Bureau of Missing SocksMost people are surprised to learn that the Bureau of Missing Socks began as
a company in the Union Army during the Civil War. It was formed on August 1st,
1861, not too long after the disaster that was the First Battle of Bull
Run. As
General McClellan was trying to reform the dispirited Union troops, a
Connecticut businessman bought a major’s commission in the 5th
Connecticut Regiment at the suggestion of his father-in-law who advanced the
money. His name was Joseph Smithson and he was a haberdasher by trade. It was
soon decided that his skills were better put to serve his country in the
Quartermaster Corps after Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton saw him drilling his
troops. What may have brought him to Stanton’s attention was his high-pitched
voice and bad riding posture. These and some other defects in his personality
were turned into assets when he was assigned to the footwear division, Army of
the Potomac, supply, where, after a short assessment of his capabilities, he was
put in full and complete charge of socks, enlisted and officer.
Normally, a low profile posting, Major Smithson’s administration of the
section was soon noticed by the nation at large and was a favorite subject of
conversation of the Confederates especially when the war started going bad for
the south. He brought to the army the same skills at stock keeping, purchasing,
accounting, and salesmanship that he had practiced at his father-in-law’s
haberdashery in Hartford, Connecticut. He immediately instituted a cost control
structure and created one of the most honest, tightly run purchasing sections
serving the Union side during the entire conflict.
Major Smithson’s first concern was not buying new socks for the army but
maintaining and repairing the ones on the feet of the soldiers. He was the force
behind General Order 48904S that required that each member of the North’s
forces turn in a used sock before receiving a new one. "Hell!" he was
quoted as saying, "they don’t wear out at the same rate. Why should we
waste perfectly good single socks." The General Order was cancelled a week
later by the War Department possibly at the instigation of New England mill
owners who feared that their business with the army would be cut in half.
To counteract the war profiteers, Major Smithson tried to implement
General
Order 48906S which required that each soldier turn in a full pair of socks
before receiving a new one and document all those missing. That was when he
discovered that most of troops only lost one sock at a time. His first brush
with the missing sock phenomenon. He assigned two junior officers, Lieutenants
Blake and Thompson, to investigate. His subordinates were more interested in
participating directly in the war and immediately asked to be transferred to a
combat post. Major Smithson tried to crack the puzzle alone but his other duties
did not allow him time for a proper effort. He appealed directly to the White
House for funds to hire Pinkertons for the job but was turned down even though
he was sure it was a Confederate conspiracy
He was, however, able to institute his doctrine of field repair and
replacement creating the first and only sock darning, knitting, and issuing
company in the United States Army trained to operate directly behind the front
lines. Secretary Stanton and President Lincoln tried to have the unit disbanded
and Smithson cashiered but the Union generals held forth. They ordered the
establishment of three more companies as they found them a perfect venue for
assigning officers junior who didn’t come up to their
expectations or otherwise under performed. The units became a catchall for
enlisted men short of court martial and suffered the highest rate of casualties
from darning needle punctures then any other unit in both the Confederate and
Union forces.
Even though beset by inferior personnel not of his choosing, Major Smithson
pressed on. When he couldn’t be supplied with darning eggs because all of the
northern manufacturers had switched over to weaponry at the outset of the war he
found a supplier in England who also provided him with needles. He then
rethought the basic concept and created the first Field Sock Darning Kit. He
further upset his superior officers and the powers in Washington D.C. when,
realizing that the men under his command would never become adept at darning,
advocated the integration of women into the armed services. With support only
from Major General Joseph Hooker the cause was hopeless.
At the cessation of hostilities on April 9, 1865, Major Smithson was work on
an automatic sock darning machine but returned to Hartford at the behest
of his wife when her father passed away. He was torn between his duties at the
haberdashery and his quest to solve the mystery of the single, missing sock. The
conflict took his mind away from business and the store soon went bankrupt. He
died shortly afterwards, a broken man. His statue now stands in the north plaza
of the Bureau’s headquarters where our staffers like feed the pigeons during
their daily breaks. There is another statue of him in Hartford, Connecticut,
which has been warehoused there since 1906 until the city finds a suitable place
for its display.
His unit, nicknamed "The Darners", was some how overlooked in the
general demobilization after the war. Its last surviving veteran, Lewis
Freedman, went to his glory in 1936. It wasn’t until President Ulysses S.
Grant was inaugurated on March 4, 1869 that attention was paid to what would
later become the Bureau of Missing Socks. It caught the eye of Secretary of War
William W. Belknap who had it transferred to civilian control where it
immediately came under the grip of a group of corrupt officials and businessmen
known as the Whisky Ring. They increased its staff to over a thousand and its
budget a thousand fold. It became the sole purchasing agent for all the socks
worn by the uniformed services. The wholesale corruption of the Whisky Ring was
uncovered in 1875 and its members sent to jail. In the house cleaning following
the scandal all of its procurement powers were taken away. Secretary of War
William W. Belknap was later impeached for taking bribes from Indian agents. One
good thing did come out of the corruption surrounding the Grant administration.
The United States Government had purchased enough socks in three years to equip
all the armies in World War 1 and 2.
In fact, each recruit in the Spanish American War was issued twelve pairs.
Our black powder Springfields may have been outgunned by their modern German
Mausers but we out socked them. It was during this conflict that we received our
first official investigative assignment. Many of troops were losing all of their
government issued socks. We dispatched teams to all the combat theaters to
unravel the problem. The problem was less perplexing than at first thought. It
was soon discovered that the soldiers were trading them to Latin American and
Filipino prostitutes for certain sexual favors. It was during this period in our
history that the phrase "Sock it to me" was coined and not on the
Television Show "Laugh In" as commonly thought.
We entered World War I confidant that our troops were this best shod in the
world but it was soon discovered that the typical doughboy was on the average
five inches taller than his counterpart in the Eighteen Seventies and our
country’s vast stock pile of socks were too small. More had to be ordered. But
the warehouses full of hosiery that we controlled were put to good use and then
some after World War II.
It was that conflict that brought us to where we are today. The Bureau had
absolutely nothing to do. Most of its employees were dismissed or transferred to
more meaningful defense work. But due to some oversight our budget was not
curtailed. In fact, it was increased, because our director at that time,
Harrison L. Lawson, used the all available funds to hire the best lobbyist in
Washington and invest in the careers of promising politicians on the national
level. In four short years our future was secured and the Bureau began to grow
to what it is today. And – our vast stockpiles of socks were finally put to use
as part of the Marshall Plan. No European on this side of the Iron Curtain
during that late Nineteen Forties and early Fifties had to worry about cold feet
in the winter if they were size seven or less.
The Bureau came to the forefront again during the Cold War. It is a now it
can be told story. An agent planted deep in the Soviet Intelligence service
learned that Stalin himself was deeply concerned with our activities. He did not
believe that we were really a civilian agency but a cover for the manufacture of
a new and powerful weapon that the Soviet Union could not duplicate. He ordered
that the KGB to penetrate our facilities no matter what the cost in manpower and
money.
The Central Intelligence Agency jumped to the gun. The Bureau (still just the
Bureau of Socks) budget was again increased, as was its manpower. Our new
facilities were constructed on the shores of the Potomac river and appeared to
be the most imposing in Washington, D.C. although they lacked such amenities as
interior walls, elevators, heating, air conditioners, and elevators. Radio,
cable, mail and messenger traffic was increased to exceed that of any other
government agency. Suspected moles were encouraged to sign on and cryptologists
on our staff devised a new tt name Argyle which no one could decipher even
the creators. It was discovered that at least sixty percent of the Soviet Union’s
spy budget was directed against the Bureau during this period. Stalin and his
immediate successors so feared our organization that we, not the White House,
not the Pentagon, not the Strategic Air Command, were the prime target of all
eastern block nuclear missiles.
On the 9th of November 1989 the Berlin Wall fell. With the break up of the
Communist Monopoly that year our existence was again challenged. We hung on
until 1994. The year that descendants of Major Smithson donated his papers to
the Library of Congress where they could have moldered for years without anybody
paying attention to them. . Fate came to our rescue when they were discarded by
mistake and found by our head of research J. P. Conway in a Dumpster. He
immediately read them to our Director Orlando Brown who exclaimed "Our
mission from here to eternity, if need be, is the solving of the mystery of the
disappearing single sock."
THE BUREAU TODAY
The
Bureau of Missing Socks is the only organization in the
world devoted solely to unraveling the mystery of the single
disappearing sock. It is an arm of the United States government
no less important than the State Department and Department of
Defense. Its existence up to this time has been a well-guarded
secret but since it takes such a big bite out of your tax dollar
it’s time that you know how it is being spent.
Its headquarters are located on a bluff high above the Potomac River in
Washington, D. C. in a twenty four acre office park divided into four distinct
areas. The campus containing administrative, research, data and laboratory
facilities, the Museum (which is the only area of our installation open to the
general public), the SWAT team training area, containing the high risk
experimentation area, and the director’s residence compound.
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