other part of
it. Here, the objections arising from the expenses of removal, and of
building new barracks, recur. As to animal food, it may be driven to
one part of the country as easily as to another: that circumstance,
therefore, may be thrown out of the question. As to bread, I suppose
they will require about forty or forty-five thousand bushels of grain
a year. The place to which it is to be brought to them, is about the
centre of the State. Besides that the country round about is fertile,
all the grain made in the counties adjacent to any kind of navigation,
may be brought by water to within twelve miles of the spot. For these
twelve miles, wagons must be employed; I suppose half a dozen will be a
plenty. Perhaps this part of the expense might have been saved, had the
barracks been built on the water; but it is not sufficient to justify
their being abandoned now they are built. Wagonage, indeed, seems to
the commissariat, an article not worth economizing. The most wanton and
studied circuity of transportation has been practised: to mention
only one act, they have bought quantities of flour for these troops
in Cumberland, have ordered it to be wagoned down to Manchester, and
wagoned thence up to the barracks. This fact happened to fall within my
own knowledge. I doubt not there are many more such, in order either to
produce their total removal, or to run up the expenses of the present
situation, and satisfy Congress that the nearer they are brought to the
commissary's own bed, the cheaper they will be subsisted. The grain made
in the Western counties may be brought partly in wagons, as conveniently
to this as to any other place; perhaps more so, on account of its
vicinity to one of the best passes through the Blue Ridge; and partly
by water, as it is near to James river, to the navigation of which, ten
counties are adjacent above the falls. When I said that the grain
might be brought hither from all the counties of the State, adjacent to
navigation, I did not mean to say it would be proper to bring it from
all. On the contrary, I think the commissary should be instructed, after
the next harvest, not to send one bushel of grain to the barracks
from below the falls of the rivers, or from the northern counties. The
counties on tide water are accessible to the calls for our own army.
Their supplies ought, therefore, to be husbanded for them. The counties
in the northwestern parts of the State are not only within reach fo