J. F. Cummings to and Commissary of Subsistence, February 12, 1864
February 12, 1864.
His Excellency JOSEPH E. BRown, Governor, &c., Milledgeville, Ga.:
Srr: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of 6th instant, which has been carefully noticed. I ain convinced from the tenor of your letter that you have entirely misconstrued both my motives and action.
On the 18th of January I addressed you a plain inquiry, and stated that my contractors would be required to furnish me the entire product of all grain turned over to them. My subsequent communication of February 1 I addressed to you to obtain further information, and not with the most remote idea of aiding or abetting in setting at defiance the laws of the State. My letters were conceived and, as I think, couched in respectful and courteous language. Their aim was to avoid any confusion or clashing between the State and Confederate authorities, and if possible secure such concert of action as would enable me to carry out the orders received at headquarters. Since I have been a commissioned officer I have ever tried to devote my energies and industry to a faithful discharge of the arduous and often thankless duties of my position. I am satisfied from the tone of your letters that my operations have been misrepresented to you and my motives impugned, and therefore write to disabuse your mind on this point.
My first contracts, not having been in strict accordance with law, were amended so soon as I was advised of the fact by our mutual friend, Major Steele. None have since been made that did not, as I conceived, conform strictly to the statutes of the State. My contracts altogether thus far would not consume over 3,000 bushels of corn per month, a large portion of which will be refuse and weevil-eaten and wholly unfit for bread or stock feed. I expect to feed Government stock, hogs and cattle, with the slops, which are better for them than the corn before distillation. My object in all cases is to use corn not fit for bread, and as far as possible place distilleries in localities where it could not be moved out and would be destroyed and lost to the Government.
With this statement of facts, I beg leave to say that any insinuation of complicity in fraud and corruption on my part are false and slanderous, and I should be obliged to you for the names of the parties who have made them, at your earliest convenience, in order that I may properly vindicate myself. Our mutual friend General Foster, thinking that there was a needless waste of grain in making whisky, addressed a letter to the Secretary of War, which was subsequently referred tome. I have had an interview with him, and he is now satisfied with the terms of my contracts and will write you on the subject.
Very respectfully, &e.,
Major and Commissary of Subsistence.
POsT-OFFICE DEPARTMENT,
Richmond, February 15, 1864.
Secretary of War:
SiR: I have been prevented from making an earlier answer to your