Summary:
By the middle of the war, food and other necessary supplies became increasingly
scarce in the Confederacy. The Shenandoah Valley attracted attention from Union
and Confederate armies, and civilian speculators alike, because of its rich
farmland. In Confederate Special Orders Number 78, General John Imboden forbids
the sale of supplies to locations outside the Valley in hopes of combating
speculators in competition with army procuring agents.
Linville Creek,
November 28, 1863.
It having been reported to the general commanding that the officers and agents of the subsistence department of this district are unable to procure the supplies imperatively required for the army by purchase, because speculators are in the market paying higher prices than those fixed by the government commissioners, and sending such supplies out of the district to be sold again, it is ordered that the commissaries of subsistence at New Market, Harrisonburg, Staunton, and Lexington, and those on duty with the command in subsistence found in the use of the army, all the necessaries of subsistence found in the hands of speculators, or which have been sold to speculators, though not delivered, to be sent out of the district, and by the term "speculator" is meant any one who buys to sell again; and any one in this military district making alleged purchases for private consumption, or for the use of the poor, or soldiers' families in other districts, for the use of railroad employees or government contractors, will not be permitted to remove supplies from this district, excepting by special orders from these headquarters, or from the War Department, and the commissary officers and agents named in this order will see that no purchases are carried into effect by the contracting parties. This order is not intended to apply to necessaries in the hands of producers in transit to market, which have not been sold, or engaged to be sold, before or on their arrival at market.
By order of Brig. Gen. J. D. Imboden, commanding:
G. W. McPHAIL,
Lieut., and Aide-de-Camp.
Bibliographic Information : Letter Reproduced from The War of The Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 29, Serial No. 49, Pages 913, Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC, 1997.
