Letter signed by Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory (1812-1873), to Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown (1821-1894). Richmond, Virginia, 25 March 1862. 2 pages, 4to. On Confederate States of America, Navy Department letterhead. Docketed to verso. 

The Confederate Secretary of the Navy, Stephen R. Mallory, writes to Georgia Governor Joseph Brown, imploring him to exempt certain iron workers from military service. He writes in full: "These are but two rolling mills at work in the Confederacy, the Tredegar Mills at Richmond and the Atlanta Mills. Both are engaged in rolling iron for our gun boats; and the latter...sends me the enclosed list of the names of experts necessary to the conduct of the work, and who have been taken from them for military service. I have the honor to suggest that, in consideration of the important services they are rendering and the difficulty, if not impossibility of supplying their places, they be exempted from military service while thus employed." 

The Atlanta Rolling Mill was constructed in 1858 and specialized in re-rolling exhausted railroad rails for new purposes. The Mill also produced cannon, iron rail, and sheets to clad CSA naval vessels, including the CSS Virginia. It was of great importance to the Confederate military effort, as stressed by Mallory. 

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs]