Ira Roe Foster

Ira Roe Foster (January 9, 1811 – November 19, 1885) was born on the Tyger River, in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. He was a teacher, medical doctor, attorney, soldier, businessman, and politician. During the 1840s, Foster served as brigadier general in the Georgia Militia. With the outbreak of the American Civil War, he was appointed Quartermaster General of the state of Georgia, a position he continued to hold even after the war's end. Foster was also elected first mayor of Eastman, Georgia. He served in the Georgia House of Representatives, and was elected to the state senates of both Georgia and Alabama.

Early political life and careers
Ira Roe Foster was born on January 9, 1811, on the Tyger River, Spartanburg County, South Carolina, to Ransom and Nancy Foster. He became a school teacher at an early age, then studied medicine and practiced in South Carolina. Dr. Foster then moved to Georgia where he was elected to the state senate, representing Forsyth County from 1838 to 1839. In 1841, Foster became a licensed lawyer in Cherokee County, Georgia, serving as that county's State Representative in the legislature. Foster was also a merchant, with extensive business interests in land and in flour and saw mills in north-central Georgia and Alabama. Foster remained active in Georgia state politics into the Reconstruction period.

Military service
During the Seminole Indian War in 1836, Foster served with distinction as a colonel of a mounted infantry, but was seriously wounded and carried on a litter for 50 miles. He recovered and joined the Georgia Militia in 1842, becoming aide-de-camp for the Commander-in-Chief. Foster was subsequently commissioned brigadier general of the 2nd Brigade of the 7th Division in 1845.

Quartermaster General of Georgia
During the American Civil War, Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown appointed Foster Quartermaster General for the state of Georgia. His assistant was Edward M.B. Galt, whose actual title was Chief of Ordnance, charged with supervising the forging and turning of gun barrels. In the fall of 1861, the need to obtain clothing for the Confederate Army was (temporarily) satisfied with the establishment of Quartermaster's depots. Garment shops were established and shoe shops built. Georgia companies fighting in Virginia sent men back home to Georgia to collect clothing and blankets for the troops. Adjutant-General Henry C. Wayne instructed Foster to "proceed personally, or by duly accredited agents, into all parts of the state, and buy 25,000 suits of clothes and 25,000 pairs of shoes for the destitute Ga. troops in the Confederate service."

Apart from that brief period in 1861 when supplies were adequate, Georgia soldiers were chronically in need of basic essentials. In December 1862, the Georgia Legislature appropriated $1,500,000 for the purchase of military clothing and blankets. Anticipating the inadequacy of that measure, it also authorized Governor Brown to seize factories and supplies, as needed. The Governor executed the order, but authorized Foster to pay sellers 10% and manufacturers 25% of the value of their seized goods. Foster, in the course of his duty, appealed to the people's love of liberty in meeting the demands placed upon them. In late August 1863, following the Battle of Gettysburg, one Georgia Colonel forwarded a requisition to Foster "in which he reported his command as destitute of everything". Men in his unit had worn out two pairs of shoes on the Northern march, and "all faced the prospect of frostbite, pleuricy, or pneumonia in the coming winter."

By 1864, the situation had become even more desperate. Writing to Foster on January 24, 1864 General James Longstreet noted: "There are five Georgia Brigades in this Army – Wofford's, G.T. Anderson's, Bryan's, Benning's, and Crews' cavalry brigade. They are all alike in excessive need of shoes, clothing of all kinds, and blankets. All that you can send will be thankfully received."

The duties of the Quartermaster General required, on occasion, a degree of clandestine activity, to insure both the security of textile mills, and to prevent mill owners from shipping their goods to out-of-state buyers:"The sources of dangers to the mills was not always clear. In June 1864, Enoch Steadman's Lawrenceville factory in Georgia inexplicably burned. This company worked exclusively [supplying finished goods for Georgia soldiers] for Governor Joseph E. Brown, but Georgia quartermaster Ira Foster was forced to keep it under surveillance to insure that the state received its goods. One of Steadman's employees [warned him] that Quartermaster Foster had 'parties watching your concern and he has expressed the belief that you are sneaking and that he says he will have goods or blood'" Foster worked tirelessly to maintain supplies and clothes for Georgia soldiers throughout the war, and continuing in his office even after the collapse of the Confederacy.

Appealing for socks
As Quartermaster, Foster attempted to secure supplies from every source. One notable effort was the campaign to secure 50,000 socks from organizations such as the "Young Ladies' Patriotic Society" (pledging one garment a week from each member) as well as from individual girls and women of Georgia. To that end, in October 1863, Foster placed announcements in newspapers throughout the state, asking for contributions. He pledged to make available an ample supply of yarn, for those knitters willing to undertake the task, but lacking in material. Foster also asked them to attach their names to their work, so that a complete and detailed record could be maintained of each contribution and contributor. In his request, he expressed hope that the socks would: "Cheer our soldiers, discourage desertions, hurry off able bodied furloughed men to the front and stimulate them to prefer honorable deaths in the face of the enemy, to dishonest lives prolonged by shrinking from duty." On December 24, 1863, a notice was placed in the Savannah Republican by one Carrie Bell Sinclair, president of the local Ladies' Knitting Society, stating:"Having received from the Quartermaster General a large supply of knitting thread, members of the Society, or any one interested in the soldiers, can be supplied by calling on me any time during the week. We have been unable to supply all who have come forward and entered their names as members of the Society, having been entirely out of thread for the last two or three weeks. But we have now on hand enough for eighty or ninety pair of socks, and we hope those interested in the matter will come forward now and assist us in getting them done as early as possible. With the beginning of the New Year, let us renew our efforts in behalf of the suffering soldiers, and do all that we can for their comfort." Foster's sock campaign stimulated the supply of the much needed item, but it also met with a certain amount of suspicion and backlash. Either the result of a Union disinformation campaign, or the work of suspicious minds, rumors, which Foster denied as a "malicious falsehood!", began to spread that Foster and others were profiteering from the socks. It was alleged that contributed socks were being sold, rather than given freely to the troops. Foster undertook another newspaper campaign to attack the unfounded rumors, and to encourage the continued contribution of socks for the troops. He offered $1,000.00 to any "citizen or soldier who will come forward and prove that he ever bought a sock from this Department that was either knit by the ladies or purchased for issue to said troops."

The Battle of Atlanta
Leading up to the Battle of Peachtree Creek during the Atlanta campaign, Gen. Foster's home was occupied by Gen. A.P. Stewart (CSA) who made it his headquarters. Georgia Historical Commission marker 060-90, erected at that location, states: "Site of the Ira R. Foster house which was occupied as headquarters by Gen. A. P. Stewart, [CSA] during military operations N. of Atlanta, July 16-21, 1864. From here were issued the orders directing his troops in the Battle of Peachtree Creek, July 20."

With the fall of Atlanta imminent, Governor Brown ordered Foster to remove state records from the city. The task proved to be difficult, undertaken in the midst of chaos as Federal troops closed in on the city. The records were stored at a "lunatic asylum" three miles outside of Atlanta. A train was held at the depot to facilitate their removal. But in the bedlam of panicked citizens fleeing the city, labor was difficult to find.

Arrest and Union commission
In 1865, Foster traveled to Virginia, where he was imprisoned by the Union Army for his service to the Confederacy. However, in recognition of his abilities, he was subsequently released and commissioned by the Union army to distribute livestock and supplies throughout Georgia. In his "History of the State of Georgia from 1850 to 1881" historian I.W. Avery remarks:"In many particulars the Federal soldiers acted very cleverly. Gen. [James H.] Wilson turned over to Gen. Ira Foster the Confederate mules, horses, wagons, and harness, for distribution to the poor, and Col. J.H.R Washington of Macon, was associated with Gen. Foster to aid in the distribution." On June 24, 1865, in General Order #31, General Wilson expressed appreciation to Foster and Washington, and relieved them of their authority, placing the task with Capt. R. Carter, A.Q.M., Cavalry Corps Military Division of the Mississippi.

Personal life and later years
Foster married Mildred Arthur Creighton Crooks (March 28,1810 - June 15, 1883) in 1842. They had four children: Amalthea Camilla, Erycenia Penthecelia, Nancy Lucinda Creighton, and Marcus Lucuius. In 1867, Foster moved his family to Georgia Mountain, Alabama, where he owned six miles of Tennessee River front farming land, a large portion of the mountain and a saw mill, purchased before the war. Simultaneously, Foster operated a saw mill in Dodge County, Georgia, building a residence there in 1869. Foster participated in the area's saw mill boom, which was said to average one mill every two miles, along the industrial corridor created by the Macon and Brunswick Railroad. In his book The New South Comes to Wiregrass Georgia 1860–1910 author Mark V. Wetherington states: "Ira R. Foster shipped lumber to Brunswick, where it was loaded onto timber schooners and transported to international markets like Liverpool, Rio de Janeiro, and Havana." When the city of Eastman was incorporated in 1872, Foster served as its first mayor. Foster was also elected to the position of state senator in Alabama. He moved to Gadsden in 1883 when his wife died. There he built a two-story colonial home on the stage coach route, in an area which became known as Foster’s Cross Roads. In the Alabama Senate, Foster was regarded as a reformer, supporting efficiency in state operations such as the consolidation of county poor farms into regional centers. His efforts, however, were largely thwarted by "localist sentiment" and the indifference of his fellow legislators. Foster continued to serve in the Alabama Senate until his death in November 19, 1885.