Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1865-10-05
warlike Resources of the Country

The annual fair of the American Institute
was recently held in New York. The open.
ing address was delivered by Major General
Sickles, which was an sble and in many
respects a most important intellectual effort.
BE very judiciously devoted himself to an
elucidation of the valuable contributions of
American art and science to the purposes of
war, as illustrated during the recent rebel
lion, and he has put on record many curious
and interesting facts in relation thereto,
which will doubtless strike the world with
astonishment aud admiration.
Taking all the different departments of
the service, he shows how the skill Of the
mechanic, the inventive genios Of our
people and the wonderful adaptability to
circumstances unforeseen and occupation in
many instances foreign 10 them, effected
things which to nations trained in the school
Of war would have been impossibilities. He
refers to our Monitors purely American
ipyeution-and the extraordinary revolution
they effected in naval warfare; to the rams
and torpedo boats which bafled the skill
and defed the bravery of the enemy in our
harbors and rivers. The number of me-
chanios employed by the government during
the war exceeded that of the victorious
army at Waterloo. But it was in the
Quartermaster's Department that the most
wonderful examples of energy, precision
and force were displayed; for which there is
no parallel in military history. '1f," said
the speaker, ssthe trains of the Army of
the Potomac had beeneput in motion on q
single road toward Richmond, the head of
the column would have entered Richmond
before the rear was out of sight Of the Cap
itol at Washington. In the Quartermaster's
and Ordnance Departments at Nashville, in
the summer of 1854, more than fourteen
thousand mechanics and iaborers we're en-
ployed in providing material for the armies
operating in General Sherman's department.
The ssorehouses of the Commissary Of Sub.
sistence at the same post. contained provis-
ions for one hundred thousand men for
eight months, or tweuty-four millions OF
rations, besides forage for fifty thousand
horses for an equal period-that is to say,
one hundred and sixtg.eight millions of
pounds of oats, corn and hay. These stores,
| besides vast numbers of troops and all the
sick and wounded, we're transported over a
single track railroad, crossing many rivers
and trestlework structures, for more than
three hundred miles through Tennessee and
| Georgia, hostile country, in the face OF
constant attack from an enterprising and
daring enemy" In the Subsistence De-
parsment, which furnished 9 million of SOL
diers with food and clothingj IN the Ord
nance Department., in which twenty million
dollars of capital and twenty thousand me-
chanies were employed in the manufacture
of arms at one.fourth the cost Of those I'M
ported from foreign countries; in the Med
! icsl Department, with it stationary and
travelling hospitsls, and the omnipresent 90
1 operation Of the Sanitary Commission, the
same energy and vigilance were ever al
work. No war Of snoientor modern times
so thoroughly developed the resources Of Z
i people, or found them so completely pre-
pared foreyery contingency, erall trying