BIBLIOGRAPHY 



M 



OST OF THE DOCUMENTARY MATERIAL for this 



volume was found in the files of the various branches 

 of the War Department which are on deposit in the 

 National Archives, Washington, D.C. The majority of 

 this material is in Record Group 92, which bears the 

 somewhat misleading title of Records of the Office 

 of the Quartermaster General. 



The responsibility for the procurement or manu- 

 facture and issue of military clothing did not fall under 

 the Quartermaster General until 1842. From 1800 to 

 1812 it was under the Purveyor of Public Supplies 

 and from 1812 to 1842 under the Commissary General 

 of Purchases. The records of both of these officers are 

 filed with Record Group 92. Both maintained letter 

 books which contained copies of all letters sent, eight 

 volumes for the first office and eighteen for the second. 

 Letters received by both offices are filed in some 140 

 boxes entitled the "Coxe-Irvine" papers. Unfortu- 

 nately, they are not always filed by date of document 

 and the box titles do not adequately reflect the contents. 



In 1832 the Clothing Bureau was established as a 

 separate office directly under the Secretary of War to 

 supervise the clothing operations of the Commissary 

 General of Purchases. The letter books of this office, 

 which cover the entire period of its existence to 1841, 

 are also in Record Group 92. This block is extremely 

 helpful in that it contains all of the decisions of the 

 Secretary of War on matters of uniform. Unfortu- 

 nately, the letters received are intermingled with the 

 afore-mentioned "Coxe-Irvine" papers and are diffi- 

 cult to locate for the entire period. 



The Office of the Commissar)' General of Purchases 

 was eliminated in 1842 and its function of procure- 

 ment, storage, and issuance of army clothing was trans- 

 ferred to the Office of the Quartermaster General. A 

 separate set of books of letters sent concerning clothing 

 was set up as well as a register of letters received. The 

 latter are split in two blocks, one set arranged by the 



file reference in the register, which contains a very 

 small proportion of the material; the other, which com- 

 prises the bulk of this correspondence, is integrated in 

 an overall block of letters received by the Quarter- 

 master General's Office as a whole, a total of 1,275 

 boxes and is entitled the "Consolidated Correspond- 

 ence File." These letters are arranged by the name 

 of the sender, the office of origin, or by subject. The 

 choice of subject is often obscure. 



Also in Record Group 92 are some pertinent files 

 from various offices at the Philadelphia Depot (also 

 termed the Schuylkill Arsenal ) , which was the largest 

 single permanent storage depot as well as the principal 

 factory and procurement office for enlisted men's cloth- 

 ing. Among these records are the letters sent by the 

 Assistant Quartermaster General at Philadelphia, who 

 had overall charge of all functions of the Depot after 

 1842. Initially, his letters sent were a continuation of 

 the letter books of the Commissary General of Pur- 

 chases. Later, they were filed as letters sent by the Of- 

 fice of Army Clothing and Equipage. There is also a 

 set of registers of letters recei\cd by this office, but the 

 letters themsehes are not always readih- located — some 

 were incorporated with the "Coxe-Ir\inc" papers, 

 others were forwarded to W'ashington and eventually 

 incorporated in the Consolidated Correspondence File, 

 and some lost or destroyed. The Military Storekeeper 

 at Philadelphia had been responsible since 1801 for the 

 storage and issue of all material made or procured. The 

 files of that office which ha\e been most \'aluable arc 

 the "Journal" (Masterson 115), consisting of nine 

 volumes, covering the period 1801-1842, and the 

 the "Journal" (Masterson 115), consisting of nine 

 from 1805 to 1813. Both categories contain a chron- 

 ological record which includes nomenclature, quantity, 

 and price of all articles received in and issued from the 

 stores, together with the name of contractor or receiv- 

 ing unit. 



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