Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1862-01-30

"o''"'OooIy 'pO ihoh pVeAailllicu tnene
horses declacd, upon U oath that there
were not ne'of. iseni worth twelve,
dollars they were blind ring-boned
spawned, afflicted with the heaves, with
the glanders and with every disease that
horse flesh is heir to. These four hun
drcd and eighty.five horses cost the Cow
ernment, before they were mustered into
service, fifty eight thousand two hundred
dollars, besides more than an additional
thousand dollars to transport them from
Pennsylvania to Louisville, where they
were condemned and cast off.
Mr. Mallory (of Ky )asked what reg
iment those horses belonged to, and who
! furnished them.
Mr.. Dawes--They belonged to Col.
Williams's regim snt of cavalry, and they
were purchased in Pennsylvania, from
which State they were forwarded to Lou
isvile, here they were condemned. -
There.a eightythrce regiments of cav
airy to-day, one Thousand strong. 1t
takes $3.50, 900 to put one Of these reg
iments on foot before it moves. $780,
600, 900 have thus been expended on these
cavalry regiments before they left the en-
campments where they were mustered in
to service, and hundreds and hundreds of
/; these horses have been condemned and
sent back to Elmira and to Annapolis and
to this city to spend the winter. Any
!, day hundreds of them can be seen round
this city, chained to trees, where they
were left to starve to death. Gangs of
two hundred horses, in various places,
have been thus left to die and rot, till
the Committee on the District of Co.
lumbia have called for a measure of leg
islation to protect the city from the dan
ger to be apprehended from these Col
gothas. An Ex-Governor of one State
offered to an Ex-Judgc of another State
$4,000 to get him permission to raise
one of these regiments of cavalry, and
when the Ex-Judge brought back the
commission the Ex Governor takes it to
his room at the Hotel, while another
. plunderer sits at the keyhole watching
like mastiff while the inside counts up
$40, 900 profits on the horses, and ealcu-
lates $50 900 more upon the accoutre-
ments and other details of furnishing
these regiments. In addition to the
arms in the hands of the 600 900 soldiers
: in the field, there arenumerous outstand-
ing contracts, made with private individ-
uals-not made upon advertisement, not
made with the knowledge Of the public
but made by exmembers of Congress,
who knew no more of the difference be.
tween one class of arms and another
than Methodist Minister.
: There are outstanding contracts for the
manufacture of Springfield muskets, the
first one o. which cannot be delivered in
six months from this day. There is q
y contract for the supply of one million
: and ninety thousand muskets, at twenty
u eight dollars piece, when the same
y quality of muskets are manufactured a
Springfield for thirteen and half piece
; and an X-member of Congress is now
in Massachusetts, trying to get machinery
by which he will be able to manufacture
u in some six months hence at twenty one
: dollars piece, those rihed muskets man
= ufacturad to-day in the armory for thr
teen and half Providence, before six
months, will dispose of this war, or He
!, will dispose of us. l ask my friends
from the West and North west how they
, expect to be benfited by an armory al
Chicago, at Rock Island, and at Quincy
. when million and ninety.two thousand
muskets WILL according to this contract
be thrown upon the country, and that af'
" ter the war is.over, and at such an enor.
nous price in addition to other outstand
ing contracts for the manufacture, some
i time hence, of two hundred and seventy
two thousand Enfield rifles Besides
there are seventy five thousand five hum
dred and forty three sets of harness, tC
be delivered by and by, at the cost of ONT
: million nine hundred and seventy -eigh
u u thousand four hundred ard forty dol
= = lars. | have not time to enumerate al
= = these contracts. We appropriated, a
. the last session OF Congress, for this pur
:, pose, twenty millions of dollars, thirty
:. :, seven millions and some thousand dollars
y y had been already pledged to contractors
u u not for the purchase of arms for the mel
" y in the field, not to protect them in thei
!, country's battles in this great emergency
u and peril, but for some future use, fo
some future occasion, or to meet SOM
} present need of the contractors, don
. know which at this moment. And no
:, only the appropriation of last session ha
e been exhausted, but seventy millions pu
u upon it. The riot of the 10Th Of April
. in Baltimore opened this ball, and ol
! the 2lst of April, in the City of New
y York, there was organized q corpse o
II plunderers of the Treasury. Two mil
Is lions of dollars were entrusted to poor
: unfortunate, honest, but entirely incom
. petent editor of paper in New York
y to dispense it in the best manner he could
} Straightway this gentleman began tt
o purchase linnen pantaloons, straw hats
s. London porter, dried herrings, and sucl
70 like provisions for the army, till he ex
% pended in this way three hundred anC
ninety thousand dollars of the money
q and then he got scared and quit. Laugh
.e ter. There is an appropriation, also
'e for the supply Of wood for the army
N This contractor is pledged the paymen
&c of seven dollars per cord for all the WOO
c. delivered to the different commands
v wood collected after the labor of the sol
" diers themselves had cut down the tree
1' to clear the ground for their batteries
vi and then this contractor employs tn
Us army wagons to draw it to the severa
'd camps and he has no further trouble tina
al to draw his seven dollars per cord, leav
II ing the Government to draw the wooc
We Laughter 1t costs two millions c