Apr 16, 2019 - Sale 2505

Sale 2505 - Lot 217

Price Realized: $ 281
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
"POWDER, SHOT AND SHELLS MUST AT ANY RATE BE PROCURED" (WAR OF 1812.) Wadsworth, Decius. Letter describing the operation of the army's new Ordnance Department in detail. Autograph Letter Signed to Congressman George Troup of Georgia, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. 3 pages, 12 3/4 x 8 inches, on 2 detached sheets, with address panel and docketing on final blank (no postal markings); separations at folds, tape repairs, edge wear. With typed transcript. Washington, 19 June 1813

Additional Details

Colonel Decius Wadsworth (1768-1821) was the head of the newly formed Ordnance Department within the United States Army. Here he explains his department to a congressman and requests additional resources: "It has been decided by the War Department to establish three principal laboratories and arsenals, one at or near Albany, one at or near Pittsburgh, and one on the waters of the Chesapeake. At each of these establishments, thirty or forty workmen will be employed. . . . We cannot possibly avoid these expences; in some way or another, they must be incurred. Cannon, their carriages and equipments for our armies in the field, our posts on the frontier, and the fixed and moveable batteries on the seaboard must be provided. Powder, shot and shells must at any rate be procured." Wadsworth also mentions that Generals William Henry Harrison and James Wilkinson have needed to appoint their own commissaries to help in the department's work. An interesting inside look at the arming of American troops.