Gorgas established armories and foundries and created the Nitre Bureau to search for alternative sources of nitre. He implemented President Davis's wish and helped facilitate the commissioning of George Washington Rains, a North Carolina native and West Point graduate with extensive military service who was working as a Northern industrialist when the war broke out. Rains, a scientist of high order, established the Augusta Powder Works in Augusta, Georgia, which supplied almost all of the powder for the Confederacy. Thanks to his and Rains's efforts, the Southern armies never lacked weapons or gunpowder, though they were short on almost everything else. On November 10, 1864, Gorgas was promoted to brigadier general.