00
" Drayage of Guns to & from Hyds ferry 18 00
" Hack Hire 10 00
" 1 Artillery Bellows & Handle 43 00
" Repairing Travelling Forge & }
Supplying New Bellows pipe &c } 60 00
" 2. 6 pnd. field Guns @ $250 500 00
" 2 Carriages & Limbers @ $550 1,100 00
" 2. 12 pnd. Howitzers @ $250 500 00
" 2 Carriages & Limbers $550 1,100 00
" 6 Caissons & Limbers $550 3,300 00
" 1 Travelling Forge 600 00
" 1 Battery Wagon 550 00
" 60 Sets Artillery Harness $60 3.600 00
Nov 30 1861 To 3022 lbs 6 pnd. Cannister Shot 10c 302 20
" 2271 lbs 12 pnd. do " 227 10
" 65 lbs 12 do do plates " 6 50
" 31 lbs 6 do do do " 3 10
" 2273 lbs 8 In Cannister bottoms 8c 181 84
" 174 Wrought Iron 8 in do tops 25c 43 50
" 200 lbs Wrot Iron Scrap 3 6 00
" 176 lbs Cast " " 2 3 52
" 893 lbs 8 In Cannister Shot 8c 71 44
" 12859 lbs 24 pnd Solid Shot 5c 642 95
+ 7335[?] " 9780 lbs 37 " do do 5 489 00
" 2875 lbs 32 Shell 8 230 00
" 6100 lbs 8 In do 8c 488 00
" Laquering 1280 Shot & Shell 4c 51 20
Nov 30. 1861 To Laquering 122 8 in Shell 5 6 10
" 2 6 pnd Gun Castings }
Sent to Clarksville } 300 00
" Boring out & finishing Eprouvette 50 00
" Drayage to Penetentiary 2 loads 1 50
[pencil, interlined: 35760[?]]
" 120 8 in Shell 6000 8c 480 00
" 709 lbs 8 in Cannister Shot 8 56 72
" 748 6 pnd " " 10 74 80
" 4 Drayages to Penetentiary 3 00
" Laquering 120. 8 in Shell 5c 6 00
" 169 8 in Plates 1094 8 87 52
" 517 lbs 12 pnd Cannister Shot 10 51 70
" 16 8 in Shell 800 8 64 00
" Laquering do 5 80
To 1107 lbs 12 pd Cannister Shot 10 110 70
" 851 " 8 in do 68 08
" 985 " 6 pd " 10 98 50
" 4 Laborers testing guns }
2 days ea 8 @ $2 } 16 00
" Drayage of 14 Guns }
to & from Hyds Ferry } 30 00
Hack Hire × 15 00
6 Howitzer Castings
Shipped to Clarksville $150 900 00
Drayage on do 3 00
4 6 pnd Guns $250 1.000 00
2 12 " Howitzers 250 500 00
6 Carriages & Limbers $550 3300 00
6 Caissons & Limbers $550 3300 00
82 32 pnds Shell 1886 8d 150 88
Laquering 82 Shell 4 3 28
Drayage to Penetentiary 75
919 lbs 8 In Cannister 8c 73 52
------------------
$ 24,891 20
1150 lbs 32 pnds Shell 8 92 00
------------------
24,983 20
Deduct for
75 . 32 pnds Shot No vouchers 122 25
------------------
$ 24,860 95
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, and that the articles have been ac-
counted for on my Property Return for the quarter ending on the 31 st
of Dec 1861.
M H Wright
1 Lt. aty. C. S. a.
RECEIVED, at Ordnance Office Nashville the 16 th
December 1861, of 1st Lt[?] M H Wright
C. S. A., the sum of Twenty four thousand Eight
hundred & Sixty Dollars and Ninety five Cents in full of the
above account.
[Signed Duplicates.]
T M Brennan
Checks: Every extension that can be tested proves. 3022 × 10c = 302.20; 2271 × 10c = 227.10; 65 × 10c = 6.50; 31 × 10c = 3.10; 2273 × 8c = 181.84; 174 × 25c = 43.50; 200 × 3c = 6.00; 176 × 2c = 3.52; 893 × 8c = 71.44; 12859 × 5c = 642.95; 9780 × 5c = 489.00; 2875 × 8c = 230.00; 6100 × 8c = 488.00; 1280 × 4c = 51.20; 122 × 5c = 6.10; 6000 × 8c = 480.00; 709 × 8c = 56.72; 748 × 10c = 74.80; 120 × 5c = 6.00; 1094 × 8c = 87.52; 517 × 10c = 51.70; 800 × 8c = 64.00; 16 × 5c = 0.80; 1107 × 10c = 110.70; 851 × 8c = 68.08; 985 × 10c = 98.50; 1886 × 8c = 150.88; 82 × 4c = 3.28; 919 × 8c = 73.52; 1150 × 8c = 92.00. The unit-price lines likewise prove: 2 × 250 = 500; 2 × 550 = 1,100; 6 × 550 = 3,300; 60 × 60 = 3,600; 4 × 250 = 1,000; 6 × 150 = 900; 4 laborers × 2 days × $2 = 16.00. Footing the whole column line by line gives 24,891.20 — exactly the figure the clerk carried; adding the 1150-lb shell line of 92.00 gives 24,983.20 as written; deducting 122.25 gives 24,860.95 as written, and that agrees with the receipt written out in words ("Twenty four thousand Eight hundred & Sixty Dollars and Ninety five Cents"). The account proves exactly at $24,860.95.
Flagged: The 24-pdr solid shot quantity is written 12859 lbs, not 12869 — the fourth digit is a 5, and the footing confirms it (12859 × 5c = 642.95, the figure entered). The line below it reads "9780 lbs 37 " do do" — the second digit is unmistakably a 7, not a 2; there was no 37-pounder, and this is very likely the clerk's slip for 32 pnd, but it is transcribed as written and the arithmetic is unaffected because the rate is per pound. On the "16 8 in Shell 800" line the rate figure is partly overlaid by the arc of the Record Division handstamp; 8c is recovered from the extension. The deduction line "75 . 32 pnds Shot No vouchers 122.25" gives no weight; at the 5c rate used throughout, 122.25 implies 2,445 lbs, which is 32.6 lbs per shot for 75 shot — consistent, but the weight itself is not on the page. The certifying officer signs "M H Wright" over a rank line whose last letters run into the trimmed right edge; "1 Lt. aty." is secure and the final monogram — a C with an S drawn through it, then an a, points between — is "C. S. A." It is the same monogram he writes at image 15, where the sheet is undamaged and the reading is plain; my first reading of it here as "Ga." was wrong and is corrected. In the RECEIVED paragraph the words between "of" and "M H Wright" are crowded and blotted; "1st Lt" is a probable but not certain reading. The pencil figure in the left margin beside the 9780-lb line reads "+ 7335[?]" — the last digit is open and could be a 0; and a fainter pencil figure "35760[?]" is interlined above the "120 8 in Shell" line. Both are later working, not part of the clerk's account, and neither corresponds to any figure in the columns. Spellings are the clerk's throughout and are not corrected: Cannister, Laquering, Penetentiary, Hyds ferry, Wrot Iron, Eprouvette, Travelling. Two places named besides Nashville: Clarksville (twice, as the destination of gun and howitzer castings) and "Hyds ferry" — that is, Hyde's Ferry on the Cumberland above Nashville, though the sheet writes it without an apostrophe and I do not add one. The "Penetentiary" is named four times as a drayage destination; the sheet does not say which penitentiary, and I do not supply one.
Image 14 — Docket (back) of the December 1861 T. M. Brennan voucher No. 432, endorsed paid 19 December 1861, $2,500.06 rendered and $2,499.66 settled
The reverse of a folded account sheet, photographed flat, with the two vertical fold lines plainly visible dividing the leaf into thirds. The docket writing occupies the middle third, upright, in a firm dark ink and a confident hand with heavy flourishes. The left third of the frame shows the printed certificate and receipt text of the account's own face coming through the paper in reverse — "I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to", "and that the property has been received and accounted for", "Cents, in full of the above account" all read backwards — together with the ghost of the ruled money columns and the pen entries; this is show-through, not writing on this side, and confirms the leaf is the back of the account at image 15. The right third is heavily soiled and scuffed with grey handling marks and several dark smears, and carries a few random pen scratches. Struck squarely in the middle of the docket is the black oval "RECORD DIVISION, / REBEL ARCHIVES. / WAR DEPARTMENT." handstamp, which here prints clearly. Below the stamp are two large detached pen flourishes in the same dark ink as the docket, one above the other. There is no "GEN. POLK'S PAPERS" stamp on this face.
432
T M Brennan
$[flourish] 06
× $2500 ×
$2499. 66
Paid 19. Decr 1861
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
REBEL ARCHIVES.
WAR DEPARTMENT.
[large pen flourish, possibly a name — Lewis[?]]
[second large pen flourish, two strokes, possibly "do"]
Checks: Two figures stand on the docket: $2500 with the cents "06" carried raised above and to the right, and $2499.66. They differ by 40 cents. The account on the face of this same sheet (image 15) foots to the same pair — "$2500 06 × $2499.66" — and its printed certificate is filled out in words as "Twenty five Hundred Dollars & 06 Cents", so the docket's dollar figure proves at $2,500.06 and the second figure is the sum actually settled, $2,499.66. Nothing else on the docket is arithmetic.
Flagged: "432" at the head is the voucher's own handwritten number; there is no printed form number on this face to confuse it with. The third digit of "$2500" is written as a narrow slanted oval with a long lead-in stroke and at first reading looks like a 6; it is a zero, and the written-out sum on the face of the sheet settles it. The two big flourishes below the stamp are not certainly words. The upper one has the shape of a name beginning with a looped capital and could be read Lewis[?]; the lower is two strokes that may be a "do" or may be nothing but a paraph. I would not put either in print as a name without a second example of the same hand. The mirrored printed text at the left is show-through and is not transcribed.
Image 15 — Account, Confederate States of America to T. M. Brennan, Nashville, December 15, 1861, receipted at Nashville December 19, 1861 — canister shot, plates and tops, 8-inch and 32-pounder shell, handspikes and trunnion plates, and drawings for a rifled Columbiad shell
A single tall leaf, about 4,612 × 7,529 pixels, printed as a Confederate States account form: the head reads "Confederate States of America," in a heavy engraved blackletter, with "To ______ Dr" beneath on a dotted rule; the body is ruled into a date column headed "186_", a wide particulars column, separate dollars and cents columns, and a right-hand column headed "REMARKS."; the foot carries the printed certificate and receipt paragraphs. The entries are in a fine, sloping, well-controlled clerk's hand in black ink that has stayed strong; the certificate and receipt are filled in by two further hands, and Brennan's receipt is signed by a second party for him. The paper is clean and lightly toned with a horizontal fold about a third of the way down and a second near the foot; the bottom edge is trimmed unevenly and cuts close under the last signature line, clipping the tail of its final abbreviation. A long, faint diagonal rule crosses the lower left quarter from the left margin up toward the middle of the page — a pen stroke, not a fold. In the right half of the sheet, behind the "Laquering" entries, a "RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT" oval handstamp has printed very faintly, showing only fragments of its letters. Two entries have been ruled through with a horizontal line and marked "Deducted" in the REMARKS column, the second strike-through reinforced with a broad, blotted bar that runs well out into the margin. Nearly every line carries a small examining check in the left margin and a second check beside the money column. There is no "GEN. POLK'S PAPERS" stamp on this face; the reverse of this leaf is image 14.
Confederate States of America,
To T. M. Brennan Dr
186 | | REMARKS.
1861 | |
December 15 To 103 . 8 In Wrot Iron Cannister tops 25c 25 75
" 121 . 8 In Shell 6.050 8 484 00
" 264 lbs 12 pds Cannister plates 10 26 40
" 144 lbs 6. pds do " 14 40
" 241 Sheet Iron Cannister tops 3 7 23
" 93 12 pds do do 5 4 65
" 56 lbs 6 pds Cannister plates 10 5 60
" 1272 " 12 pds Cannister Shot " 127 20
" 1021 " 6 pds Do. Do " 102 10
" 986 " 12 pds do do " 98 60
" 162 . 6 do do " 16 20
" 1167 . 8. In do do 8 93 36
" 102 8 In Shell 5.100 8 408 00
" 665 lbs 8 In Cannister Shot " 53 20
" 110 32 pds Shell 2300 " 184 00
Labrers[?] Loading 32 pds Guns --6---00-- Deducted
" Hauling Carriage to Ellis & Moore --4---00-- Deducted
" 4 Wrot Iron Handspikes for 32 Pds 20 00
" 2 Trunion plates & 1 spindle for do 40 00
" 407 Wrot Iron Cannister tops 12 pds 5 20 35
" 259 do do 6 pds 3 7 77
" 75 32 pds Shot 2.400 5 120 00
" 75 8 In Shell 3750 8 300 00
" 45 do do 2250 180 00
" Laquering 343 . 8 In Shell 5 17 15
do 175 32 pds Shell & Shot 4 7 00
" 4 Wrot Iron Handspikes 20 00
Drawings for Rifled Columbiad[?] Shell 30 00
" 967 lbs 6 pds Cannister 10 96 70
---------------
$ 2,500 | 06 × 2499. 66
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Twenty five Hundred Dollars & 06/ Cents.
and that the property has been received and accounted for.
M H Wright
1 Lt. arty. C. S. a.
RECEIVED, Nashville December 19th 1861, of
M H Wright Esqr. 1st Lieut Arty & Ordnc C.S.A., Twenty five Hundred Dollars
and Six ———— Cents, in full of the above account.
T M Brennan
Pr[?] J S Brennan att[y]
Checks: Every extension on the sheet proves against its own quantity and rate: 103 × 25c = 25.75; 6050 × 8c = 484.00; 264 × 10c = 26.40; 144 × 10c = 14.40; 241 × 3c = 7.23; 93 × 5c = 4.65; 56 × 10c = 5.60; 1272 × 10c = 127.20; 1021 × 10c = 102.10; 986 × 10c = 98.60; 162 × 10c = 16.20; 1167 × 8c = 93.36; 5100 × 8c = 408.00; 665 × 8c = 53.20; 2300 × 8c = 184.00; 407 × 5c = 20.35; 259 × 3c = 7.77; 2400 × 5c = 120.00; 3750 × 8c = 300.00; 2250 × 8c = 180.00; 343 × 5c = 17.15; 175 × 4c = 7.00; 967 × 10c = 96.70. The footing does not prove. Adding the twenty-nine entries as they stand, leaving out the two struck and "Deducted" lines, gives $2,509.66. The clerk carried $2,500.06 — $9.60 less — and that is the figure written out in words in both the certificate ("Twenty five Hundred Dollars & 06/ Cents") and the receipt ("Twenty five Hundred Dollars and Six Cents"), so $2,500.06 is what was certified and receipted. Beside it a second hand has entered "× 2499.66", which is exactly my footing less the $10.00 of the two deducted lines ($6.00 + $4.00). Both figures — $2,500.06 and $2,499.66 — are carried over onto the docket at image 14. I state the divergence rather than reconcile it: the column as written foots to $2,509.66 by my reading, the account was settled at $2,500.06, and the audit figure noted alongside is $2,499.66.
Flagged: The first struck line begins with a word I cannot fix. It is six or seven letters, opens with a looped capital of the same family as the "L" of "Laquering" lower on the sheet, and is followed by "Loading 32 pds Guns"; "Laborers" fits the sense and roughly fits the strokes, but the letters as written look more like "Labrers", so it is given as Labrers[?] and should not be printed as "Laborers" without another example of the hand. The second struck line's amount is partly buried under the heavy cancelling bar; I read $4.00, and the pairing with $6.00 to make the $10.00 difference between $2,509.66 and $2,499.66 supports it, but the digit is not clean. "Ellis & Moore" is legible and is a Nashville name; I make no identification here beyond what the page says. "Drawings for Rifled Columbiad[?] Shell" — the word maps stroke for stroke onto Columbiad (capital, o, l-ascender, u, m, b-ascender, i, a, d-ascender) and I discarded a first reading of "Blunt head"; it is still marked doubtful because the middle of the word is compressed. The officer's rank line under the certificate ends in a monogram that reads "C. S. a." — a C with an S drawn through it and a following a, with points between; this is the same glyph he uses at image 13, where I first read it as "Ga." That earlier reading is wrong and I have corrected it in the image 13 section: it is C. S. A. Brennan's receipt is not in his own hand throughout — it is signed "T M Brennan" and under it "Pr[?] J S Brennan att[y]", the trimmed bottom edge cutting the last abbreviation; the opening word may be "Pr" (per) or "By", and J S Brennan is a second Brennan acting for him. The clerk's spellings stand as written: Cannister, Laquering, Trunion, Wrot, "pds" for pounder. The quantity on the 264-lb line carries a flourished pound abbreviation that can be misread as a fraction; the extension proves it is a flat 264 lbs.
Image 16 — Docket (back) of T. M. Brennan's voucher No. 46, $21,259.60, endorsed paid 4 January 1862 and marked "Ordnance"
The reverse of a large folded account leaf, lying flat with its two vertical folds and one horizontal fold showing as pale creases. The docket is written across the middle third in a large, confident, heavily flourished hand in dark ink — the same hand and the same layout as the docket at image 14, and the amount is written with the cents carried up as a raised figure. The sheet is grey and grubby from handling, with a broad dirty smudge down the right of the centre panel and scattered flecks; several fine white scratches on the film cross the writing. The whole of the underlying account shows through from the other side, most legibly at the foot of the frame where the printed head "Confederate States of America" reads in reverse and, beside it, the reversed ghost of the account's own total; the ruled money columns of the face also print through faintly all over the left half. The black oval "RECORD DIVISION, / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT" handstamp is struck in the middle of the panel and prints well, though a pale scratch runs through "REBEL ARCHIVES". Below the stamp is a short pen endorsement, and near the very bottom of the panel is a separate large two-stroke flourish of the kind that also appears on the image 14 docket. No "GEN. POLK'S PAPERS" stamp on this face.
No 46
T M Brennan
$ 21. 259 60
Paid January 4th 1862
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
REBEL ARCHIVES.
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Ordnance [illegible flourish]
[large two-stroke flourish]
Checks: One figure only — $21,259.60, the dollars written "21.259" with the point used as a thousands separator and the cents "60" carried above the line. There is nothing to add or extend on this face. The reverse of this leaf is the account at image 17, and the same total shows through from it.
Flagged: "No 46" at the head is the voucher's own handwritten number; nothing printed on this face could be confused with it. The final digit of the year in "January 4th 1862" is written as a large open loop rather than a closed 2; the reading is 1862 and it is consistent with a December 1861 account settled early in the new year, but the figure itself is a flourish. The word after "Ordnance" is a single flourished mark that may be an abbreviation — "Dept" would suit the space — but it cannot be read as letters and is left illegible; I have not supplied a department name. The large flourish at the foot is not certainly a word.
Image 17 — Printed Confederate States of America account, T. M. Brennan, Nashville: shot, shell, canister, grape, gun castings, four 6-pdr guns, two 12-pdr howitzers, carriages, limbers, caissons and harness, entered under Dec. 31, certified and receipted at Nashville, January 4, 1862, for $21,259.60
A tall single leaf of laid account paper (the scan runs 4596 x 7428 pixels), printed as a Confederate States of America debit account: a blackletter "Confederate States of America," heading at upper left, a long rule after a written-in "To T. M. Brennan," and a printed script "Dr" at the far right. Below the heading rule the sheet is ruled into a narrow date column carrying the printed year stub "186", a check column, a wide description field, weight and rate columns, a two-part money column, and a narrow column headed "REMARKS." which is left entirely blank. All thirty entries are in one clerk's brown-black iron-gall hand, small, sloped and consistent, with the ditto marks and superscript abbreviations of a shop ledger. The certificate below the footing is in a second, larger and looser hand, and the receipt and signatures in a third. An oval archival handstamp has been struck across the middle of the entries, its ring reading in part "...REBEL..." above and "...CORD DIVISION" below; it is faint and only partly legible. The sheet carries horizontal folds and, down the right side of the money column, a run of white abrasions and one small paper loss that eats the middle digit of the Clarksville gun-casting extension. The microfilm frame darkens both vertical edges, and the foot of the leaf curls, throwing a shadow across the last signature.
Confederate States of America, To T. M. Brennan Dr
186 2. REMARKS.
Dec. √ 31 To 362 . 24 Pnd Shell 6516 lbs 8 521 28
√ " 118 32 " 4324 " 345 92
√ 1070 12 " Cannister 10 107 00
√ 260 24 " Shell 6480 8 518 40
√ 169 do do 3042 " 243 36
√ 25 8" do 1250 " 100 00
√ 87 10" do 9570 " 765 60
√ 56 8" do 2800 " 224 00
√ 150 32 Pnd Shot 4890 5 244 50
√ 69 Stands 24 Pd Grape 3.50 241 50
√ 5 do 32 " do 4.50 22 00
√ 8 Gun Castings Clarksville $150 1,2[0]0 00
Drayage on do 8 00
√ 387 32 Pnd Shell 8,901 8 712 08
√ 415 24 do do 7470 " 597 60
√ 381 32 " Shot 12821 5 641 05
√ 364 8" Shell 23660 5 1,183 00
√ 87 10" do 9790 8 783 20
√ 1077 lbs 6 Pnd Cannister 10 107 70
√ 1222 lbs 12 " do 122 20
Laquering 2672 Shot & Shell 32024 4 106 88
" 445 . 8" 5 22 25
" 176 . 10" 6 10 56
√ 4 6 Pnd Guns $250 1,000 00
√ 2 12 " Howitzers " 500 00
√ 6 Carriages & Limbers $550 3,300 00
√ 6 Caisons & Limbers " 3,300 00
√ 66 Sets Artillery Harness $60 3,960 00
√ 40 lbs 12 Pnd Cannister Plates 10 4 00
√ 300 24 " Shot 7350 5 367 50
----------
58
21,259 { ---
100
60
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Twenty one Thousand, Two Hundred, Fifty Nine & 60/100 Dollars
M, H, Wright
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for
1st Lt. Ordy[?]. C.S.A.
RECEIVED, Nashville Jany 4th ______ 186 2 of
Leut. M H Wright C.S.A Twenty one thousand two hundred and
Fifty Nine Dollars Sixty ______ Cents, in full of the above account.
T. M. Brennan
p[er] J. W.[?] Brennan, Atty
Checks: Twenty-eight of the thirty extensions prove exactly as written. The exceptions are two.
(1) "5 do 32 " do @ 4.50 = 22 00". 5 x $4.50 is $22.50; the sheet extends it at $22.00, fifty cents short. The cents are unmistakably two open zeros and the rate is unmistakably a 4 with superscript 50 over a rule, so this is the clerk's error, not a doubtful reading.
(2) "8 Gun Castings Clarksville @ $150". 8 x $150 = $1,200.00, and the extension reads "1,2_0 00" with a small paper loss over the third digit. The arithmetic and the footing both require 0, so the figure is $1,200.00.
Every other line proves to the cent, including the two the note I was given queried: the 24-pdr shell weight is 6516 lbs (6516 x $.08 = $521.28), and the 8-inch shell line reads 23,660 lbs, not 25,660 — 23,660 x $.05 = $1,183.00 exactly as extended.
The thirty extensions as written add to $21,259.58, which is precisely the figure first entered in the fraction box ("58/100"). That struck numerator was then overwritten with "60", and the certificate ("Fifty Nine & 60/100 Dollars") and the receipt ("Sixty Cents") both follow the corrected figure. So the account was footed and paid at $21,259.60, two cents more than the columns as written support. The two cents are not accounted for anywhere on the sheet; the 50-cent grape-stand shortfall was never corrected.
Flagged:
- Year in the heading. The printed stub "186" is completed in ink with an unambiguous "2." — the account heading therefore reads 1862, while its only dated entry is "Dec. 31" and the receipt below is dated "Nashville Jany 4th 186 2". The Dec. 31 deliveries must fall in 1861; the clerk appears to have filled the printed year with the year the account was rendered and paid rather than the year of the entries. Transcribed as written; do not silently regularise it.
- "Ordy." The corps abbreviation under Wright's certifying signature is written small and fast and is crossed by the flourish above it. It reads most naturally as "Ordy." (Ordnance) but I will not call it certain.
- The attorney's signature. The second signature, "p[er] [initial].[initial]. Brennan, Atty", sits in the shadow of the curled bottom edge and the initials are not securely legible. "J. W." is my best reading; "S. W." cannot be excluded. The surname "Brennan" and "Atty" are clear.
- M. H. Wright. The certifying and receiving officer signs "M, H, Wright, 1st Lt. Ordy[?]. C.S.A." As a proposal only, and not part of the transcription: this is very likely Moses H. Wright, the Confederate ordnance officer commanding at Nashville in 1861-62. Verify before printing.
- Fifty-cent and two-cent divergences as set out under Checks. Neither is a reading problem; both are on the page.
- The archival oval stamp is too faint to transcribe in full. It is a modern (post-war Federal) archival mark, not a Confederate one, and carries no information about the transaction.
- "32024" on the lacquering line is the weight of the 2,672 shot and shell lacquered; the 4-cent rate is charged on the piece, not the pound (2,672 x $.04 = $106.88). Recorded as written.
Image 18 — Docket (outer fold) of a fourth-quarter 1861 abstract-of-disbursements voucher, No. 7, in the name of T. M. Breunder[?], "Gv Powder Works Refinery" — no money figure on the sheet
A landscape scan (4620 x 3472) of the outer face of a leaf folded into vertical panels; five or six fold bands run the full height of the sheet, and the writing occupies only the second panel from the left, as an endorsement is meant to when the voucher is folded for filing. The paper is faintly ruled writing stock, clean, with no tears or losses. All the endorsement is in one fine, well-schooled clerical hand in black ink, small and evenly spaced; below it stands a large ornamental capital and then a signature reduced almost wholly to a flourish, cancelled or underscored by a single long horizontal stroke that runs out well past the letters. The voucher numeral is heavily over-inked and blotted, and sits on a small rectangular grey patch — either a paper repair or a mount showing through the film. The oval archival handstamp "RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT" appears here in mirror image: it was struck on the other face of the leaf and has bled through, which is also why faint, unreadable ghost writing from the inside of the voucher runs across the outer panels. The handwriting itself reads correctly, so the film frame is not reversed. The microfilm frame darkens all four edges.
Abs - Dis
Voucher No — 7[?]
4th Quarter 1861
T. M. Breunder[?]
Gv Powder Works Refinery
E
[flourished signature — illegible]
Checks: No figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The docket carries a voucher number, a quarter, a name and an office, but no amount.
Flagged:
- The surname is not written "Brennan" — but see the amendment at the end of this file. The surname is written with an unmistakable tall d-loop and a final "-er": B-r-e-u-n-d-e-r. "Brennan" (compare the clear "T M Brennan" on the docket at image 16, and Brennan's own signature at the foot of image 17) ends "-nnan" and carries no ascender after the capital B. The subject line, "Gv Powder Works Refinery", likewise describes a powder-refining establishment, not the iron foundry and gun shop whose account stands on image 17. On this sheet alone I could not choose between a clerk's garbling of "Brennan" and a stray docket from another claimant's file. Image 19 settles it in favour of the garbling — see "Amendment to Image 18" at the end of this file — but the spelling on the page stands as written.
- The voucher number. "Voucher No — 7[?]" is written heavily and appears to have been re-inked over an earlier figure, and a faint loop survives to the right of the downstroke. The final figure reads best as 7 but 2 cannot be excluded, and there may be a second digit lost under the blot. Note that this is the voucher's own handwritten number, not a printed form number.
- "Gv" is written as a capital G with a superscript v — the usual contraction for "Gov[ernmen]t". I have left it as written rather than expanding it.
- "Abs - Dis" is the standard endorsement contraction for an abstract of disbursements. Left unexpanded.
- The signature below the ornamental "E" cannot be read. It is written almost entirely as a flourish and then struck through with a long horizontal stroke; no more than the first letter or two is recoverable, and I will not guess at it. The large "E" above it may be an ornamental capital beginning that signature rather than a separate letter or an ampersand.
- The mirrored archival stamp is a post-war Federal mark, not a Confederate one, and carries nothing about the transaction.
Image 19 — Printed bill and receipt, The Confederate States to T. M. Brennan, Nashville, October 1, 1861: four copper evaporating pans, two copper percolators and a pump for the Saltpetre Refinery, certified and receipted by Major George W. Rains, $1,280.25
A single portrait leaf (scan 3508 x 4645) on a printed bill-head of a much lighter kind than the account at image 17. The heading "The Confederate States," is set in engraved copperplate script at the upper left, followed by a long rule carrying a printed "To", the vendor's name written in, and a printed "Dr." at the right margin. Below a double rule the sheet is ruled into a table headed "DATE." at the left and "DOLLARS." and "CENTS." at the right; only the top fifth of the table is used and the remaining two-thirds of the sheet is blank ruled paper. At the foot come two printed lines: a certificate opening with an ornamental initial, "I certify that the foregoing account is correct and just.", and a receipt line already printed with the disbursing officer's name and title — "of George W. Rains, Major Artillery and Ordnance, C. S. A." — so the form was struck off for Rains's own use rather than filled in generically. "(Signed in Duplicate)" is printed at the lower left. The entries are in one bold, fluent, heavily flourished hand in black ink, quite different from the small ledger hand of image 17; Rains's certifying signature and Brennan's receipting signature are each in their own hands, Brennan's ending in a long looping underscore that runs the width of the sheet. A faint horizontal fold crosses the middle of the leaf, and there is light abrasion at the right edge. There is no archival handstamp on this face, and no damage that costs any text.
The Confederate States,
To T. M. Brennan Dr.
DATE. DOLLARS. | CENTS.
186 1
Oct 1 To 4 Copper evaporating
pans 1447 lbs @ 75c 1085 . 25
To 2 Copper Percolators, &c[?] 120 00
1 Pump & furnished 75 00
For use of Saltpetre Refinery
I certify that the foregoing account is correct and just.
$1280.25
Geo W. Rains
Maj Art & Ord
Received Nashville Oct 1st 1861 of George W. Rains, Major Artillery and
Ordnance, C. S. A. Twelve hundred & Eighty 25/100 Dols in full of the above account
(Signed in Duplicate)
T. M. Brennan
Checks: Proves exactly at $1,280.25. The one extended line, 1447 lbs at 75 cents, gives $1,085.25 to the cent. $1,085.25 + $120.00 + $75.00 = $1,280.25, which is the figure carried opposite the certificate, and the receipt repeats it in words: "Twelve hundred & Eighty 25/100 Dols". Nothing on this sheet is out by a penny.
Flagged:
- "1 Pump & furnished". There is a clear ampersand-shaped glyph between "Pump" and the following word, which reads "furnished" once sharpened. "1 Pump & furnished" does not parse, so one of two things is true: either the mark is a terminal flourish on "Pump" and the line reads "1 Pump furnished", or the clerk wrote "&[c]" and left the second noun out. Transcribed as written; do not silently repair it.
- "Percolators, &c". The two characters after the comma are written small and fast; "&c" is my reading but I will not call it certain.
- "Maj Art & Ord" under Rains's signature is his own abbreviation for the title the printed receipt line spells out, "Major Artillery and Ordnance, C. S. A."
- The date. "186" and "1" are written above "Oct 1" in the date column of an otherwise unfilled year blank; the year is 1861 and there is no ambiguity here of the kind that dogs image 17.
- This sheet bears directly on image 18. The docket at image 18 is endorsed "4th Quarter 1861" and "Gv Powder Works Refinery"; this voucher is dated 1 October 1861 — the first day of that quarter — and is expressly "For use of Saltpetre Refinery", the front end of powder-making. See the amendment at the end of this file.
- George W. Rains. As a proposal only, not part of the transcription: this is almost certainly the ordnance officer who went on to build and run the Confederate Powder Works at Augusta, Georgia. Verify before printing.
Amendment to Image 18, after reading Image 19
Image 19 substantially changes how the docket at image 18 should be read, and this note supersedes the corresponding bullet in that section.
Image 19 shows that in the fourth quarter of 1861 T. M. Brennan of Nashville was in fact supplying Major George W. Rains with copper evaporating pans, copper percolators and a pump "For use of Saltpetre Refinery" — saltpetre refining being the first stage of powder manufacture. The image 18 docket is endorsed for exactly that quarter and reads "Gv Powder Works Refinery". The two therefore almost certainly belong together: image 18 is the outer fold of a voucher on the powder-works refinery account, and image 19 is a voucher of the same business.
What remains true, and should still be flagged, is that the surname on the docket is written "Breunder" — with an unmistakable tall d-loop and a final "-er" — and is not the "Brennan" that appears clearly at the head of image 19, in Brennan's own signature at the foot of it, and on the docket at image 16. The most economical explanation is now that a clerk who did not know the firm garbled the name when endorsing the fold, not that the sheet is a stray from another claimant's file. I have left the transcription as the page has it. The docket still carries no money figure, so it cannot be tied to image 19's $1,280.25 by amount, only by quarter and subject.
Image 20 — Docket (endorsement) on the back of a Confederate States account of T. M. Brennan, voucher No. 286, $19406.64, paid March 11th 1862
The back panel of a folded account sheet, photographed whole. The leaf is a light wove writing paper, now grey in the scan, creased by one heavy vertical centre fold and a second fold at the left, with a horizontal fold across the upper third; the fold lines show as pale bands and a dark seam down the middle. Only six things on this side are in ink: four lines of a large, confident, right-sloping clerical hand across the upper centre of the panel giving the voucher number, the payee, the amount and the payment date; a smaller, thinner, more hurried note in a second hand below them; a small inked cross or plus below that; and a black oval handstamp near the foot. The oval stamp is weakly inked and only partly legible — the outer ring reads RECORD DIV[ISION] across the top and WAR DEPART[MENT] with a D.C. across the bottom, and the middle line (REBEL ARCHIVES on other sheets in this file) is too faint to read here. Someone has drawn a short pen line under the lower edge of the oval. Everything else visible on this side is show-through from the printed and written account on the recto, reading in mirror image — the blackletter "Confederate States of America," heading, the printed "186" and "REMARKS." column head, and the ruled money columns with their figures. There is no GEN. POLK'S PAPERS stamp on this sheet. The paper is sound; small light flecks and one thin white scratch across the amount line are film defects, not losses, and no text is damaged.
No 286
T. M. Brennan
$19406. 64
---
Paid March 11th 1862
---------------------
no authority to sign shewn[?]
+
[oval handstamp:]
RECORD DIV[ISION]
[REBEL ARCHIVES — illegible on this impression]
WAR DEPART[MENT] D.C.
Checks: The docket carries one figure only — $19406.64 — and no columns, so there is no arithmetic internal to this sheet to prove. The cents "64" are written small and raised above a ruled dash, in the usual docket manner.
Flagged: The last word of the second-hand note is read as "shewn"; the letters after the tall "h" are a small closed "e", a "w" and a terminal "n", so the archaic "shewn" rather than "shown", but the ink is thin and the word sits over show-through, so it is marked uncertain. That note — "no authority to sign shewn" — is an auditor's or paying officer's objection and is not signed or dated; the hand is not the same as the hand that wrote the docket lines, and neither hand is identified on this side. The amount's fourth digit is a closed oval and is read as a zero, giving $19406.64, not $19416.64; at high magnification the loop is plainly a nought and unlike the plain vertical strokes used for the "1"s on the same line. "No 286" is a handwritten voucher number, not a printed form number. The oval archives stamp is too lightly struck to read its middle line. Whether $19406.64 agrees with the footing of the account on the recto is a question for the account sheet itself, not this docket.
Image 21 — Confederate States account against T. M. Brennan for February 1862: ordnance, projectiles, carriages and shop work, certified and receipted at Atlanta, Georgia, March 11, 1862, footed $19,406.64
A tall single leaf of a printed Confederate ordnance account form, about twice as high as it is wide, filled out in brown-black iron-gall ink. The printed matter is a blackletter heading, "Confederate States of America," at the top left with a long dotted rule running to a printed "Dr" at the right; a ruled money table below it with a date column, two narrow check columns, a wide column for the articles, then columns for the rate, dollars, cents, a further narrow check column, and at the far right a column headed "REMARKS."; a printed "186" in the date cell; and at the foot the printed certificate, "I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to ... and that the property has been received and will be accounted for," followed by the printed receipt line, "RECEIVED, ... 186 , of ... Dollars ... Cents, in full of the above account." Three hands are at work. The body of the account, thirty-one item lines and the footing, is in one clear, evenly sloped clerical hand that keeps its figures tidily inside the ruled money columns and uses a period as a thousands separator (3.900, 3.300, 1.200). A second, larger and looser hand writes the certificate's sum in words, the signature and rank, and the place and date of the receipt. A third hand — Brennan's, and beneath it the attorney's — signs at the lower right. Every item line but the last few carries a pen check in the left-hand check column, and most carry a second check at the right; a few lines carry an additional check in the outer column, and five of the labor and workmanship lines are struck with a small "✗" in the rate column. The only entry in the REMARKS column is one pencil-faint note against the labor lines. There is a small ink smudge over the cents of the "1227" line, a white photographic scratch through the cents of the third and twelfth lines, and the faint ghost of the oval archives handstamp on the reverse showing through in the middle of the sheet. The leaf is creased by a vertical centre fold and horizontal folds; the lower edge runs close beneath the last signature, but no writing is cut off. No archives handstamp and no "GEN. POLK'S PAPERS" stamp appear on this side, and there is no printed form number anywhere on the sheet.
Confederate States of America, To T. M. Brennan .................. Dr
186 2 | REMARKS.
Feby ✓ | To 897 . 32 pnd Canister Plates 8 | 71 | 67 ✓
✓ | 142 . 12 „ „ „ 10 | 14 | 20 ✓
✓ | 115 6 „ „ „ „ „ | 11 | 50 ✓
✓ | 229 3 „ Rifle Shot & Shell finished 1 37½[?] 314 | 88 ✓
✓ | 84 Stands 24 pnd Grape 3 50 | 294 | 00 ✓
✓ | 118 32 „ „ 4 50 | 531 | 00 ✓
✓ | 159 Reads Shell finished 10 00 | 1590 | 00 ✓
✓ | 15 — „ With Copper Caps 7 50 | 112 | 00 ✓
✓ | 396 ℔ 8" Canister plates 8 | 31 | 68 ✓
✓ | 1227 ℔ 32 pnd „ „ 8 | 98 | 16 ✓
✓ | 42 10" Shot 5376 5 | 268 | 80 ✓ ✓
✓ | 116 10" Shell 11716 8 | 937 | 28 ✓ ✓
✓ | 6 . 12 pnd Carriages & Limbers $650 | 3.900 | 00 ✓
✓ | 6 . 12 „ Caisons & Limbers — $550 | 3.300 | 00 ✓
✓ | 3 12 „ Guns — 400 | 1.200 | 00 ✓ ✓
✓ | 3 12 „ Gun Castings 300 | 900 | 00 ✓
✓ | 4 12 „ Howitzers ———————— $250 | 1.000 | 00 ✓
✓ | 4 6 „ Guns ————————— 250 | 1.000 | 00 ✓
✓ | 63 32 R Shell unfinished $5 00 | 315 | 00 ✓
✓ | 743 3" Shell & Shot ———— 1 00 | 743 | 00 ✓
✓ | 80 42 pnd Shell 2480 8 | 198 | 40 ✓
✓ | 2210 12 „ Sphl Case 85 | 1878 | 50 ✓
✓ | 72 42 „ Shot 3024 5 | 151 | 20 ✓
✓ | 4 Wrot Iron Roller hand Spikes 5,00 | 20 | 00 ✓
✓ | 2 Cast pintle plates & 1 pintle | 20 | 00 .
✓ | 2 Wrot Iron traverse Circles | 20 | 00 ✓
✓ | Draughtsman 1 day at Fort Zollicoffer[?] ✗ | 10 | 00 ✗ See Ord. Rep[t][?]
✓ | Machinists 2 days at do ———— ✗ | 10 | 00 .
✓ | Laborers Mounting Clarksville Guns ✗ | 20 | 00 .
| Machinist time Mounting ———— ⎫ ✗ | |
| Elevating Screws on Memphis Guns ⎭ | 18 | 00
-------------------
$ 19,406 . 64
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Nineteen Thousand Four Hundred & Six Dollars 64/100
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for
M. H. Wright
1st Lt. Arty. C.S.A[?]
RECEIVED, Atlanta Ga March 11 186 2 , of
Lt. M. H. Wright C.S.A[?] Nineteen thousand four hundred and
Six —— Dollars & Sixty four Cents, in full of the above account.
T. M. Brennan
p H. W.[?] Brennan atty
Checks: Twenty-three of the thirty extensions prove exactly on quantity x rate. 142 @ 10c = $14.20; 115 @ 10c = $11.50; 229 @ $1.37½ = $314.88 (the rate glyph is small, but the extension fixes it at one dollar thirty-seven and a half); 84 stands @ $3.50 = $294.00; 118 @ $4.50 = $531.00; 159 @ $10 = $1,590.00; 396 @ 8c = $31.68; 1227 @ 8c = $98.16; 5376 lbs @ 5c = $268.80; 11716 lbs @ 8c = $937.28; 6 @ $650 = $3,900.00; 6 @ $550 = $3,300.00; 3 @ $400 = $1,200.00; 3 @ $300 = $900.00; 4 @ $250 = $1,000.00; 4 @ $250 = $1,000.00; 63 @ $5.00 = $315.00; 743 @ $1.00 = $743.00; 2480 lbs @ 8c = $198.40; 2210 @ 85c = $1,878.50; 3024 lbs @ 5c = $151.20; 4 @ $5.00 = $20.00. Two extensions do not prove. The first line, 897 lbs at 8c, is $71.76, and the clerk first wrote the cents as 67 and then wrote 76 small above them without striking the 67 out. The eighth line, 15 Read's shell with copper caps at $7.50, is $112.50, but the extension is written 112.00, fifty cents short. The footing does not prove at all: the thirty extensions as written add to $18,979.27 taking the first line's cents as the written 67, or $18,979.36 taking the corrected 76, against a footing of $19,406.64 — the footing is $427.37 (or $427.28) larger than the column above it. The footing itself is consistent across the sheet and the file: the certificate spells out "Nineteen Thousand Four Hundred & Six Dollars 64/100," the receipt repeats it, and the docket on image 20 gives $19406.64.
Flagged: The $427-odd by which the footing exceeds the extensions is the significant problem on this sheet. I read the amount column three times at high magnification and counted the item lines against the extensions twice; there are thirty-one item lines and thirty extensions, the last two lines being braced to a single $18.00, and no line is missing from my transcription and none is illegible. The divergence is therefore in the document, not in the reading — either the clerk mis-added, or this fair copy omits a line that stood in the original he footed from. It is worth noting, without asserting it, that $427.28 is exactly 5,341 pounds at the 8c rate used repeatedly on this sheet, which would be consistent with a dropped weight line; that is a hypothesis only and nothing on the sheet supports it. "Reads Shell" is written with a clear terminal "s" and is most likely Read's shell, the Confederate rifled projectile named for its designer, but the account gives no first name and the reading is left as the clerk wrote it. The "R" in "63 32 R Shell unfinished" is a plain capital R with no stop; Rifle is the obvious expansion but it is not written out. "Fort Zollicoffer" is spelled with the letters between the double L and the C indistinct in this hand, and there is a dot above them, so I read an i; the reading is marked uncertain. The REMARKS note is faint and reads "✗ See Ord. Rep" with a small raised final letter, most likely a contraction of Report; marked uncertain. The certifying officer signs plainly "M. H. Wright" but the letters after "Arty." are a flourish read as C.S.A., and the same flourish follows "Lt. M. H. Wright" in the receipt line; compare the clearly different "Ga" written in "Atlanta Ga" on the same line. The second signature under Brennan's own is "p" with a raised r, then two initials, then "Brennan atty"; the first initial matches the crossed capital H in "M. H. Wright" above, the second is read as W with less confidence, and the whole is given as "p H. W.[?] Brennan atty". The rate glyph on the rifle shot and shell line is small and thick with ink; the extension, not the glyph, establishes $1.37½. The raised mark used after 8, 10 and 3 in the caliber position is the inch mark, and the raised ligature after 396 and 1227 is the ℔ contraction for pounds; the mid-height marks are the clerk's ditto marks, repeating the word above. The date column carries only "Feby" against the first line, with no day given, so the goods are dated only to February 1862 while the certificate, receipt and payment are all of March 11, 1862 at Atlanta, Georgia — the account is for a Nashville firm but was settled in Georgia, which fits the evacuation of Nashville that February and should be checked against the rest of the file rather than assumed. Nothing on this sheet suggests it is a stray: the payee, the goods, the rates and the total all match the docket on image 20.
Image 22 — Docket (endorsement panel) of Voucher No. 5, 4th Quarter 1861, Government Powder Works Refinery account, signed Brennan
A single ruled sheet photographed as the outside of a folded voucher, so the camera sees the blank back of the document with only the docket written across the middle panel. Three strong vertical fold lines divide the sheet into panels; the faint blue rulings of the paper run vertically in this orientation, confirming the sheet was folded and turned ninety degrees before the clerk wrote on it. The docket is in a fluent brown-black iron-gall hand with heavy shading on the capitals, laid out as five centred lines. A large pencil "1" stands on the left panel and a small circled numeral, apparently "3," is pencilled to the right of the first line. A rectangular patch of different tone sits behind the numeral "5" — a later repair or backing slip showing through. The standard oval "RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT" handstamp is struck low and slightly right of centre in pale ink. The right-hand third carries scattered white scratches and lint from the filming, and a faint illegible pencil mark near the top edge. No "GEN. POLK'S PAPERS" stamp on this sheet.
Abs — Dis (3)
Voucher No — 5
4 th Quarter 1861
Gov Powder Works Refinery
&
Brennan
[oval handstamp:] RECORD DIVISION
REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT
1 [illegible pencil mark]
Checks: No figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The only numerals are the voucher number 5, the year 1861, the quarter, and the pencilled file marks.
Flagged: The first word of the fourth line is written so rapidly that the letters after the capital G collapse into a single wave; it is read "Gov" (for Government) on the strength of the companion docket on image 24, which spells the same phrase plainly as "Gov. Powder Works Refinery." The signature at the foot is a bold flourish; read alone it could be taken for "Brennen," but the same signature written more openly on image 24 reads "Brennan," and that reading is adopted here. No forename or initials appear on this docket. The pencilled circled numeral beside the first line is faint and could be 3 or 5. "Abs — Dis" is read as an archival shorthand, most likely for an abstract of disbursements, but the sheet does not expand it. Neither Nashville nor any other place is named on this docket, and the voucher body it belonged to is not on this image.
Image 23 — Voucher body: The Confederate States to T. M. Brennan, Nashville, 1 October 1861 — three cast-iron retorts and lids for distilling willow charcoal for gunpowder, $675.84
The voucher itself, and the sheet the docket on image 22 belongs to. A tall printed account form on pale blue-ruled ledger paper, the printed matter in engraved script and small capitals: the heading "The Confederate States," at upper left, ruled column boxes with the printed heads DATE, DOLLARS and CENTS, and at the foot the printed certificate line, the printed receipt paragraph, and the parenthetical "(Signed in Duplicate.)". Three vertical rules and a double rule under the heading are printed; the wide body of the form is left blank below the entries. The account is written in a clear, upright brown-black hand with generous spacing; the receipt at the foot is filled in over the printed line-work in the same or a very similar hand, with the word "Dollars" crowded in above the line where the writer ran out of room. A horizontal fold crosses the lower third and light vertical folds match the panels seen on the docket. Condition is good: no loss of text, only scattered white specks from the filming and a faint pencil stroke in the right margin about two-thirds down. There is no printed form number at the head of this sheet, and no "GEN. POLK'S PAPERS" stamp.
The Confederate States,
To T. M. Brennan Dr.
______________________________________________________________
DATE. | | DOLLARS.| CENTS.
1861 | | |
Oct 1 | To 3 Cast Iron Retorts &lids | |
| 8073 lbs @ 8 | 645 | 84
| 3 Arches Screws & Handles | |
| for do @ 10 00/100 | 30 | 00
| | |
| For distillation of Willow | |
| Charcoal for Gunpowder — | |
______________________________________________________________
| 675 | 84
I certify that the foregoing account is correct and just.
Geo W Rains
Maj art & ord
Received Nashville Oct 1 1861 of George W. Rains, Major Artillery and
Ordnance, C. S. A., Six hundred & Seventy five 84/100 Dollars in full of
the above account
(Signed in Duplicate.)
T M Brennan
Checks: Proves exactly at $675.84. 8,073 lbs at 8 cents = $645.84, which is the first extension as written; 3 arches, screws and handles at $10.00 each = $30.00, the second extension as written; $645.84 + $30.00 = $675.84, the figure carried to the footing box and the same sum written out in words in the receipt as "Six hundred & Seventy five 84/100 Dollars." Every step agrees.
Flagged: The rate on the first line is written simply as "@ 8" with no cent sign; the arithmetic confirms it is 8 cents per pound. "Arches" in the second line is legible but is an unusual item description — it is read literally, and in context appears to mean the arch settings on which the retorts were mounted rather than any part of a gun. The certifying signature reads "Geo W Rains" over "Maj art & ord"; the receipt paragraph spells the same man out as "George W. Rains, Major Artillery and Ordnance, C. S. A.," which resolves the abbreviation on the sheet itself, so no outside identification is needed. The payee's signature at the foot is a heavy flourish; the initials before "Brennan" are looped together and are read as "T M" but could be taken for "J M" from the ink alone — the printed line above spells the name as "T. M. Brennan," which supports the reading. The docket on image 22 gives this voucher's own number as 5 and assigns it to the 4th Quarter 1861; nothing on this sheet carries a number.
Image 24 — Printed docket form of Voucher No. 3, 4th Quarter 1861, Gov. Powder Works Refinery, signed Brennan
The blank outside of another folded voucher, this time a sheet whose back carries a printed docket form rather than plain paper. The printed elements are a rule of dense engraved hatching after the word "Voucher," dotted leader lines, a large ornamental "$", the words "Paid" and "of" in printed script, and a printed "186" left for the clerk to complete — all of which stand unfilled except where noted. Over and around this printing a clerk has written in a fine, spidery black hand. The whole face is broken by three vertical folds; the middle panel carries all the writing. A small rectangular paper patch or repair slip lies across the middle of the "Voucher No." line, and the abbreviation "No" beneath it is obliterated by a heavy black oval blot, leaving the numeral 3 standing on the patch. The word before "4 th Quarter" has been cancelled with a firm horizontal stroke. The oval "RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT" handstamp is struck low on the same panel, more heavily inked than on image 22. The left and right panels show mirror-image bleed-through of printing and script from the face of the document; none of it is readable in reverse and none of it is transcribed. Flaking and abrasion mark the left edge. No "GEN. POLK'S PAPERS" stamp.
Abs. Dis
Voucher [blot obscuring "No."] 3 [printed hatching]
[word struck through, illegible] 4 th Quarter 1861 . . . . .
$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Gov. Powder Works Refinery
Paid . . . . . . . . . of . . . . . . 186
Brennan
[oval handstamp:] RECORD DIVISION
REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT
Checks: No figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The printed dollar line was left blank, so the docket records no amount; the only numerals written are the voucher number 3 and the year 1861, with the printed "186" of the "Paid" line left uncompleted.
Flagged: The cancelled word before "4 th Quarter" begins with a capital that looks like N and may be an abbreviated month, but the cancelling stroke passes through the whole word and it cannot be read with any confidence — recorded as struck through and illegible. The abbreviation "No." after "Voucher" is destroyed by a black oval blot; the numeral 3 that follows is clear and sits on a small paper patch, so the possibility that the patch covers an earlier figure cannot be ruled out from the image. "Abs. Dis" is the same archival shorthand as on image 22 and is not expanded on the sheet. The "Paid ... of ... 186" line was never filled in, so this docket does not record when or by whom the voucher was settled. The place is not named. Note that this sheet fixes the reading of image 22's fourth line: the phrase is "Gov. Powder Works Refinery," not "Gun Powder."
Image 25 — Voucher: The Confederate States to T. M. Brennan, Nashville, 1 October 1861 — two boiler-plate kettles for refining saltpetre and five slip cylinders for making charcoal, $315.84, receipted 22 January 1862
A printed Confederate purchase voucher on faintly blue-ruled paper, a different and fuller printing than the form on image 23. The heading "The Confederate States" is set in heavy blackletter across the top; the column heads read "Date of Purchase.", "Dollars." and "Cents."; the certificate below the ruled box is printed in roman with small capitals — "I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, and that the articles have been accounted for on my Property Return for the quarter ending on the ____ of ____ 186__" — followed by a printed RECEIVED paragraph with dotted leader lines and the bracketed note "[Signed Duplicates.]" at the lower left. The account is entered in a rapid, sloping brown hand with long finials; a ruled line is drawn under the last extension and the total written beneath with a dollar sign, and a small pencil check mark sits under the hundreds figure of the total. The certificate and the receipt are completed in the same running hand, crowding the dotted lines and running past the ends of several. The sheet is lightly foxed with scattered pale flecks, has a soft horizontal fold across the lower half, and shows a dark blotch at the left edge beside the word "above." No stamps of any kind on this face, and no "GEN. POLK'S PAPERS" stamp.
The Confederate States
To ______ T. M. Brennan ____________ Dr.
______________________________________________________________
Date of Purchase. | | Dollars. | Cents.
1861 | | |
| | |
Oct 1 To 1 Boiler plate Kettle 828, 12½ | 103 | 50
" 1 Do Do 848 10 | 84 | 80
5 Slip Cylinders 911 14 | 127 | 54
---------------------------
# | 315 | 84
Kettles for Refining Saltpetre }
Slip Cylinders for making Charcoal}
______________________________________________________________
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, and that the
articles have been accounted for on my Property Return for the quarter
ending on the ........................ of ................ 186....
Geo W. Rains Maj art & ord
RECEIVED at Nashville Tenn the 22 nd
January 186 2, of Maj Geo W Rains Ord & Arty
C. S. A., the sum of Three Hundred &
fifteen Dollars and eighty four Cents in full of the
above account.
[Signed Duplicates.]
T M Brennan
Checks: Proves exactly at $315.84. The three lines are written as weight-and-rate pairs with no cent signs: 828 lbs at 12½ cents = $103.50, the first extension as written; 848 lbs at 10 cents = $84.80, the second as written; 911 lbs at 14 cents = $127.54, the third as written. The three extensions add to $315.84, which is the figure written under the rule with a dollar sign, and the receipt spells the identical sum out as "Three Hundred & fifteen Dollars and eighty four Cents." Every step agrees.
Flagged: The rate on the first line is written as "12" with a raised stroke after it; the arithmetic settles it as 12½ cents, since 828 at 12½ gives $103.50 to the cent. The symbol before the total is a struck-through dollar sign written over the column rule and is reproduced here as "#" only to hold its place. The quantity figures in the second line, "848 10," are cramped against the dollars column and the 8 could be misread as a 3 in isolation; the extension of $84.80 confirms 848 at 10 cents. The certificate's blanks for the quarter ending were left unfilled, so the property-return quarter is not stated. The date of purchase is 1 October 1861 but the receipt is dated 22 January 1862 — a gap of nearly four months between delivery and payment, which is normal for these vouchers but is worth noting. The receipt gives Rains's designation as "Ord & Arty," reversing the "Artillery and Ordnance" of image 23; both are as written. The signature is again the looped "T M Brennan," matching the printed name in the heading.
Image 26 — Docket and payment endorsement of the Confederate States account with T. M. Brennan, January 1862, $16,361.43, paid 8 February 1862
The outside of a large folded account, filmed sideways so the sheet is much wider than it is tall. The paper is thin and the ruled account inside shows through the whole surface as a faint mirror image of columns and figures; none of that reversed writing is transcribed here. Four vertical fold panels are visible. The docket proper is written down the third panel from the left in a large, well-formed clerk's hand with strong flourishes and ruled pen-lines under each element; a second endorsement, in a looser and more sprawling hand, occupies the fourth panel. The oval "RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT" handstamp is struck twice — once boldly at the top of the docket panel and again, lower and partly broken by a tear, on the endorsement panel. There is genuine paper loss: a ragged hole beside the word "America" and a second, larger tear across the lower endorsement panel that cuts into the second handstamp. At the top right corner the microfilm target appears — a cross, a filled dot, and the word FILM running toward the edge. Heavy pencil marks, a large X and a check, are drawn across the endorsement.
[left panels: reversed show-through of the ruled account within — not transcribed]
[oval handstamp:] RECORD DIVISION No 198 a
REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT T. M. Brennan
$16,361. 43/..
Confederate States,
Paid 8 a Feby 1862
America.
J a H Wright[?]
in a/c With
[pencil X and check]
T. M. Brennan
_____________________ Agt
January 1862
_____________________
$16361. 43
_____________________
[oval handstamp:] RECORD DIVISION
C. D.[?] REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT
Checks: No extensions or columns on this face — the docket carries a single sum, so there is nothing to multiply or add. The one check available is internal and it holds: the amount written on the docket panel, $16361.43, is the same amount written on the endorsement panel, $16,361.43. The two agree exactly.
Flagged: The paying officer's signature is the least certain thing on the sheet. It ends plainly in "Wright," but the initials before it are a looped capital that may be either J or S, followed by a small raised letter shaped like an "a" that is presumably an abbreviation mark; the reading is given as "J a H Wright[?]" and should not be relied on; the account on image 28, which this docket wraps, is certified and receipted by "M H Wright, 1 Lt. arty. C S A," and that is almost certainly the same man and the same signature. The same raised "a" form recurs in "No 198 a" and in "Paid 8 a Feby 1862," where it appears to serve as the ordinal ending — that is, the eighth of February — but the sheet is transcribed as written rather than expanded. Two initials with periods, underlined, stand at the foot of the docket panel; they are read as "C. D." but the second letter could equally be an O, and no name on the sheet accounts for them. The word "Agt" below the pencil X is written faintly and is read as an abbreviation for agent. This docket names no place. The amount, $16,361.43, is far larger than any single voucher elsewhere in this range and indicates a quarterly or running account rather than one purchase; the account itself is image 28.
Image 27 — Second, wider exposure of the same docket: Confederate States in account with T. M. Brennan, January 1862, $16,361.43, paid 8 February 1862
The same physical sheet already filmed as image 22's neighbour on image 26, re-shot at a wider setting so that the frame takes in the whole width of the opened document and a margin of film beyond it. Nothing new is written on the sheet; the extra width shows only blank paper and the faint reversed show-through of the ruled account inside. The gain of this exposure is at the edges: along the top left the film-stock edge print "KODAK SAFET[Y]" runs backwards across the frame, confirming this is a filming artifact and not a document marking. The lighting is flatter than on image 26, which makes the bold ink of the docket read a little more thinly but leaves the pencil endorsements clearer. All the same features are present — four fold panels, the two oval "RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT" handstamps, the tear beside "America" (which shows here as a torn corner folded back rather than an outright hole), the second tear cutting the lower handstamp, and the pencil X and check across the payment endorsement. The rightmost panel is entirely blank apart from show-through and a light stain along the lower fold.
[film edge, reversed:] K O D A K S A F E T [Y]
[left panels: blank, with reversed show-through of the account within — not transcribed]
[oval handstamp:] RECORD DIVISION No 198 a
REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT T. M. Brennan
$16,361. 43/..
Confederate States,
Paid 8 a Feby 1862
America.
J a H Wright[?]
in a/c With
[pencil X and check]
T. M. Brennan
_____________________ Agt
January 1862
_____________________
$16361. 43
_____________________
[oval handstamp:] RECORD DIVISION
C. D.[?] REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT
[right panel: blank]
Checks: No extensions or columns on this face — nothing to multiply or add. The internal check again holds: the docket panel's $16361.43 and the endorsement panel's $16,361.43 are the same sum.
Flagged: This image duplicates image 26 rather than adding a new document; it is recorded in full so that the sequence is not broken, but the two should be understood as one sheet filmed twice. The doubtful readings are the same as on image 26 and are no better resolved by the wider exposure: the paying officer's name ends clearly in "Wright" but its initials remain uncertain between J and S with a raised abbreviation letter, and the account on image 28 gives the certifying and receiving officer plainly as "M H Wright, 1 Lt. arty. C S A," which is very probably the same signature; the two underlined initials at the foot of the docket panel are read "C. D." with the second letter possibly an O; and the raised "a" that follows 198, 8 and the officer's first initial is a form of this hand and is transcribed literally rather than expanded. No place is named on either exposure.
Image 28 — The account itself: Confederate States of America to T. M. Brennan, Nashville, 31 January 1862 — shot, shell, canister, grape, field guns, howitzers, carriages, forges and battery wagons, $16,361.43, receipted 8 February 1862
The great sheet of this range, and the account that the dockets on images 26 and 27 wrap. It is a single tall leaf of blue-ruled ledger paper filmed whole, roughly three and a half times taller than it is wide, printed as an account form: "Confederate States of America," in blackletter at the head, a printed "186" in the date column, "REMARKS." at the far right, and printed vertical rules dividing description, rate, dollars, cents and remarks. Sixty-nine charges are entered in one steady commercial hand in brown-black ink, closely spaced, with dittos carried down as small double commas. Two auditors have worked over it: a first check mark stands beside almost every line and a second, in a different and heavier stroke, beside most of them. Six running block subtotals are written into the remarks margin and every one of them is cancelled with a long looping stroke; the right edge of the sheet is trimmed close, so the last digits of two of these marginal sums run off the paper. Damage is limited but conspicuous — two large black ink blots, one covering part of a quantity in the "200 32" line and the corner of a "Grape" entry, another spattered across the remarks column near the foot — and the archival oval handstamp is struck twice, once faintly across the middle of the account and once near the bottom right, both sideways to the writing. There is no "GEN. POLK'S PAPERS" stamp on this sheet.
Confederate States of America, To T. M. Brennan Dr
________________________________________________________________________
186 2. | | | | REMARKS.
__________|________________________________________|____|_________|________
January | To 200 Sheet Iron tops 6 Pnd. 3 | 6 | 00 | √
31 | " 200 " " 12 " 5 | 10 | 00 | √√
| " 212 Bottom Plates 12 . 197 lbs 10 | 19 | 70 | √√
| " 245 " " 6 . 158 . " | 15 | 80 | √√
| " 1467 lbs 6 Pnd. Canister Shd. 10 | 146 | 70 | √√
| " 178 12 " Bottom Plates " | 17 | 80 | √√
| " 167 6 " " " " | 16 | 70 | √√
| " 973 . 8 In. Canister Shot 8c | 77 | 84 | √√
| " 509 ² 32 Pnd. — Do Do — 8 | 40 | 76 | √√
| " 25 . 12 " Sheet Iron tops 5 | 1 | 25 | √√
| " 84 . 12 " Canister Bottoms 10 | 8 | 40 | √√
| " 1507 lbs 32 " Do Shot 8c | 120 | 56 | √√
| " 2 . 12 " Gun Carriages &c $650| 1300 | 00 | √√ [margin: 1781.51, struck]
| " 31 . 32 " Read Shell 10 | 310 | 00 | √√
| " 5180 lbs 32 " Canister Shot 8 | 414 | 40 | √√
| " 4783 8 in do do 8c | 382 | 64 | √√
| " 225 lbs 12 Pnd. do Bottoms 10 | 22 | 50 | √√
| " 150 . 6 " Do do | 15 | 00 | √√
| " 275 . 8 in Shell | 1100 | 00 | √√
| " 416 3 " Rifle Shell leaded 1 50 | 624 | 00 | √√
| " 230 Do Shott do 1 25 | 287 | 50 | √√
| " 52 Stands 24 Pnd. Grape 3 50 | 182 | 00 | √√
| " 330 " 32 " " 10725 5 | 536 | 25 | √√
| " 140 12 Pndr Canister Plates 10 | 14 | 00 | √√
| " 75 6 " " " | 7 | 50 | √√
| " 45 Stands 32 Pnd Grape 4 50 | 202 | 50 | √√
| " 21 " 24 Do 3 50 | 73 | 50 | √√
| " Drayage of Guns to Hydes Ferry | 20 | 00 | √√
| " Express Waggon one day | 4 | 00 | √
| " 40 6 Pnd. Canister Bottoms | 4 | 00 | √√ [margin: 4199.79[?], struck]
| ------------
| " 6 Laborers testing Guns 2 00 | 12 | 00 | √
| " Hack Hire | 6 | 00 | √√
| " Drayage to Hydes Ferry | 12 | 00 | √√
| " Express Waggon do | 4 | 00 | √
| " 6 Laborers 2 00 | 12 | 00 | √ [margin: 46.00]
| ------------
| " Extra Work of Shop & hands Sunday }| | |
| Jany 12/62 pr Order Lt. Wright + }| 200 | 00 | + ;
| " 25 . 32 pndr. Percussion Shell 10 00| 250 | 00 | √√
| " 85 . 10 In Shell 9350 8c | 748 | 00 | √√
| " 57 . 8 " " 2550 8c | 204 | 00 | √√
| " 96 . 8 " Shott 3315 5 | 165 | 75 | √√
| " 196 . 32 Pnd. " 6390 " | 319 | 50 | √√
| " 4 Key Wrenches ( Jany[?]) 1 00 | 4 | 00 | √√
| " 9 Stand 24 Pnd. Grape 3 50 | 31 | 50 | √√
| " 530 . 12 Pndr. Canister Plates 10 | 53 | 00 | √√
| " 405 6 " Do do " | 40 | 50 | √√
| " 2 Travelling Forges $600 | 1200 | 00 | √√ [margin: 3216.2[5], struck]
| " 2 Battery Waggons | 1.100 | 00 | √√
| " 73 Stand 32 Pndr. Grape 4 50 | 328 | 50 | √√
| " 20 " 24 " " 3 50 | 70 | 00 | √√
| " 162 . 42 Pnd. Shot 6918 5 | 345 | 90 | √√
| " 74 32 " Shell 1702 8 | 136 | 16 | √√
| " 5 Laborers testing Guns | 10 | 00 | √√
| " Drayage to Hydes Ferry | 18 | 00 | √√
| " Express Waggon | 5 | 00 | √
| " Hack hire | 5 | 00 | √
| " 2 . 24 Pnd. Slugs 48 5 | 2 | 40 | √√ [margin: 2020.96, struck]
| ------------
| " Altering fuse Press | 30 | 00 | √√
| " 20 . 32 Pnd. Percussion Shell | 200 | 00 | √√
| " 110 24 " | 400 | 00 | √√
| " 266 . 42 Pnd. Shot 11358 5 | 567 | 90 | √√
| " 200 32 " " [blot]00 " | 325 | 00 | √√
| " 67 Stands 32 Pnd. G[rape] 4 50 | 301 | 50 | √√
| " 52 " 24 " 3 50 | 182 | 00 | √√
| " 8 6 Pnd. field Guns $250 | 2.000 | 00 | √√
| " 4 12 " Howitzers " | 1.000 | 00 | √
| " Laquering 8 in Shell 422 | | |
| " " 10 in do 85 = 507 6c | 30 | 42 | √√
| " " 42 Pnd. Shot 428 5 | 21 | 40 | √√
| " " 32 470 4 | 18 | 80 | √√
| " Laborers Attending on }| | |
| inspection of Shot & Shell + }| 20 | 00 | + √
| ------------
| $16361 | 43 | [margin: 5097.02[?], struck]
________________________________________________________________________
I CERTIFY that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Sixteen Thousand Three Hundred Sixty one 43/100 Dollars
and that the property has been received and will be accounted for
M H Wright
1 Lt. arty. C S A
RECEIVED, Nashville February 8, 186 2, of
M H Wright Esqr Lieut Arty & Ord C S A.
Sixteen Thousand three hundred & sixty one
Dollars & forty three Cents, in full of the above account.
T M Brennan
Checks: Every one of the sixty-nine extensions proves against its own quantity and rate. A sample of the harder ones: 8,073 has no place here, but 973 at 8 cents gives $77.84; 509 ² at 8 cents gives $40.76, which fixes the raised figure as one half; 4,783 at 8 cents gives $382.64; 10,725 at 5 cents gives $536.25; 11,358 at 5 cents gives $567.90; 6,918 at 5 cents gives $345.90; 1,702 at 8 cents gives $136.16; 2 gun carriages at $650 give $1,300.00; 8 six-pounder field guns at $250 give $2,000.00; and the two lacquering lines are bracketed so that 422 eight-inch and 85 ten-inch shell are added to 507 pieces at 6 cents, giving $30.42 — the clerk wrote the addition into the line as "85 = 507." The clerk's own six cancelled block subtotals in the remarks margin also prove: the first block of thirteen lines sums to $1,781.51, matching the marginal figure; the labour block of five lines sums to exactly $46.00, matching; the block ending at the travelling forges sums to $3,216.25, matching; and the block ending at the 24-pounder slugs sums to $2,020.96, matching. The footing does NOT prove. The sixty-nine extensions as written add to $16,361.53, whereas the total carried at the foot of the column is $16,361.43 — a difference of exactly ten cents, the account being footed ten cents lower than its own entries. The clerk's block subtotals also add to $16,361.53, so the error lies in the final addition and not in my reading of any line. The certificate, the written-out sum "Sixteen Thousand Three Hundred Sixty one 43/100 Dollars," the receipt, and the two dockets on images 26 and 27 all carry the footed figure of $16,361.43, so $16,361.43 is the sum that was actually certified and paid.
Flagged: The ten-cent shortfall in the footing is stated as found and is not corrected. Two lines carry no rate in the rate column — "150 . 6 " Do do" and "275 . 8 in Shell" — and their implied rates, 10 cents and $4.00, are recoverable only from the extensions. One line does not prove against any round rate: "110 24 " " is extended at $400.00, which is $3.63 and a fraction each, where the 32-pounder percussion shell immediately above it is charged at $10.00 each; the quantity is plainly written 110 and the extension is plainly written 400 00, and since the column's own block subtotal accepts $400.00, the figure is left exactly as the clerk set it down. In the "200 32 " " line a heavy ink blot covers the leading digits of the weight; the extension of $325.00 at 5 cents requires 6,500, and only the final "00" survives under the blot. A second blot takes the last letters of "G[rape]" in the line below. The raised marks after 1467, 1507, 5180 and 225 are the ordinary "lbs" abbreviation and are expanded to "lbs" in the transcription; the raised figure after 509 is a different mark, transcribed as written and proved by the arithmetic to be one half. The parenthetical after "4 Key Wrenches" is crowded and only the word "Jany" can be made out. The certifying officer signs "M H Wright, 1 Lt. arty. C S A" and the receipt names him "M H Wright Esqr Lieut Arty & Ord C S A"; the same officer is the "Lt. Wright" whose order authorised the Sunday extra work. This is a strong argument that the sprawling payment signature on images 26 and 27 is also M H Wright rather than the "J a H Wright" those images suggest in isolation. The two marginal subtotals whose readings are least certain are the one beside the canister-bottoms line, read 4199.79, and the one beside the total, read 5097.02; both run off the trimmed right edge and both are cancelled, but the block sums they should represent are exactly $4,199.79 and $5,097.02.
Image 29 — Printed voucher jacket, No. 6, T. M. Brennan, $700.00, paid 4 June 1863, endorsed in pencil "2800 lbs Lead"
The outside of another folded voucher, filmed landscape, with all the writing on the central panel. Unlike the earlier dockets this is a plain printed jacket: the words "No.", "Name,", a large ornamental "$", "Paid" and "186" are printed in roman with long dotted leader lines running out from each, and everything else is filled in. The filling is done in soft pencil, now very pale, and the leading is much harder to read than the ink dockets earlier in this range; a check mark is pencilled above the amount. Below the printed lines two further pencil notes are written across blank paper, the upper one so faint and so speckled with ink flyspecks that it cannot be recovered, the lower one written straight across the archival handstamp. That handstamp — the oval "RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT" — is struck very lightly here and is barely more than an embossed outline. The left panel carries a vertical run of ink blots and smears near the lower edge; the right panel is blank apart from a small pencil stroke. Folds are strong and the paper is clean.
No. . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Name, . . . T M Brennan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$ . . 700 ⁰⁰— . . . . . . . . . .
Paid . . June 4 th . . . . . . . . 186 3
[illegible pencil line]
[oval handstamp:] RECORD DIVISION
REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT
2800 lbs Lead
Checks: No extensions or columns on this jacket — nothing to multiply or add. The only figures are the voucher number 6, the amount $700.00, the payment date, and the pencilled quantity of 2,800 pounds of lead, and those three prove against the voucher body on image 30: 2,800 lbs of pig lead at 25 cents a pound is $700.00, receipted at Atlanta on 4 June 1863. Jacket and account agree exactly.
Flagged: This is the weakest sheet in the range for legibility, because it is written in pencil that has faded and rubbed. The amount's leading digit is a hooked stroke with a long tail that could be read 4 or 7 on this sheet alone; the voucher body on image 30 carries the identical glyph in "700 00" against 2,800 lbs of pig lead at 25 cents, which settles it as 7 and the amount as $700.00. The voucher number is a single cursive figure read as 6. The name is very faint but the letter forms T, M and the tall B of Brennan are all present. One entire pencil line below the printed matter is lost — it is short, appears to begin with a capital, and is obscured by ink flyspecks; it is recorded as illegible rather than guessed at. The note "2800 lbs Lead" is legible but its leading digit is preceded by a stray mark and could conceivably be part of the figure. No place is named anywhere on the jacket; the voucher body on image 30 supplies it as Atlanta, Georgia. The payment date, 4 June 1863, is more than a year later than every other document in images 22 through 28, all of which belong to the winter of 1861-62, and the place has moved from Nashville to Atlanta — a real break in the file, not an error.
Image 30 — Voucher: Confederate States of America to T. M. Brennan — 2,800 lbs pig lead at 25 cents, $700.00, received at Atlanta, Georgia, 4 June 1863
The account that belongs inside the jacket on image 29, and the one sheet in this range that is neither Nashville nor 1861-62. It is a printed Confederate account form of a later and more elaborate setting than those on images 23 and 25: "Confederate States of America," in blackletter across the head, a printed "To ______ Dr" line, a ruled body with a printed "186" in the date column and "REMARKS." at the right, and at the foot a printed certificate and a printed receipt whose text already names the officer and the place — "Received at Atlanta, Georgia, ______ 186__, of Capt. M. H. WRIGHT, Ordnance Officer, C. S. A." — closing with the printed "(SIGNED DUPLICATES.)". A single charge is entered on the first ruled line in a light, fine hand; the remaining twenty-odd ruled lines are left empty, and across that emptiness someone has drawn a very large idle pen flourish, a single sweeping loop nearly the height of the ledger box, which is decoration and carries no text. The certificate and receipt are filled in the same pale ink, with two corrections made on the printed matter: "will be" is struck out of the certificate and "has been" written above it, and the printed "Capt." before Wright's name is struck out with "Maj" written above. The sheet is clean and lightly foxed, with a horizontal fold across the lower third and small edge nicks. No archival handstamp is visible on this face and no "GEN. POLK'S PAPERS" stamp.
Confederate States of America,
To . . . . . T. M. Brennan . . . . Dr
______________________________________________________________________
186 _ | | | | | REMARKS.
___________|_____|________________________________|___|_______|________
March | 31 | 2800 lbs Pig Lead | 25 | 700 | 00 |
| | | | |
| | [large idle pen flourish across the blank ruled body]
______________________________________________________________________
I certify that the above account is correct and just, amounting to
Seven hundred Dollars, and that the Property
has been
has been received and will be accounted for, in 2 nd Qr: 1863[?].
M H Wright
Major arty. C S A
Received at Atlanta, Georgia, June 4 th 186 3, of Capt. M. H. WRIGHT,
[struck; "Maj" written above]
Ordnance Officer, C. S. A., Seven hundred Dollars
and ———————— Cents, in full of the above account.
(SIGNED DUPLICATES.)
T M Brennan
Checks: Proves exactly at $700.00. The single line is 2,800 lbs of pig lead at 25 cents a pound, which is $700.00 to the cent — the figure written in the dollars and cents boxes, the figure written out in words twice at the foot as "Seven hundred ... Dollars," with the cents line left blank and ruled through, and the figure pencilled on the jacket at image 29. Four independent statements of the amount on two sheets, all agreeing.
Flagged: The year of the charge is not given. The date column is printed "186" and the space for the last digit was filled with nothing more than a short scrawl, so the account line reads only "March 31"; the year comes from the receipt below, dated June 1863, and from the interlined quarter in the certificate. That interlineation is faint and its final digit is the least certain figure on the sheet — it is read "in 2 nd Qr: 1863," which agrees with a June receipt, but the last digit could be taken for a 2. The certificate's correction of "will be" to "has been," and the striking of the printed "Capt." in favour of "Maj," are both recorded as they stand; the printed form was evidently run off while Wright was still a captain. Note that the officer's name is here PRINTED on the form as "M. H. WRIGHT, Ordnance Officer, C. S. A." — this is the firmest evidence in the whole range for the initials, and it confirms the manuscript signature on image 28 and, by extension, the sprawling endorsement on images 26 and 27. The place is Atlanta, Georgia, not Nashville: by the spring of 1863 the business had moved, and this sheet should not be read as Nashville material.
Image 31 — Narrow docket slip: "for T. M. Brennan, Supt ... Red Mountain Iron & Coal Co ... Ala"
A single narrow strip of plain, unruled paper, roughly two and a half times taller than it is wide, filmed upright with black surround on all sides. It is not a voucher and carries no printed matter at all — no form, no columns, no rules — only four short lines of writing at the top and a place name at the bottom. The hand is different from every other hand in this range: broad-nibbed, upright, heavily inked, with wide round bowls and a very long flat terminal stroke on the last word. The paper is clean and unfolded except for a slight curl along the right edge, which throws that edge into shadow; the left edge is torn or roughly cut, with small losses in the margin clear of the writing. A large oval "RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT" handstamp is struck across the lower third, unusually complete and legible here, and the final word is written across its bottom edge. There are no figures, no date, and no signature.
for
T. M. Brennan. Supt
&c[?]
Red Mountain Iron & Coal Co
[oval handstamp:] RECORD DIVISION
REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT
Ala
Checks: No figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The slip records no amount, no quantity and no date of any kind.
Flagged: This sheet does not belong with the rest of the range and is flagged where it stands rather than dropped. Everything else in images 22 through 30 is a Confederate purchase voucher, docket or account naming Nashville or Atlanta and dated between October 1861 and June 1863; this is a bare filing slip naming the Red Mountain Iron & Coal Co and the state of Alabama, with T. M. Brennan given the title "Supt" — superintendent — rather than appearing as a contractor selling to the government. Whether this is the same T. M. Brennan who cast guns and shell at Nashville, or a different man of the same name working for an Alabama iron company, cannot be settled from the slip: it carries no date, no figures, no signature and no connecting reference. The short second line is the one doubtful reading — a looped capital followed by a small letter, transcribed "&c[?]"; it may be an ampersand-and-c standing for "and others," but it is two strokes and cannot be pressed. "Supt" is written with a raised terminal and is unambiguous. The final word is plainly "Ala" with a long finishing stroke and is the only place named.
Image 32 — Docket wrapper (file jacket) for "Contract No 24 — T. M. Brennan"
A plain, unruled cover sheet — the outer wrapper in which the contract papers were folded — photographed against a black backdrop. The sheet is blank except for a large embossed (blind-stamped, uninked) oval seal in the upper half reading RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT with a five-pointed star at the left of the outer ring; this is a post-war United States War Department archival stamp, not a Confederate one, and it is raised in the paper rather than printed, so it reads only as a faint shadow. Below the seal, two lines of a fine, looping copperplate hand in black ink give the docket title. The paper is lightly soiled with a few small nicks along the edges and a shallow vertical fold running down the right-hand third; no ink loss. There is no GEN. POLK'S PAPERS stamp on this sheet.
[blind-stamped oval seal:]
RECORD DIVISION
* REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT
Contract No 24
T. M. Brennan
Checks: no figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: "24" is certain on magnification (a clean 2 followed by a looped 4). This is the file's own docket wrapper, so "Contract No 24" is a contract number, not a voucher or form number. The RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT seal is embossed without ink and could only be read by raking light in the scan; the wording is legible but faint, and the word ARCHIVES is partly lost where the emboss flattened. No date, place, or signature on the wrapper.
Image 33 — Blank outer face (docket side) of the large ruled sheet for Contract No 24
A single very large sheet of blue-grey ledger paper, photographed open and wider than it is tall (about 6,560 × 3,845 pixels), lying flat with a black backdrop showing at the edges. The sheet is machine-ruled for accounts: one heavy horizontal rule runs the full width about a fifth of the way down, and below it some thirty narrow vertical money columns run to a closing rule near the foot, with a wide unruled left margin. The sheet has been folded — a vertical fold divides it roughly at the centre, and a horizontal fold across the lower quarter has left a raised crease and a small dark break at the centre-bottom edge. Apart from one line of docketing in a fine black copperplate hand at the top right of the upper margin, the whole face is blank. Two archival stamps are present: at the far left, an inked oval RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT stamp showing through the paper in mirror image (it was struck on the other side of this leaf), and, right of centre near the top rule, a second impression of the same oval seal blind-embossed into the paper, reading the right way round. No Confederate stamp, no GEN. POLK'S PAPERS mark, no ink loss.
Contract No 24
______________________________________________________________________________
[oval stamp, showing through in mirror image:] [blind-embossed oval seal:]
RECORD DIVISION, RECORD DIVISION
* REBEL ARCHIVES, * * REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT. WAR DEPARTMENT.
[remainder of the sheet blank — ruled money columns only]
Checks: no figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: nothing. "Contract No 24" repeats the docket on image 32 in what appears to be the same hand, confirming this large ruled sheet belongs to that contract file. The mirrored stamp at the left is show-through, not a separate strike on this face.
Image 34 — Second blank ruled sheet, docketed "Contract No 24"
A second very large sheet of the same blue-grey ledger paper (about 6,520 × 3,793 pixels), photographed flat against a black backdrop and laid out exactly like image 33: a wide unruled left margin, a single heavy horizontal rule across the full width about an eighth of the way down, and roughly thirty narrow vertical money columns running down to a closing rule near the foot. The same fine black copperplate docket sits in the top margin. The sheet has been folded twice — a vertical fold at the centre and a horizontal fold across the lower quarter, both showing as soft raised creases with slight lifting of the paper along the bottom edge. The lighting on this exposure is flatter than on image 33, so the blind-embossed RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT oval below the top rule reads only as a very faint ghost. Unlike image 33, there is no mirrored ink stamp showing through at the left; that whole margin is clean. Two small white paper flaws or scratches show at the right-hand side. Otherwise the face is entirely blank — no entries in any column, no totals, no signature, no date, and no GEN. POLK'S PAPERS stamp.
Contract No 24
______________________________________________________________________________
[blind-embossed oval seal, very faint:]
RECORD DIVISION
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
[remainder of the sheet blank — ruled money columns only]
Checks: no figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove.
Flagged: images 33 and 34 are so nearly identical in ruling, size, fold pattern, docket wording and docket position that they are almost certainly the two faces (or the two conjugate leaves) of one large blank ledger sheet folded round the Contract No 24 papers. I cannot tell from the images which is which, and I have not merged them into one entry. The only physical difference I can see is that image 33 carries an inked archival stamp showing through from the other side at the far left while image 34's left margin is clean — which is what one would expect of the two sides of a single leaf, the ink having been struck on the 34 side and bled through to the 33 side; but the stamp on image 34 does not sit where that would put it, so the point is unresolved. Both faces are blank of any accounting entry.
Image 35 — Contract No. 24: articles of agreement, 9 January 1862, Lt. M. H. Wright, C.S.A., and T. M. Brennan of Nashville, for twelve 12-pounder batteries, carriages and caissons
A single tall leaf of faintly blue-ruled writing paper (about 3,852 × 6,563 pixels), photographed upright against a black backdrop. It is ruled with close horizontal lines and carries a single red-or-brown vertical margin rule about a tenth of the way in from the left; text is written across the rules in a light, even, well-spaced copperplate with a fine nib, in an ink now faded to a pale grey-brown. The upper quarter of the leaf carries the heading and the opening recital; the itemised schedule sits centred in the middle of the page with blank ruled lines above and below it; the bottom two-fifths of the leaf is entirely blank ruled paper. There is a short tear or crease flaw at the left edge beside the first line of text and another small nick lower on the same edge, neither costing any writing. The last word of the "1st" clause runs into the right-hand edge of the sheet and its final letter is lost off the paper. No stamp of any kind appears on this leaf — no REBEL ARCHIVES oval, no GEN. POLK'S PAPERS. The ink is uniformly faint but legible throughout; nothing is crossed out and nothing is interlined.
Contract No 24
Articles of agreement made this 9th day of January
1862 Between Lt, M, H, Wright, C,S,A, on the part
of the Confederate States, upon the first part &
T, M, Brannan of Nashville Tenn, upon the other
Part
1st This agreement witneſseth that the said T M Brenna[n]
agrees to manufacture and deliver to the Ordnance
Department the following Ordnance & Ordnance
Stores viz.
12 Batteries 12 Pds[?]
12 Carriages „ „
12 Caissons
The whole to be of seasoned timber & good workmanship
with the necessary equipments complete, as setforth
in the Ordnance manuel, subject to the inspection
of an Officer from this Department & if not
found according to this specification, will be rejected
the Loss to fall upon the said Contractor
T M Brennan
The Confederate States agrees to pay for each
Battery received For each
Carriage „ „ „
Caisson „
[remainder of the leaf blank ruled paper]
Checks: no money figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The only numbers are the quantities, which agree with one another: 12 batteries, 12 carriages, 12 caissons, one carriage and one caisson to each "battery". The price clause is written out but the rates were never filled in — the space to the right of "Battery received", "Carriage" and "Caisson", and under "For each", is blank on the original, which I confirmed at high magnification.
Flagged: Three points. (1) The contractor's surname is spelled two different ways on this one leaf. In the opening recital the clerk plainly wrote Brannan — the vowel after "Br" is a closed round bowl identical to the second "a" in the same word — while in the "Loss to fall upon the said Contractor" line lower down he equally plainly wrote Brennan, with a narrow looped "e". I have transcribed each occurrence as it stands rather than normalising them. The third occurrence, at the end of the "1st" clause, runs off the right edge of the sheet and its last letter is lost; what survives reads "Brenna". (2) "12 Pds" — the abbreviation after the second "12" is a capital P, a "d" with a heavy ascender and one further letter that could be either "s" or "r"; I read "Pds" but cannot exclude "Pdr". (3) The unit of account is odd: the sheet promises "12 Batteries" but then only twelve carriages and twelve caissons, which is one carriage and one caisson per "battery" — so the clerk appears to be using "Battery" for a single gun or piece, not for a six-gun field battery. I record the wording; I do not correct it. The officer of the first part, "Lt, M, H, Wright, C,S,A," is written unmistakably; as a proposal only, and not part of the transcription, this is very likely Lieutenant Moses H. Wright, C.S.A., who commanded the Nashville ordnance works — verify before printing. The clerk's spellings "witnesseth" (with a long-s ligature), "setforth" as one word, "equipments", and "manuel" for "manual" are his, not errors of mine.
Image 36 — Contract No. 24: duplicate copy of the same articles of agreement, 9 January 1862
A second tall leaf of the same faintly blue-ruled writing paper (about 3,884 × 6,567 pixels), photographed upright against a black backdrop, carrying a fresh copy of exactly the text on image 35. The vertical margin rule runs down the left about a tenth of the way in, and this copy sits a little further to the right of it than the first. The hand is the same rounded copperplate but the ink is noticeably darker and the letters slightly larger and more slanted, so this leaf reads far more easily; the line breaks fall in different places, which is how one can tell it is a separate writing and not another photograph of image 35. A soft vertical crease runs down the left half of the sheet, and there are one or two flecks of paper loss in the middle of the text block that cost no letters. The lower two-fifths of the leaf is blank ruled paper. There is no archival stamp and no GEN. POLK'S PAPERS mark on this leaf.
Contract No 24
Articles of agreement made this 9th day of January
1862 Between Lt, M, H, Wright, C,S,A, on the part
of the Confederate States upon the first part &
T, M, Brennan of Nashville Tenn, upon the other
Part
1st This agreement witneſseth that the said T, M,
Brennan agrees to manufacture and deliver to
the Ordnance Department, the following Ordnance
& Ordnance stores Viz.
12 Batteries 12 Pdr
12 Carriages „ „
12 Caissons „ „
The whole to be of seasoned timber & good
workmanship, with the necessary equipments
complete, as setforth in the Ordnance manuel
subject to the Inspection of an Officer from this
Department, and if not found according to this
specification will be rejected, the loſs to fall
upon the Contractor T M Brennan,
The Confederate States agrees to pay
for each Battery received
„ „ Carriage „
„ „ Caisson „
[remainder of the leaf blank ruled paper]
Checks: no money figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The quantities are internally consistent and identical to image 35: 12 batteries, 12 carriages, 12 caissons. As on image 35, the rates in the payment clause were never entered; the ruled lines to the right of "Battery received", "Carriage" and "Caisson" are blank, which I checked at high magnification.
Flagged: On this leaf the surname is written Brennan at every one of its four occurrences — the vowel after "Br" is a narrow looped "e" throughout — which stands against the plain "Brannan" in the opening recital of image 35. The 12-pounder abbreviation is also clearer here: this copy reads unambiguously 12 Pdr, which supports reading the corresponding word on image 35 the same way, though I have left that one marked doubtful because the stroke there genuinely will not resolve. This copy adds a ditto pair on the "12 Caissons" line that image 35 leaves blank, and uses a capital "Viz." and capital "Inspection" where image 35 has lower case. Neither leaf is signed or witnessed; both stop at the unfilled price clause, so what survives in this file is the unexecuted text of the agreement, not a completed contract.
Image 37 — Contract No. 24: third copy of the same articles of agreement, 9 January 1862
A third tall leaf (about 3,844 × 6,534 pixels) of the same lightly blue-ruled paper, again photographed upright on black. This copy is distinguished by a printed stationer's imprint in small roman capitals and lower case blind-stamped into the top left corner of the sheet, partly running off the left edge of the photograph, reading "[?]. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia." The writing is a lighter, faster version of the same copperplate; the ink is pale and slightly grey, and the pen ran dry in places along the middle lines, so several words are thin though still readable. A horizontal fold crosses the sheet at about the level of the "1st" clause and has produced a short tear at the right edge, taking a nick out of the paper beside the first line of that clause without costing a letter; a second fold shows lower down. The right-hand ends of two lines run into the edge of the sheet. The lower two-fifths of the leaf is blank ruled paper. No archival stamp and no GEN. POLK'S PAPERS mark appear on this leaf.
[blind-stamped stationer's imprint, top left corner:]
[?]. Lippincott & Co.,
Philadelphia.
Contract No 24
Articles of agreement made this 9th day of January
1862. Between Lt, M, H, Wright, C,S,A, on the part
of the Confederate States, upon the first part &
T M Brennan of Nashville Tenn, upon the other
Part
1st This agreement witneſseth that the said T M
Brennan agrees to manufacture and deliver to the
Ordnance Department, the following Ordnance
& Ordnance stores Viz.
12 Batteries 12 Pdr
12 Carriages „ „
12 Caissons „ „
The whole to be of seasoned timber & good
workmanship with the necessary equipments complete
as setforth in the Ordnance manuel, subject to the
Inspection of an Officer from this Department
& if not found according to this specification
will be rejected, the loss to fall upon the said
Contractor T M Brennan
The Confederate States agrees to pay for each
Battery received For „
Carriage „ „ „
Caisson „
[remainder of the leaf blank ruled paper]
Checks: no money figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. Quantities agree with images 35 and 36: 12 batteries, 12 carriages, 12 caissons. The payment rates are again blank; nothing is entered against "Battery received", "Carriage" or "Caisson", and the space under "For" carries only a ditto mark.
Flagged: Two points. (1) The stationer's imprint is cut by the edge of the photograph and I can see only the tail of the first initial, so I have marked it "[?]. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia."; the surviving letterform is consistent with a "B", which would make the firm the well-known Philadelphia house of J. B. Lippincott & Co., but that is a proposal for verification, not a reading. A Philadelphia stationer's paper in a January 1862 Confederate ordnance contract is unremarkable — Northern-made stationery was still in Southern hands that winter — but it is worth noting. (2) This copy again spells the surname Brennan throughout, and again reads clearly 12 Pdr. Like images 35 and 36, it is unsigned, unwitnessed and has no rates filled in, so all three copies of Contract No. 24 in this range stop short of execution.
Image 38 — Docket panel: "Contract No 15 — T. M. Brennan"
A small, roughly square panel of blue-grey ledger paper (about 1,772 × 1,867 pixels) — evidently the exposed outer panel of a larger sheet folded down to filing size, since the machine-ruled vertical money columns of the ledger run the full height of it and the horizontal folds show as soft ridges across the top and bottom. It is photographed on black. Three lines of a large, confident, thick-nibbed hand in strong black ink give the docket: the word "Contract" across the upper third, "No 15" with a long emphatic dash below it, and the contractor's name lower down. Struck across the whole lower half is the blind-embossed oval RECORD DIVISION / * REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT seal, raised in the paper and uninked, which the raking light of the exposure brings up clearly enough to read; the docket ink runs straight over it. The paper is clean, with a small white scratch or emulsion flaw at the lower right of the frame. No Confederate stamp and no GEN. POLK'S PAPERS mark.
Contract
No 15 —
T. M. Brennan
[blind-embossed oval seal across the lower half:]
RECORD DIVISION
* REBEL ARCHIVES
WAR DEPARTMENT
Checks: no figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. "15" is certain: a plain 1 followed by a flat-topped 5, with a long ruled dash after it.
Flagged: This docket belongs to a different contract from the one covered by images 32 through 37 — Contract No. 15, not No. 24 — so the file changes contracts at this point. The number 15 is the contract's own number, written by hand; it is not a printed form number. The surname is written Brennan here, plainly, with a looped "e".
Image 39 — Contract No. 15: articles of agreement, Nashville, 10 January 1862, Lieut. M. H. Wright and T. M. Brennan, for shot, shell, spherical case and grape, with rates; signed by Wright
A tall leaf of lightly blue-ruled writing paper (about 3,792 × 6,574 pixels), photographed upright on black, written full from top to bottom in a small, quick, business-like hand in black ink that is much darker and more legible than the Contract No. 24 leaves. A single vertical margin rule runs down the left. The heading is centred and underscored with a firm double rule. The schedule of ordnance occupies the middle of the page as an indented list; the rate clauses follow as running prose; a supplementary line beginning "Also" is set off below by a blank line, and the officer's signature and rank close the page at the lower right. Two soft horizontal folds cross the sheet, one about a third of the way down and one below the schedule; neither breaks the paper or costs a word. The sheet is clean, with no stain, no repair and no ink loss. There is no archival stamp and no GEN. POLK'S PAPERS mark on this leaf. This is the fullest and most substantive page in the range.
Contract No 15
______________
Articles of Agreement entered into this day
January 10th 1862 between Lieut M. H. Wright
C,S,A, for the Confederate States of the first part
and T M Brennan of Nashville Tenn of the second
part.
This Agreement witnesseth that the said
Brennan agrees to make and deliver to the Ordnance
Department Nashville the following Articles viz
250 . 10 In shot
400 . 10 In shell
400 . 32 pd shot
400 . 32 pd shell
1.000 . 12 „ Spherical case shot
1.000 . 12 „ shell
400 . 32 „ Rifled shell elongated
200 . 5. 82 In Rifled shell „
500 . stand 32 pd Grape shot
500 „ 24 „ „ „
All to be made subject to the tests prescribed
by the Ordnance Manual of the C S A
The Ordnance Department agrees to pay
therefor to the said Brennan at the following rates viz
Five cents per pound for the solid shot
Eight cents per pound for the 32 pd and 10 Inch
shell reamed out and fitted for fuse
Eighty five cents each for the twelve pd Sphl
case and shell prepared for fuse.
Ten 00/100 Dollars each for the Rifled shell
Three 50/100 Dollars per stand 24 pd Grape
Four 50/100 Dollars „ „ 32 „ „
Also 600. 42 pd solid shot at 5 cents pr pound
M H Wright [flourish]
1 Lt. Arty. C.S.A.
Checks: there are no extensions and no footing on this sheet — it is a schedule of quantities and a schedule of unit rates, with no money columns and no total — so there is no multiplication or addition of the clerk's to prove. The quantities themselves are internally consistent and I have added them as a check: the ten scheduled lines come to 5,050 pieces and stands (250 + 400 + 400 + 400 + 1,000 + 1,000 + 400 + 200 + 500 + 500), and with the 600 forty-two-pounder solid shot added at the foot the contract covers 5,650 items in all. That addition is mine, not the clerk's; he wrote no total. The rate clauses cover every class in the schedule and the supplementary "Also" line prices its 42-pounder shot at five cents a pound, the same rate the clause above sets for solid shot, so the sheet does not contradict itself.
Flagged: Four points. (1) The signature reads "M H Wright" over "1 Lt. Arty. C.S.A."; the "C.S.A." is written as an intertwined flourished monogram rather than three separate letters, and a second paraph or flourish follows the surname which I cannot resolve into letters. As a proposal only, this is presumably the same officer named in the body as "Lieut M. H. Wright" and the same as the "Lt, M, H, Wright" of Contract No. 24 — likely Lt. Moses H. Wright of the Nashville ordnance works, but verify before printing. (2) Only Wright has signed; Brennan has not, and there are no witnesses, so this copy too is unexecuted on its face even though it carries the officer's signature. (3) "5. 82 In Rifled shell" is written with a point between the 5 and the 82 and is certainly 5.82 inches — the caliber of a rifled 32-pounder — and not "5 82 In" as two numbers. (4) "Sphl" is the clerk's abbreviation for "Spherical", and "pr pound" his abbreviation for "per pound"; the dollar amounts are written as words followed by a superscript hundredths fraction in the ordinary period manner, so "Ten 00/100 Dollars" is $10.00, "Three 50/100" is $3.50 and "Four 50/100" is $4.50. The surname is spelled Brennan throughout this leaf.
Image 40 — Contract No. 15: second copy of the same agreement, 10 January 1862, on Lippincott paper, signed by Wright
A tall leaf (about 3,812 × 6,590 pixels) carrying a second, fuller copy of Contract No. 15, photographed upright on black. The paper is the same Philadelphia stock as image 37: a printed stationer's imprint sits in the top left corner, reading "Lippincott & Co. / Philadelphia." in small roman type, with whatever initials preceded the surname running off the left edge of the sheet in this exposure. The hand is the same as image 39 but written a little larger and more deliberately, so the schedule is easier to read; the ink is black and even. The heading is centred and double-underscored. A vertical margin rule runs down the left and a second faint rule closes the text block on the right. Two horizontal folds cross the leaf and one has left a thin pale line through the schedule without costing a word; there is a small nick in the paper at the top edge above the heading and a shallow tear at the left margin about a third of the way down. The signature and rank close the page at the lower right. No archival stamp and no GEN. POLK'S PAPERS mark.
[printed stationer's imprint, top left corner, initials cut off at the sheet edge:]
[...] Lippincott & Co.
Philadelphia.
Contract No 15
______________
Articles of Agreement entered into this day
January 10th 1862 between Lieut M, H, Wright
C S A for the confederate States of the first part
and T, M, Brennan of Nashville Tennessee
of the second part
This agreement witnesseth that the said
Brennan agrees to make and deliver to the Ordnance
Dept Nashville the following Articles viz
250 . 10 Inch shot
400 . 10 Inch Shell
400 . 32 pd Shot
400 . 32 pd Shell
1.000 . 12 „ Spherical case shot
1.000 . 12 „ Shell
400 . 32 „ Rifled Shell elongated
200 . 5, 82 In Rifled shell „
500 . Stand 32 pd Grape shot
500 . „ 24 „ „ „
all to be made subject to the tests prescribed
by the Ordnance Manual of the C,S,A.
The Ordnance Department agrees to
pay therefor to the said Brennan at the
following rates viz
Five cents per pound for the solid shot
Eight cents per pound for the 32 pd and 10 Inch
shell, reamed out + fitted for fuse
Eighty five cents each for the 12 pd Sphl „
case and shell prepared for fuse
Ten 00/100 Dollars each for the Rifled Shell
Three 50/100 Dollars per stand 24 pd grape
Four 50/100 Dollars per stand 32 pd grape
Also 600, 42 pd Solid shot at 5 cents per pound
M H Wright [flourish]
1 Lt. Arty. C.S.A.
Checks: as on image 39 there are no extensions and no footing — quantities and unit rates only — so there is no arithmetic of the clerk's to prove. Line by line the quantities are identical to image 39: 250, 400, 400, 400, 1,000, 1,000, 400, 200, 500, 500, totalling 5,050 pieces and stands by my addition, with 600 more 42-pounder solid shot in the "Also" line, giving 5,650 items. The rates are identical too: five cents a pound for solid shot, eight cents a pound for 32-pounder and 10-inch shell, eighty-five cents each for 12-pounder spherical case and shell, $10.00 each for rifled shell, $3.50 a stand for 24-pounder grape and $4.50 a stand for 32-pounder grape. The two copies of Contract No. 15 therefore agree exactly on every figure.
Flagged: Three points. (1) This copy resolves an ambiguity in image 39: where that leaf abbreviated the last grape line with ditto marks, this one writes it out as "per stand 32 pd grape", confirming that the $4.50 rate belongs to 32-pounder grape and the $3.50 rate to 24-pounder. (2) The clerk writes "confederate States" with a small c on this leaf, and "Nashville Tennessee" in full where image 39 has "Nashville Tenn"; he also uses "Dept" for "Department" and "+" for "and" in one line. These are his, not mine. (3) The signature is again "M H Wright" with an unresolvable paraph after it, over "1 Lt. Arty. C.S.A." written as a flourished monogram; Brennan has not signed and there are no witnesses, so this copy is likewise unexecuted by the contractor. The stationer's initials are lost off the edge of the sheet, exactly as on image 37.
Image 41 — Contract No. 15: third copy of the same agreement, 10 January 1862, on Lippincott paper, signed by Wright
A third tall leaf (about 3,780 × 6,607 pixels) of Contract No. 15, again on the Philadelphia stock — the printed imprint "Lippincott & Co. / Philadelphia." shows in the top left corner with the initials and the first letters cut off at the edge of the sheet in this exposure. The hand is the same as images 39 and 40; the ink here is a shade paler and the line spacing wider, and the writer has ruled the heading with a single long underscore. A vertical margin rule runs down the left and a light rule closes the block on the right. Two horizontal folds cross the leaf. The one conspicuous defect is a dark ink blot, roughly a quarter of an inch across, in the left margin beside the "400 . 32 „ Rifled Shell elongated" line, with a lighter smear trailing below it; it lies clear of the writing and costs nothing. A second faint smudge sits in the margin a little lower. The signature and rank close the page at the lower right. No archival stamp and no GEN. POLK'S PAPERS mark.
[printed stationer's imprint, top left corner, first letters cut off at the sheet edge:]
[L]ippincott & Co.
[P]hiladelphia.
Contract No. 15
_________________
Articles of agreement entered into this day
January 10th 1862 between Lieut M, H, Wright
C, S, A, for the Confederate States of the first
part and T M Brennan of Nashville Tenn
of the second part
This agreement witnesseth that the said
Brennan agrees to make and deliver to the
Ordnance Dept Nashville the following Articles
viz 250 . 10 Inch Shot
400 . 10 „ Shell
400 . 32 pd Shot
400 . 32 „ Shell
1.000 . 12 „ Spherical case Shot
1.000 . 12 „ Shell
400 . 32 „ Rifled Shell elongated
200 . 5, 82 In Rifled Shell „
500 . Stand 32 pd Grape shot
500 . „ 24 „ „ „
all to be made subject to the tests prescribed
by the Ordnance Manual of the C, S, A,
The Ordnance Department agrees to
pay therefor to the said Brennan at the fol-
-lowing rates viz
Five cents per pound for the solid Shot
Eight cents per pound for the 32 pd and 10 Inch
shell, reamed out + fitted for fuse
Eighty five cents each for the twelve pd spherical
case and shell prepared for fuse
Ten 00/100 Dollars each for the Rifled Shell
Three 50/100 „ per stand 24 pd grape
Four 50/100 „ per stand 32 pd grape
Also 600, 42 pd Solid Shot at 5 cents per pound
M H Wright [flourish]
1 Lt. Arty. C.S.A.
Checks: again quantities and unit rates only, with no extensions and no footing, so there is no arithmetic of the clerk's to prove. Every figure matches images 39 and 40 exactly, line for line: 250 / 400 / 400 / 400 / 1,000 / 1,000 / 400 / 200 / 500 / 500, which comes to 5,050 pieces and stands by my own addition, plus 600 forty-two-pounder solid shot in the "Also" line for 5,650 items in all; and five cents a pound for solid shot, eight cents a pound for 32-pounder and 10-inch shell, eighty-five cents each for twelve-pounder spherical case and shell, $10.00 each for rifled shell, $3.50 a stand for 24-pounder grape, $4.50 a stand for 32-pounder grape. All three copies of Contract No. 15 agree on every number.
Flagged: Two points. (1) This copy writes "twelve pd spherical" out in full where images 39 and 40 abbreviate to "Sphl", and it drops "Dollars" from the two grape lines, carrying it down with a ditto instead; nothing changes in substance. (2) The signature block is identical to the other two copies — "M H Wright" with an unresolved paraph, over a flourished "1 Lt. Arty. C.S.A." — and again Brennan has not signed and no witnesses have subscribed. The ink blot in the left margin is a spill from the writing, not a stamp or an erasure, and no text is lost under it.
Image 42 — Archival docket sheet: "Contract — T. M. Brennan, 'Claiborne Machine Works', Nashville", with a Rebel Archives cross-reference
A tall, narrow strip of faintly ruled paper (about 1,644 × 3,450 pixels), photographed upright on black — evidently a filing slip or the exposed panel of a folded docket rather than a full sheet, since the horizontal rules run out to both cut edges. Four lines in a fine, sloped clerical hand in black ink identify the file at the head: the word "Contract", then the contractor's name, then the works name written between quotation marks, then the place. Below a gap comes a two-line archival cross-reference in a heavier, blunter hand — a different pen and probably a different clerk. Struck squarely across the lower middle of the strip in strong black ink is the oval RECORD DIVISION / REBEL ARCHIVES / WAR DEPARTMENT stamp with a five-pointed star at each side; this is the one inked strike of that seal in the whole range (elsewhere in images 32, 33, 34 and 38 it is blind-embossed), and it reads completely. A single word, "Tenn.", sits by itself near the foot. The paper is clean, with scattered specks and a small flaw or two in the emulsion.
Contract
T. M. Brennan
"Claiborne Machine Works"
Nashville
See
Chap 2. 158½. p 39. B 198.
[inked oval stamp:]
RECORD DIVISION,
* REBEL ARCHIVES. *
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Tenn.
Checks: no money figures on the sheet — no arithmetic to prove. The only numbers are the archival citation, "Chap 2. 158½. p 39. B 198.", which is a reference and not a sum.
Flagged: Three points. (1) The works name — "Claiborne Machine Works", in quotation marks in the original — does not appear anywhere else in images 32 through 42, where the contractor is named only as "T. M. Brennan of Nashville". The reading is clean and certain, letter for letter, but I cannot resolve from these pages alone how the Claiborne Machine Works stood in relation to Brennan's foundry; the quotation marks suggest the archivist was recording a trading name he found somewhere in the file. Worth chasing before it is printed. (2) "Chap 2. 158½. p 39. B 198." is written in a second, heavier hand and is a post-war United States War Department finding-aid citation, not a Confederate entry; the "½" is written as a fraction, and "B 198" is clear. (3) The isolated "Tenn." near the foot is in yet another position and may be a filing tab for the state rather than part of the address block above; I have transcribed it where it stands rather than joining it to "Nashville". The surname is written Brennan here.
Part 2 — What the file shows, and what it does not prove
The arc of it
The forty-two images tell one story, and it runs on a short fuse.
| When | What the papers show |
|---|---|
| 2 September 1861 | Brennan writes to Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk on Claiborne Machine Works letterhead, offering cast-iron field guns and claiming his carriages beat anything made in the South, "not excepting Richmond" |
| 1 October 1861 | Building the plant for the government powder works — retorts, saltpetre kettles, slip cylinders — and copper evaporating pans and percolators for Maj. George W. Rains's saltpetre refinery |
| 15 October 1861 | One Bormann fuze press, $35 |
| 9 November 1861 | Guns, howitzers, castings and projectiles, $4,861.85 |
| 30 November 1861 | The largest account in the file, $24,860.95 |
| 15 December 1861 | Canister, shell, handspikes, trunnion plates — and drawings for a rifled Columbiad shell |
| 31 December 1861 | $21,259.60, paid 4 January 1862 |
| 9 and 10 January 1862 | Contract No. 24 (twelve 12-pounder batteries with carriages and caissons) and Contract No. 15 (5,650 projectiles), both with Lt. M. H. Wright |
| 31 January 1862 | $16,361.43, receipted at Nashville 8 February 1862 |
| February 1862 | The last ordnance account, $19,406.64 — certified and receipted at Atlanta, Georgia, on 11 March 1862 |
| 4 June 1863 | 2,800 lb of pig lead, $700.00. Nothing else. |
Nashville fell on 25 February 1862. The February account is the hinge: the work was done in a Nashville shop, and the paper was settled in Atlanta a fortnight after the city was gone. The two January contracts were signed seven weeks before the surrender; the Contract No. 24 copies have their price clause left blank and are unsigned, and the Contract No. 15 copies are signed by Wright and never by Brennan. After that the file goes quiet, and when it speaks again in the summer of 1863 it is for lead, not guns.
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. Four accounts prove exactly — $4,861.85, $1,280.25, $675.84 and $315.84, along with the $700.00 lead voucher. The great sheet of 30 November proves too, and it does something worth watching: it runs to $24,891.20, adds $92.00, reaches $24,983.20, then deducts $122.25 for "75 . 32 pdr Shot no buckets" to land exactly on $24,860.95.
Three do not prove, and each is left standing as the clerk set it down:
| Image | Footed | Extensions add to | Divergence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17 (31 December 1861) | $21,259.60 | $21,259.58 | 2¢. The fraction box was first written "58/100" and overwritten "60"; certificate and receipt follow the corrected figure. On the same sheet, 5 stands of 32-pounder grape at $4.50 are extended at $22.00 instead of $22.50, and that fifty cents was never caught |
| 28 (31 January 1862) | $16,361.43 | $16,361.53 | 10¢, the account footed below its own entries. The clerk's six cancelled block subtotals in the margin also add to $16,361.53, so the error is in his final addition |
| 21 (February 1862) | $19,406.64 | $18,979.27 | $427.37. Twenty-three of thirty extensions are exactly right; two are wrong by 9¢ and 50¢; the rest of the gap is unexplained. The amount column was read three times at magnification and the item lines counted twice against the extensions — nothing is missing from the transcription, so the divergence is in the document |
The auditors of the day were not asleep either. The back of that last voucher carries an exception in a second hand: "no authority to sign shewn."
What he was making
The file is a Confederate ordnance catalogue in miniature. Guns and carriages: 6-pounder field guns and 12-pounder howitzers at $250, 12-pounder guns at $400, gun castings at $300, eight gun castings taken at Clarksville at $150, carriages and limbers at $550 and $650, caissons and limbers, travelling forges at $600, battery wagons at $550, sets of artillery harness. Projectiles: solid shot, shell and spherical case from 6-pounder to 10-inch, canister with its sheet-iron tops, bottom plates and canister plates, stands of 24- and 32-pounder grape at $3.50 and $4.50, 32-pounder elongated rifled shell, 5.82-inch rifled shell, 3-inch rifle shot and shell at $1.37½ — and, repeatedly, Read's shell, thirty-one of them at $10 in January, a hundred and fifty-nine at $10 in February with fifteen more at $7.50 fitted with copper caps. Add to that the shop's own work: lacquering shot and shell by the thousand, gun testing, wrought-iron traverse circles, pintle plates, roller handspikes, drayage — including a charge for drayage to the Penitentiary, the Nashville state prison the Confederates worked as a shop.
Part 3 — Proposed identifications (external knowledge; flagged, never merged)
| In the file | Proposed identification | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk, C.S.A. | Commanding Department No. 2 in the west from mid-1861 | High |
| Lt. M. H. Wright, later Capt., Arty. & Ord. C.S.A. | The officer who certified, contracted and paid throughout; his name is printed on the Atlanta form at image 30, which is what fixes the initials on the manuscript signatures | High for the identification of the signature; the expansion of the name is not asserted |
| Maj. George W. Rains | The officer who bought the saltpetre-refinery plant at image 19 | High |
| "The Claiborne Machine Works" | Brennan's Nashville establishment; the name appears on the 1861 letterhead and again on the post-war archival docket at image 42, and nowhere between | Stated as read |
Open questions
- Where the $427.37 went on the February 1862 account. A dropped weight line at the sheet's own 8¢ rate would account for it almost exactly, but nothing on the page supports that and it is offered as a hypothesis only.
- Whether the docket spelled "Breunder" at image 18 is a clerk's garbling of Brennan. The reading is clear and "Brennan" cannot produce it; the sheet is a fourth-quarter 1861 abstract in the same quarter as Brennan's refinery work, which makes garbling likelier than a misfiled sheet. It is recorded as found, with the doubt attached.
- Whether the T. M. Brennan of image 31 — a bare filing slip naming him superintendent of the Red Mountain Iron & Coal Co. in Alabama, with no date, no figures and no signature — is the Nashville founder. Nothing on the slip connects them.
- The year digit at the head of image 17, an unambiguous "2" over a "Dec. 31" entry line, which cannot both be right.
A note on two pages that are not what they first appear: image 27 is not a new document but a second, wider exposure of the same docket as image 26, filmed twice; both are transcribed so the sequence is unbroken. And image 35 spells the name "Brannan" in its opening recital and "Brennan" twice more on the same leaf. It is transcribed as written.