Ira Roe Foster

Ira Roe Foster (January 9, 1811 – November 19, 1885) was a teacher, medical doctor, attorney, soldier, businessman, and politician from South Carolina. During the 1840s, Foster served as brigadier general in the Georgia Militia.

In 1861, the American Civil War began when the state of Georgia and six other slave states declared their intent to secede and form the Confederate States of America. Foster was appointed Quartermaster General of the Confederate state of Georgia. He continued to hold the position of Quartermaster General after the collapse of the Confederacy and the end of the war. He remained active in Georgia state politics into the Reconstruction period. Foster was also elected as the 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.

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.

Foster moved to Georgia, likely in the later 1830s after Indian Removal, settling in Forsyth County. He was elected as a Democrat to the state senate, representing Forsyth County for one term, from 1838 to 1839. In 1841, Foster became a licensed lawyer in Cherokee County, Georgia. He was elected as that county's State Representative to the legislature. On September 2, 1845, U.S. Representative John H. Lumpkin wrote to President James K. Polk, urging President Polk to appoint Foster to a consular position in the West Indies. Lumpkin reminded the President that the whole of the Georgia delegation supported Foster's application. Foster did not receive the appointment.

In addition to being a merchant and attorney, Foster maintained extensive business interests in land and flour and saw mills in north-central Georgia and Alabama. In early 1850, he also invested in the Dahlonega and Marietta Turnpike and Plank Road Company.

During the Seminole Indian War in 1836 in Florida, Foster served as a colonel of a mounted infantry. He 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.

The Confederate-aligned governor of Georgia, Joseph E. Brown (to whom Foster had been both a friend and a political confidant) appointed Foster as Georgia's Quartermaster General on May 18, 1861, during the early months of the American Civil War. His assistant was Edward M.B. Galt, whose title was Chief of Ordnance, charged with supervising the forging and turning of gun barrels. On May 21, 1861, within days of his appointment, Foster appealed to the women of Atlanta to meet at City Hall and "prepare one hundred uniforms for soldiers preparing to leave for Virginia." In the fall of 1861, the need to obtain clothing for the Confederate Army was (temporarily) satisfied by the establishment of Quartermaster's depots. Garment shops were set up and shoe shops built to manufacture needed military supplies. Georgia companies fighting in Virginia sent men back to their state 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. While Foster's actions benefited the troops, the effect on civilians was harsh. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, "The Quartermaster Department's persistent purchases (or impressments) of the bulk of the state's textile and shoe manufactures left civilians facing intense scarcity and exorbitant prices. These conditions often led to accusations of profiteering." While civilians may have faced scarcities and high prices, conditions for many Georgia soldiers were far worse. 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, pleurisy, or pneumonia in the coming winter." By this period of the war, Gettysburg historian John Heiser observes: