Gents,

The railroad was key...and if you were on the railroad that connected with the blockade runner ports you could get anything you wanted so long as you could, and were willing, to pay the ever-inflating prices.

I concur with Ken that Richmond probably got first dibs on the English bunting but perhaps by mid-1864, there was enough surplus of that for some to be shipped to Staunton to be issued to flag makers of the area except for the borders. This holds, it seems, for the red and blue bunting only. The borders for the ANV style flags and the white fields of the Second Nationals seem to indicate a lack of white bunting due to the Richmond Depot probably using all of that up for their own flags. I am doubtful that we are looking at fraud here - more than likely a "hey, we cannot get white bunting from Richmond so let's use what we can." The Confederate supply systems got very good at rolling with shortage punches.

I indicated that the MOC Library has a QM shipping book for Wilmington and I have noted a number of bunting shipments coming in being noted on one page and then going to Richmond on the other page. As the Richmond Depot log books after 1862 do not survive these may have had the clues we need to show bunting shipments to Staunton. The NA has a number of QM Department order and log books available that I have not gone through entirely - and some of these are now online! Check out - http://civilwarlibrarian.blogspot.com/2012/07/news-national-archives-to-digitize-2750.html - the link to get to these books is at the bottom of the article.

One other thing - who was the QM officer in charge of Staunton and what other QM officers worked with him? We know them for Richmond. I ask because I can look in the CS Staff Officers files and see if they have anything of note.

Greg Biggs