Summary:
During the Civil War, the Confederate government was forced to fix wheat prices
to ensure abundant supply to the army. In this letter, Robert E. Lee replies to
complaints of millers in Rockingham County that Confederate Commissary agents
gave higher prices for wheat in Staunton than elsewhere in the Valley. Lee also
discusses efforts to set a fair price in the Valley.
P. S. ROLLER, Esq., Mount Crawford, Va.:
November 7, 1862.
SIR:
I have received the communication, signed by yourself and other citizens of Rockingham County, on the subject of prices paid for flour by the commissary of this army. When the army entered the valley, the chief commissary, Col. Cole, endeavored to fix a fair price upon wheat and flour by taking the opinions of persons interested in those articles, and whose judgment it was believed would be acquiesced in by the people generally. I am informed that the price for produce that would be likely otherwise to be taken by the enemy without compensation. The ground of your complaint, that higher prices are given at Staunton and other places by the agents of the Commissary Department at Richmond, who were purchasing in the valley, did not originate in any order issued by me or by the chief commissary of this army. I have written to the Secretary of War to-day on the subject, and suggested that a uniform price be fixed for wheat and flour taken for the army either under authority of the Commissary-Gen. or by the chief commissary of this army.
You will please communicate the contents of this letter to the other gentlemen who united with you in signing the communication to myself.
I omitted to mention that I was informed that the price fixed for flour was $2 per barrel more than had been paid before the army entered the valley.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
R. E. LEE,
Gen.
Bibliographic Information : Letter Reproduced from The War of The Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 19, Serial No. 28, Pages 702, Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC, 1997.
