The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union And Confederate Armies. Series 3, Volume 2. Page: 220
viii, 1007 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this book.
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CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.
[Inclosure.]
Statement made to Major-General Butler by Archibald McLaurin.
I have been the agent of J. Scholefield, Sons & Goodman since the
1st of July, 1858. My agency has consisted principally in procuring
orders for hardware, send them forward, receive the price, and remit
the money thus received. I have also been the agent from the same
period of time of Sanderson Bros. & Co., of Sheffield, manufacturers
of iron and steel ware. Some time in February, 1861, I received from
Mr. Goodman a letter giving quotations and terms of Enfield rifles,
stating that he or his firm could furnish a large quantity, and desir-
ing me to endeavor to procure orders for them.
In March I received the only order for arms which I ever received
from Cavanagh & Miller for ninety Enfield rifles. I sent the money
and order to J. Scholefield, Sons & Goodman, but it was not executed
because the instructions were to send by a British vessel, and no such
vessel could be procured.
Since the first letter of Mr. Goodman above alluded to my corre-
spondence in relation to arms has been with the same gentlemen and
was confined almost exclusively to a shipment of 200 Enfield rifles,
and extended from February, 1861, to January or February last. In
the latter part of June, 1861, I received the last letter from
J. Scholefield, Sons & Goodman, dated the 6th or 9th of June, 1861,
until the reopening of the mail communications in the latter part of
May, when I received a letter from them dated in September last.
On the 2d July instant I received a package of letters from
J. Scholefield, Sons & Goodman and from Sanderson Bros. & Co.,
which I was sorting for the purpose of reading them, when I was
arrested. All these letters are in possession of General Butler. A
letter from Mr. Goodman, exhibited to me by General Butler, I had
never seen before, and I have no knowledge of the transaction referred
to in it, except what I learned at hastily glancing at it when it was
handed to me.
The 200 rifles above referred to were shipped at Liverpool by
J. Scholefield, Sons & Goodman, and were consigned to me for sale
without order from me; but when the vessel arrived the port of New
Orleans was closed and she went into Havana in June, 1861. I sold
100 of them to the Confederate Guards, deliverable in Havana, by
giving the purchasers an order on the master of the vessel.
I understand that these hundred rifles were afterward captured by
the U. S. Navy. The remaining 100 of these rifles were sold by me, but
the order for their delivery has not been given-they are still in
Havana. *
In February or March, 1861, I received a letter from Mr. Goodman,
with an invoice of 600 rifles with their accouterments. This invoice
was to have been shipped on the ship Hews, sailing under the German
flag-the captain had agreed to take them, but afterward changed his
mind and refused to take them, in consequence of which the invoice
for 600 was superseded by one for 200, to which I have already alluded,
and which were shipped on the American ship Bamberg, which entered
into Havana in consequence of the blockade.
I have had no other connection with the shipment or sale of arms-
another was in my capacity of agent for the firm of J. Scholefield,
Sons & Goodman.
Shipped on the Bamberg by J. Scholefield, Sons & Goodman there
was also a pattern rifle called Wilson's breech-loading rifle; this rifle220
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United States. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union And Confederate Armies. Series 3, Volume 2., book, 1899; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth139264/m1/229/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.