Since it seems to pertain to the discussion, this from the Guide to the Archives of the Government of the Confederate States of America: "before the Confederate Government evacuated Richmond some of its archives were moved southward.... During 1864 some Government bureaus moved to more southern cities and in Mar. 1865 the Government agencies in Richmond shipped records from the Capital over the Richmond and Danville Railroad.

On Apr. 2, 1865, the Union Army penetrated the defenses of Petersburg, forcing a Confederate retreat from the southern aproach to Richmond. On that day President Davis directed all department heads to complete arrangements for leaving the Capital. Some records were then boxed for rail transportation; clerks piled up other records in the streets and set them afire and other records were simply abandoned in the Government offices. Some records were saved by Union Army officers who entered the city and some were carried off by soldiers and individuals. Government offices were set aflame and most of the buildings that had been occupied by Confederate Government departments and agencies were destroyed along with quantities of records.

AGO General Order 127, July 21, 1865, established a bureau ... for the 'collection, safe-keeping, and publication of the Rebel Archives' that had been acquired.... With the help of a dozen clerks, Norman Lieber [chief of the new bureau] examined, arranged, and classified the Confederate records, consisting of 428 boxes, 71 barrels, and 120 bags of undelivered mail. More than half of the records were found to consist of quartermasters' accounts (126 boxes and bbls.), Second Auditor's accounts (118 boxes and bbls.), and muster rolls and payrolls (24 boxes)....

After the War Department established a program for the publication of wartime records, it becme desirable to acquire additional Confederate records.... In the 1870s the Department bought a collection of battle reports and the papers of Gen. Albert S. Johnston and Col. Thomas L. Snead. But ... the practice was discontinued in 1879 when Congress refused to appropriate funds to buy the papers of Generals Pendleton, Polk, and Bragg.

In the meantime, on July 1, 1878, the War Department appointed Marcus J. Wright, a former Confederate brigadier general, its agent for the collection of Confederate records in what proved to be a successful effort to obtain by persuasion what was too costly to buy. Wright was instructed to visit persons and places in the South to procure original records as donations or loans for copying. He immediately opened correspondence with surviving Army officers and officials of the Confederacy or their widows or representatives and advertised in newspapers his appointment and the interest of the War Department in obtaining original Confederate records for publication. He arranged with the Southern Historical Society ... for the use of its collections.... and through his efforts the Department obtained the papers of many Confederate officers." [list of donors' names follows, plus descriptions of various indexes that were prepared]