skets, sent South during Floyd's
term as Secretary of War. I saw this work progressing, even before
Secession was a completed fact there. New Orleans turned out the
best rifles I ever saw in the South. They were similar to the French
Minie rifle, furnished with fine sword-bayonets. The Louisiana
troops were mostly armed with these. At Nashville and Gallatin,
Tennessee, rifles were also made, and I suppose in every
considerable city in the South. In addition, it should be known that
thousands of Government arms were in the hands of the people, all
through the Southern States; how they procured them I do not know.
These were gathered up and altered or improved, and issued to the
troops. Many of the regiments went into the field armed with every
description of guns, from the small-bore squirrel-rifle and
double-barreled shot-gun to the ponderous Queen Bess musket and
clumsy but effective German Yager. The regiments were furnished as
fast as possible with arms of one kind, and the others returned to
the factories to be classified and issued again. Sword-bayonets were
fitted to double-barreled shot-guns, making them a very effective
weapon. Others were cut down to a uniform length of about
twenty-four inches, and issued to the cavalry. Common hunting-rifles
were bored out to carry a Minie ball, twenty to the pound, and
sword-bayonets fitted to them. One entire brigade of Tennesseans,
under General Wm. H. Carroll, was armed with these guns.

When recovering from sickness at Nashville, I spent hours of
investigation in the base of the capitol, used as an armory, where
an immense amount of this work had been done. I have been told that
the basement of our National capitol has been used to prepare bread
for loyal soldiers; _that_ basement was used to prepare them
bullets. At Bowling Green I saw many thousands of rifles and
shot-guns which had been collected for alteration, and the machine
shop of the Louisville and Nashville railroad was used as an armory.
Many of these guns were destroyed, and others left, when the town
was evacuated. Nor should it be forgotten that almost every man of
any position owned a pair of Colt's repeaters, many of them of the
army and navy size. These were eagerly bought up by the Confederate
authorities, who paid from thirty to sixty dollars apiece for them.
They were for the cavalry service. Add to these facts, that every
country blacksmith made cutlasses from old files, &c.; most of them
clumsy bu