As late as October, 1861, the
Acting Secretary of War wrote to Schuyler, one of whose shipments
had been delayed: "The Department earnestly hopes to
receive...the 12,000 Enfield rifles and the remainder of the
27,000, which you state you have purchased, by the earliest
steamer following. Could you appreciate the circumstances by
which we are surrounded, you would readily understand the urgent
necessity there is for the immediate delivery of all the arms you
are authorized to purchase. The Department expects to hear that
you have been able to conclude the negotiations for the 48,000
rifles from the French government arsenals." That the
Confederate Government acted even more promptly than the Union
Government appears from a letter of Sanford to Seward in May: "I
have vainly expected orders," he complains, "for the purchase of
arms for the Government, and am tempted to order from Belgium all
they can send over immediately.... Meanwhile the workshops are
filling with orders from the South.... It distresses me to think
that while we are in want of them, Southern money is taking them
away to be used against us."
At London, Adams took it upon himself to contract for arms in
advance of instructions. He wrote to Seward: "Aware of the
degree to which I exceed my authority in taking such a step,
nothing but a conviction of the need in which the country stands
of such assistance and the joint opinion of all the diplomatic
agents of the United States.
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