Frank H. Alfriend

OPERATION’S OF GENERAL TAYLOR IN LOUISIANA—THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY IRRECOVERABLY LOST TO THE CONFEDERACY—FEDERALS FOILED AT CHARLESTON—THE DIMINISHED CONFIDENCE OF THE SOUTH—FINANCIAL DERANGEMENT—DEFECTIVE FINANCIAL SYSTEM OF THE SOUTH—MR. DAVIS’ LIMITED CONNECTION WITH IT—THE REASONS FOR THE FINANCIAL FAILURE OF THE CONFEDERACY—INFLUENCE OF SPECULATION—ANOMALOUS SITUATION OF THE SOUTH—MR. DAVIS’ VIEWS OF THE FINANCIAL POLICY OF THE SOUTH AT THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR—MILITARY OPERATIONS IN TENNESSEE—BRAGG RETREATS TO CHATTANOOGA—MORGAN’S EXPEDITION—SURRENDER OF CUMBERLAND GAP—FEDERAL OCCUPATION OF CHATTANOOGA—BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA—BRAGG’S EXPECTATIONS—GRANTS OPERATIONS—BRAGG BADLY DEFEATED—PRESIDENT DAVIS’ VIEW OF THE DISASTER—GENERAL BRAGG RELIEVED FROM COMMAND OF THE WESTERN ARMY—CENSURE OF THIS OFFICER—HIS MERITS AND SERVICES—THE UNJUST CENSURE OF MR. DAVIS AND GENERAL BRAGG FOR THE REVERSES IN THE WEST—OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA IN THE LATTER PART OF 1863—CONDITION OF THE SOUTH AT THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR—SIGNS OF EXHAUSTION—PRESIDENT DAVIS’ RECOMMENDATIONS—PUBLIC DESPONDENCY—THE WORK OF FACTION—ABUSE OF MR. DAVIS IN CONGRESS—THE CONTRAST BETWEEN HIMSELF AND HIS ASSAILANTS—DEFICIENCY OF FOOD—HOW CAUSED—THE CONFEDERACY EVENTUALLY CONQUERED BY STARVATION.

Though indicating that stage of the war, when began the steady decline of the Confederacy, the summer of 1863 was not wholly unredeemed by successes, which, however transient in significance, threw no mean lustre upon Southern arms.

A series of brilliant operations marked the career of General Richard Taylor in Lower Louisiana. Preceded by a successful campaign in the Lafourche region, an expedition was undertaken by General Taylor against Brashear City, in the latter days of June. A strong and important position was carried, and eighteen hundred prisoners, with over five millions of dollars worth of stores, were captured. For some time the hope was indulged, that this success of General Taylor would compel the abandonment of the Federal siege of Port Hudson, and that Taylor could also make a successful diversion in favor of Vicksburg. This hope was disappointed, and Taylor, not having the strength to cope with the large force of the enemy sent against him, after the fall of the Mississippi strongholds, was forced to abandon the country which he had so gallantly won. The valley of the Mississippi was irrecoverably in Federal possession, and the Confederacy was able at no subsequent stage of the war, to undertake any serious enterprise for its redemption.

At Charleston the Federal fleet and land forces continued, during the summer, their fruitless and expensive attacks. The skill of General Beauregard, and the firmness of his small command, made memorable the siege of that devoted city, so hated and coveted by the North, yet among the last prizes to fall into its hands.

But momentary gleams of hope were insufficient to dispel the shadow of disaster, which, by midsummer, seemed to have settled upon the fate of the Confederacy. The violent blow dealt the material capacity of the South by the surrender of Vicksburg; the diminished prestige, from the serious check at Gettysburg, in its wondrous career of victory, and the frightful losses of the Army of Northern Virginia, were immediately followed by a marked abatement of that unwavering confidence in the ultimate result, which had previously so stimulated the energy of the South.The material disability and embarrassment resulting from the possession, by the enemy, of large sections of the Confederacy, and consequent contraction of its territorial area; the destruction of property; the serious disturbance of the whole commercial system of the South, by the loss of Vicksburg; and the diminished confidence of the public, were attended by a fatal derangement of the already failing Confederate system of finance.

In the American war, as in all wars, the question of finance entered largely into the decision of the result. At an early period many sagacious minds declared that the contest would finally be resolved into a question as to which of the belligerents “had the longer purse.” In acceptance of this view, the belief was largely entertained that the financial distress in the South, consequent upon the heavy reverses of this period, clearly portended the failure of the Confederacy.

President Davis, since the war, has avowed his appreciation of the financial difficulties of the South, as a controlling influence in the failure of the cause. By unanimous consent, the management of the Confederate finances has been declared to have been defective. The universal distress attendant upon a depreciated currency, which rarely improved in seasons of military success, and grew rapidly worse with each disaster, rendered the financial feature of Mr. Davis’ administration, peculiarly vulnerable to the industry of a class ever on the alert for a pretext available to excite popular distrust of the President. With entire justice, we might dismiss this subject, claiming for Mr. Davis the benefit of the plea which always allows a ruler some exemption from responsibility for the errors of a subordinate. We have rarely sought to fasten culpability upon those who differed with him, in some instances, perhaps where it would have more clearly established his own exculpation. No act or utterance of Mr. Davis could be urged to show that he ever claimed for himself the benefit of such a plea. Fidelity to his friends is a trait in his character, not less worthy of admiration than magnanimity and forbearance to his foes. His ardent and sympathetic nature doubtless often condoned the errors of those whose motives he knew to be good; but his friends can testify that he far more frequently overlooked the asperities of his enemies.[68]We have elsewhere explained the appointment of Mr. Memminger, as having been dictated by other considerations than that of a reliance upon his special fitness. But while doubting his capacity for his difficult and anomalous situation, we are not so sure that he exhibited such marked unfitness as should have forbidden his retention in office, and called for the appointment of another, with the expectation of a more satisfactory administration. In the end, yielding to the vast pressure against him, Mr. Memminger left the cabinet, and Mr. Davis appointed, as his successor, a gentleman unknown to himself, but recommended as the possessor of financial talents of a high order. When Mr. Trenholm became Secretary of the Treasury, the opportunity for reform had long since passed, if, indeed, such an opportunity existed after the repulse at Gettysburg and the surrender of Vicksburg. It is hardly within the range of probability, that, after those reverses, any conceivable ingenuity could have arrested the downward tendency of Confederate finances. In the history of Confederate finance, before those disasters, is to be found much extenuation, if not ample apology, for a system which was imposed by the force of circumstances and the novelty of the situation, rather than by the errors of one man, or a number of men.

In his message of December, 1863, Mr. Davis reviewed the subject in all its phases, as it had been presented up to that period, and sketched the plan, afterwards adopted by Congress, but without the result hoped for of increasing the value of the currency, by compulsory funding and large taxation. His discussion of this subject was always characterized by perspicuity and force, but finance was that branch of administration with which he affected the least familiarity, and which he least assumed to direct. Knowing the profound and unremitting attention which the subject required, he sought the aid of others competent for the inquiry, which he had little leisure to pursue.

This subject, during the entire war, was a fruitful theme for the disquisitions of charlatans. Finance is a subject confessedly intricate, and but few men in any country are capable of able administration of this branch of government. Yet the Confederacy swarmed with pretenders, advocating opposing theories, which their authors, in every case, declared to be infallible. The Confederate administration neither wanted for advisers, nor did it fail to seek the advice of those who were reputed to have financial abilities. Its errors were, to a large degree, shared by the ablest statesmen of the South.

Criticism is proverbially easy and cheap, after the result is ascertained, and we now readily see the leading causes of the depreciation of Confederate money. In the last twelve months of the war, the rapid and uninterrupted depreciation was occasioned by the want of confidence in the success of the cause, on the part of those who controlled the value of the money. Such was the alarm and distrust consequent upon the disasters of July, 1863, that the Confederate currency is stated to have declined a thousand per cent., within a few weeks. Previous to that period the decline was gradual, but far less alarming in its indications. The plan adopted by the Government, partly in deference to popular prejudice against direct taxation by the general Government, and partly as a necessity of the situation—that of credit in the form of paper issues, followed by the enormous issues necessary to meet the expenses of a war, increasing daily in magnitude—pampered the spirit of speculation, which, by the close of the second year, had become almost universal. This latter influence may safely be declared to have greatly accelerated the unfortunate result, and the extent of its prevalence reflects an unpleasant shadow upon the otherwise unmarred fame of the South for self-denying patriotism.

It is customary to speak of the financial management of the Confederacy in especial disparagement, when contrasted with that of the North. The injustice of this contrast, however, is palpable. We are not required to disparage the Federal financial system—which was, indeed, conducted with consummate tact and ingenuity—to extenuate the errors, in this respect, of the Confederacy. The circumstances of the antagonists were altogether different; the position of the South financially, as in other respects, was peculiar and anomalous. Completely isolated, with a large territory, with virtually no specie circulation,[69] hastily summoned to meet the exigencies of the most gigantic war of modern times, the South had no alternative but to resort to an entirely artificial, and, to some extent, untried system of finance. From the outset, the basis of the Confederate system was the patriotism and the confidence of the people. The first was nobly steadfast, but the second was necessarily dependent upon military success. When at last the virtual collapse of the credit indicated the increasing public despondency, it was plain that a catastrophe was near at hand.

It has been generally agreed that the only scheme by which the South could have assured her credit, was to have sent large amounts of cotton to Europe, during the first year of the war, while the blockade was not effective. This plan, if successfully carried out, would have given the Confederacy a cash basis in Europe of several hundred millions in gold, in consequence of the high prices commanded by cotton afterwards. With even tolerable management, the Confederacy would thus have been assured means to meet the necessities of the war. The merit of this plan depended largely upon its practicability. Mr. Davis approved it, but it is easy to imagine how—engrossed with his multifarious cares, and occupied in meeting the pressing exigencies of each day—he lacked opportunity to mature and execute a measure of so much responsibility.

While the campaign in Mississippi, which terminated so disastrously, was still pending, General Bragg continued to occupy his position in Southern Tennessee. Too weak to attack Rosecrans, because of the reduction of his army, by the reinforcements sent to the Mississippi, Bragg was able merely to maintain a vigilant observation of his adversary. After the fall of Vicksburg General Rosecrans received reËnforcements sufficient to justify an advance against the Confederates. After an obstinate resistance the Confederate commander was flanked by a force, which the superior strength of his antagonist enabled him to detach, and abandoned a line of great natural strength, and strongly fortified. This was an important success to the enemy, who were hereafter able, with much better prospects, to undertake expeditions against the heart of the Confederacy. General Bragg extricated his army from a perilous position, and made a successful retreat to Chattanooga. Auxiliary to the retreat of Bragg was the diversion made by General John Morgan, which occasioned the detachment of a portion of Burnside’s forces from East Tennessee, which threatened Bragg’s rear. The expedition of Morgan was pushed by that daring officer through Kentucky and across the Ohio, to the great alarm of the States upon the border of that river, but ended in the capture of Morgan and nearly all his command.

A most painful surprise to the South was the surrender of Cumberland Gap, early in September. This was a serious blow at the whole system of defense in Tennessee and the adjacent States. A Richmond newspaper declared that the possession of Cumberland Gap gave the enemy the “key to the back-door of Virginia and the Confederacy.” The officer in command of the position was severely censured by the country, and though he has since explained his conduct in terms, which appear to be satisfactory, the impression prevailed until the end of the war, that the loss of this most important position was caused by gross misconduct. The comment of President Davis explains the serious nature of this affair: “The entire garrison, including the commander, being still held prisoners by the enemy, I am unable to suggest any explanation of this disaster, which laid open Eastern Tennessee and South-western Virginia to hostile operations, and broke the line of communication between the seat of government and Middle Tennessee. This easy success of the enemy was followed by the advance of General Rosecrans into Georgia, and our army evacuated Chattanooga.”

Thus the coÖperating movements of Rosecrans in Middle Tennessee, and of Burnside in East Tennessee, had the ample reward of expelling the Confederates from their strong lines of defense in the mountains. Cumberland Gap controlled the most important line of communication in the Confederacy. Chattanooga was the portal from which the enemy could debouch upon the level country of the Gulf and Atlantic States. The capture of Vicksburg and seizure of the Mississippi Valley, by which the Confederacy was sundered, was the first stage of conquest. Chattanooga was now the base from which was to be attempted the next great step of Federal ambition—the second bisection of the Confederacy.

When Rosecrans advanced into Georgia, after his occupation of Chattanooga, the aspect of affairs was exceedingly threatening, and it became necessary to strengthen Bragg sufficiently to enable him to give battle, and thus check the advance of the enterprising Federal commander. With this view the corps of Longstreet was temporarily detached from Lee, and sent to Bragg. This accession to his forces gave General Bragg the opportunity of winning one of the most brilliant victories of the war. The signal defeat of Rosecrans was followed by his precipitate retreat into Chattanooga, closely pressed by Bragg.

For weeks the Federal army was besieged with a good prospect for its ultimate surrender. The imperiled position of Rosecrans had the effect of relieving the pressure of invasion at other points, forcing the concentration, for his relief, of large bodies of troops withdrawn from the armies in the Mississippi Valley and in Northern Virginia. General Bragg made an able disposition of his forces in the neighborhood of Chattanooga, and awaited with confidence the surrender of Rosecrans. He subsequently said: “These dispositions, faithfully sustained, ensured the enemy’s speedy evacuation of Chattanooga for want of food and forage. Possessed of the shortest road to his depot, and the one by which reËnforcements must reach him, we held him at our mercy, and his destruction was only a question of time.”

The situation fully justified this statement. So crippled was Rosecrans by his defeat at Chickamauga, that an attack upon Bragg was out of the question. The alternative of starvation, or retreat, seemed forced upon the Federal army. The roads in its rear were in a terrible condition, and the distance over which its supplies had to be drawn, was sixty miles. At this critical moment, General Grant, whose command had been enlarged, after his success at Vicksburg, and now embraced the three main Federal armies in the West, reached the field of operations. Grant immediately executed a plan of characteristic boldness, by which he effected a lodgment on the south side of the Tennessee River, and secured new lines of communication, thus relieving the beleaguered army. General Longstreet, to whom the holding of this all-important route was confided, made an unsuccessful night attack designed to defeat Grant’s movement.

Having relieved the Federal army of the apprehension of starvation or a disastrous retreat, Grant now meditated operations, which, however hazardous, or however in violation of probability may have been their success, were fully vindicated by the result. Waiting until he thought his accumulation of forces sufficient to justify an assault upon the strong positions of the Confederates, Grant finally made a vigorous and well-planned attack with nearly his entire force. The result was a disastrous defeat and retreat of Bragg’s army. General Grant claimed, as the fruits of his victory, seven thousand prisoners and nearly fifty pieces of artillery.

There were circumstances attending this battle peculiarly discouraging to the South. These circumstances were thus commented upon by President Davis:

“After a long and severe battle, in which great carnage was inflicted on him, some of our troops inexplicably abandoned positions of great strength, and, by a disorderly retreat, compelled the commander to withdraw the forces elsewhere successful, and finally to retire with his whole army to a position some twenty or thirty miles to the rear. It is believed that if the troops who yielded to the assault had fought with the valor which they had displayed on previous occasions, and which was manifested in this battle on the other parts of the line, the enemy would have been repulsed with very great slaughter, and our country would have escaped the misfortune, and the army the mortification of the first defeat that has resulted from misconduct by the troops.”

With this disastrous battle terminated the connection of General Bragg with the army, which he commanded during a large portion of its varied career. Fully acknowledging his defeat, General Bragg candidly avowed to the Government the extent of a reverse, which he declared disabled him from any serious resistance, should the Federal commander press his success. At his own request he was relieved, and, seeking recuperation for his shattered health, was not assigned to duty until February, 1864, when President Davis ordered him to the discharge of the duties of “Commanding General,” at Richmond, the position held by General Lee before his transfer to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia.No commander was more harshly criticised than Bragg, and the unfortunate career of the Western army, under his command, was an inexhaustible theme for diatribe and invective from the opponents of the Confederate administration. Bragg was often declared to be, at once the most incompetent and unlucky of the “President’s favorites.” Yet nothing is more certain than that an impartial review of his military career will demonstrate General Bragg to have been a soldier of rare and superior merit. It certainly can not be claimed that his campaigns exhibited the brilliant and solid achievements of several of those conducted by Lee, or of the Valley campaigns of Jackson. The great disparity of numbers and means of the two sections, enabled few Confederate commanders to achieve the distinction of unmarred success, even before that period of decline when disaster was the rule, and victory the exception with the Confederate forces.

But Bragg can not justly be denied the merit of having, with most inadequate means, long deferred the execution of the Federal conquest of the West. At the time of his assumption of command, in June, 1862, the armies of Grant and Buell, nearly double his own aggregate of forces, were overrunning the northern borders of the Gulf States, and threatening the very heart of the Confederacy. His masterly combinations, attended by loss altogether disproportioned to the results accomplished, recovered large sections of territory, which had been for months the easy prey of the enemy, and transferred the seat of war to Middle Tennessee. Here he maintained his position for nearly a year, vigorously assailing the enemy at every opportunity, constantly menacing his communications, and firmly holding his important line, in the face of overwhelming odds, while the Confederate armies in every other quarter were losing ground. Finally, when forced back by the concentration of Federal forces, released by their successes elsewhere, Bragg skillfully eluded the combinations for his destruction, and, at an opportune moment, delivered Rosecrans one of the most timely and stunning blows inflicted during the war. No fact of the war is more clearly established than Bragg’s exculpation from any responsibility for the escape of the Federal army from the field of Chickamauga. His positive commands were disobeyed, his plan of battle threatened with entire derangement by the errors of subordinates, and the escape of Rosecrans secured by the same causes. But still more cruel was the disappointment of Bragg’s well-grounded expectation of a successful siege of Chattanooga. So clear is his exculpation in this case, that no investigation of facts, severely reflecting upon others, is required.

While the controversy between Bragg and Longstreet was pending, some disposition was manifested to censure the former for his rejection of a plan of campaign proposed by Longstreet after the victory of Chickamauga. The latter officer suggested crossing the Tennessee above Chattanooga, and then moving upon the enemy’s rear, with a view to force him back upon Nashville. The pregnant criticism of General Bragg quickly disposes of the suggestion. Said he: “The suggestion of a movement by our right, immediately after the battle, to the north of the Tennessee, and thence upon Nashville, requires notice only because it will find a place on the files of the department. Such a movement was utterly impossible for want of transportation. Nearly half our army consisted of reËnforcements just before the battle, without a wagon or an artillery horse, and nearly, if not quite, a third of the artillery horses on the field had been lost. The railroad bridges, too, had been destroyed to a point south of Ringgold, and on all the road from Cleveland to Knoxville. To these insurmountable difficulties were added the entire absence of means to cross the river, except by fording at a few precarious points too deep for artillery, and the well-known danger of sudden rises, by which all communication would be cut off, a contingency which did actually happen a few days after the visionary scheme was abandoned.” General Bragg continues a recitation of cogent considerations in support of his objections to a plan which he declares utterly wanting in “military propriety.”

The culmination of Bragg’s unpopularity was his defeat at Missionary Ridge. No officer, save Lee, could, by any possibility, have hoped for a dispassionate judgment by the public, at this desperate stage of the war, of an affair so calamitous. The real explanation of that battle was unquestionably contained in the extract from President Davis’ message previously given. Although Bragg could oppose but little more than thirty thousand troops to the eighty thousand which Grant threw against him, the strength of his position would have compensated for this disparity, had his troops fought with the usual spirit of Confederate soldiers.

It was not to be anticipated that the enemies of the President in Congress and the hostile press would fail to find a pretext upon which to throw the responsibility upon Mr. Davis. The disaster was declared to have resulted from the detachment of Longstreet for an expedition into East Tennessee. It is only necessary to state the facts of the case to show the falsity and injustice of this criticism. In the first place, as we have already stated, Bragg’s force was sufficient to hold his tremendously strong position without Longstreet, should his army fight with its usual spirit. Secondly, Longstreet’s corps was a part of Lee’s army, detached for a purely temporary purpose with Bragg, and its absence was a source of constant anxiety to General Lee. This temporary purpose was well served at the battle of Chickamauga, which Bragg designed to be a destructive blow, and which failed in a part of its purpose, through no fault of that commander.

It was never intended to leave Longstreet in the West any longer than was necessary to relieve Bragg in his great exigency after the evacuation of Chattanooga. That result being accomplished, Longstreet was detained for a few weeks, in the expectation that Rosecrans, driven to desperation by his necessities, would attempt to retreat, in which event, Longstreet could perform valuable service in aiding to destroy the Federal army. When Grant, however, opened the Federal communications, and Longstreet was foiled in his effort to prevent it, there was no longer a sufficient reason for his detention so far from Lee. Accordingly, he was sent through East Tennessee, with the double design of opening communication with Virginia, where, at any moment, he might be needed, and of clearing East Tennessee of the forces of Burnside.

Had Longstreet’s expedition been successful, it can not be doubted that the pressure against Bragg would have been immediately relieved, and a vital section restored to the Confederacy. We can not pause, however, to review the incidents of General Longstreet’s movement, nor to revive the controversy between himself and a subordinate, evoked by an expedition whose results exhibited few features of success.

President Davis, better acquainted with the facts of the war than the critics who so often mislead the public, held General Bragg in that high estimation to which his unquestioned patriotism and his military qualities entitled him. Of General Bragg it may be fairly said that he made the most of his opportunities and his means. If he made retreats, they were always preceded by bloody fights, and marked by obstinate resistance. If his constrained and sullen retreats lost territory, they were not comparable in that respect with that mysterious “strategy” of other commanders in high favor with the opponents of Mr. Davis, which eventually threatened to “toll” the enemy to the Atlantic coast, or the Gulf of Mexico, without once bringing him to a general engagement.

Bragg never feared to stake his fame on the gage of battle, and, if he sustained reverses, he won many more victories. An educated soldier, he was also a rigid disciplinarian, and had little toleration for the demagogism so conspicuous in volunteer armies. This was the occasion of much of the personal enmity by which he was embarrassed both in and out of the army. But, whatever the justice of the public condemnation of Bragg, his period of usefulness in the Western army was at an end. Very soon afterwards General Joseph E. Johnston took command of the army in Northern Georgia.

The two armies in Virginia, weakened by the detachments from each sent to the West, continued inactive until autumn. In October, General Lee prepared a brilliant campaign, the object of which was to place his army between General Meade and Washington. Meade, though forced back to the neighborhood of Manassas and Centreville, had become apprized of Lee’s movement in time to prevent the consummation of the strategy of the Confederate commander. An incident of the expedition was the severe repulse of a part of General Hill’s command, attended with considerable loss. Meanwhile, General Imboden, coÖperating with the movements of the main army, captured several hundred prisoners and valuable stores in the Shenandoah Valley. Early in November, nearly two thousand Confederates were captured at Rappahannock Station by a movement marked by skill and gallantry on the part of General Sedgwick. The campaign in Northern Virginia terminated with a handsome success by the division of General Edward Johnson over a large detachment from Meade’s army at Mine Run. In December, General Averill, with a force of Federal cavalry, made a destructive raid into South-western Virginia, and destroyed portions of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad.

At the close of 1863, there were many signs of the approaching exhaustion of the South, yet there was good reason to hope that, by a vigorous use of means yet remaining, the war might be brought to a favorable conclusion. The peace party of the North, despite the increased strength and popularity of Mr. Lincoln’s administration, resulting from the Federal successes of the summer, was evidently becoming more bold and defiant. The whole North, too, was disappointed at the prospect of an indefinite resistance by the South. Gettysburg and Vicksburg were not followed, as had been anticipated, by the immediate collapse of the Confederacy. Under such circumstances, the South had much to anticipate from a bold and defiant front at the opening of the next campaign. Unquestionably its resources were less adequate than before, but there was evidently capacity to prolong the war for an almost indefinite period. Thus, while the Confederacy could not cherish the hope of daring exploits at the opening of the campaign, which should again make the enemy apprehensive for his own homes, there was a well-grounded anticipation of a successful defensive, which should wear out the enemy’s ardor, and again present opportunities for bold enterprise.

The message of President Davis to Congress, which met early in December, was one of his ablest productions. Reviewing the entire field of the war, in its more important phases, it was equally remarkable for its frank statement of the situation, and for the energetic policy recommended.

There could be no difficulty in comprehending the needs of the Confederacy at this distressing period. The three great elements of war—men, money, and subsistence—were now demanded to a greatly increased extent. In nothing was the campaign of 1863 more fatal, than in the terrible losses inflicted on the armies of the Confederacy. At the close of the year, the Army of Northern Virginia, including the absent corps of Longstreet, was weaker, by more than a third of the force carried into Pennsylvania. The losses of the Western army had fearfully diminished its strength, and its frequent disasters had greatly impaired its morale. Measures were now required which should repair the losses, and, if possible, increase the army beyond its strength at the opening of the previous campaign, in order to meet the enormous conscription preparing at the North.

President Davis indicated the following methods of adding to the army: “Restoring to the army all who are improperly absent, putting an end to substitution, modifying the exemption law, restricting details, and placing in the ranks such of the able-bodied men now employed as wagoners, nurses, cooks, and other employÉs as are doing service, for which the negroes may be found competent.”

These were evidently the last expedients by which the Confederate armies could be recruited from the white population. By successive enactments Congress had empowered the President to call into the field all persons between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. The exigency consequent upon the reverses of the summer had necessitated the requisition of the last reserves provided by Congress—the class between forty and forty-five. Conscription had failed to give the effective strength calculated upon. Each extension of the law exhibited, in the result, an accession of numbers greatly below the estimate upon which it was based. This was largely due to the inefficient execution of the law, and to the opposition which it encountered in many localities. But the results also indicated a most exaggerated estimate of the available arms-bearing population of the South. In the latter part of 1863, the rolls of the Adjutant-General’s office in Richmond showed a little more than four hundred thousand men under arms; and Secretary Seddon stated that, from desertions and other causes, “not more than a half—never two-thirds—of the soldiers were in the ranks.”

The message of Mr. Davis indicated defective features in the system of conscription, and suggested improvements as follows:

The message further recommended legislation replacing “not only enlisted cooks, but wagoners, and other employÉs in the army, by negroes.” From these measures the President expected that the army would be “so strengthened, for the ensuing campaign, as to put at defiance the utmost efforts of the enemy.”

But the meagre results of conscription revealed not only an excessive calculation of the numerical strength of the Confederacy; they indicated the reluctance with which the harsh necessities of the war, in its later stages, were met. As the war was protracted, popular ardor naturally waned, and in the presence of losses and reverses, the spirit of voluntary sacrifice gradually disappeared. Draft and impressment were now required to obtain the services and the means, which, in the beginning, were lavishly proffered.

Partially the result of a natural popular weariness of the increasing exactions of a long and exhaustive struggle, these were also the legitimate fruits of the distrust so assiduously inculcated by the fault-finders. When reverses to their armies came with appalling rapidity, and, in many instances, in spite of the exertions of their ablest and most popular leaders, the people saw confidence and industry only in their Government, and that Government they were constantly taught to believe grossly incompetent and unworthy. Under such circumstances, how could there be that unity and coÖperation, without which the cause was preordained to failure? In that industry which sought every possible occasion for censure, that ingenuity which exaggerated every error, that intemperance which filled the halls of Congress with denunciation, and the land with clamor and discontent, the North at last found allies which ably assisted its armies.

More violent, intemperate, and unscrupulous than ever, were the assaults upon the administration, in that long period of agony which followed the disasters in Mississippi and Pennsylvania. Such was an appropriate occasion, when a grief-stricken country implored the unanimity which alone could bring relief, for agitation, revenge, and invective. In Congress Mr. Davis was assailed with furious vituperation, because he had refused, at the instance of a member, to remove Bragg, and place Johnston in command of the Western army. Yet General Johnston, after a visit to Tennessee, earnestly advised the President not to remove Bragg, as the public interests would suffer by that step. Almost daily Mr. Davis was assailed for not having properly estimated the war, in the diatribes of an able editor, who himself, but a few weeks before hostilities opened, declared there would be no war. Of such a character were the accusers and the accusations.

If Jefferson Davis courted revenge, he could find ample satisfaction in the contrast between himself and some of his foremost accusers, which the sequel has drawn. He fell at last, but only when that cause was lost, which he unselfishly loved, and which his heart followed to its glorious grave. His name is already immortal—the embodiment of the heroism, the virtues, the sufferings, the glory of a people who revere him and scorn his persecutors. Nor can the South forget that many, who, during her arduous struggle, constantly assailed her chosen ruler, have since taken refuge in the camp of those who first conquered, and now seek to degrade her people.

A source of universal alarm in the South, at this period, was the deficiency of food. We have elsewhere quoted freely the admonitions of President Davis respecting the question of supplies, and indicating the cause which led to so much suffering in the armies of the Confederacy. Ever since the loss of large sections of Tennessee, in the spring of 1862, this subject had occasioned anxiety. Without entering into details, it may be briefly stated, that, with the loss of Kentucky and the larger portion of Tennessee, the Confederacy lost the main source of its supplies of meat. As other sections were occupied by the enemy, and communications were destroyed, the area of the Confederacy became more and more contracted, and its sources of supply still more limited. Even when supplies were abundant in many quarters, the armies in the field suffered actual want, in consequence of the want of transportation, and of the remoteness of the supplies from the lines of the railroads.

But while the meat in the Confederacy was rapidly diminishing in quantity, as the Federal armies advanced, and seized or destroyed every thing in the shape of subsistence, the army was still deprived of supplies which should have been made available. The unpatriotic practice of hoarding supplies—a temptation suggested by the rife spirit of speculation, arising from a redundant and depreciated currency—necessitated the passage of impressment laws. These laws were practically rendered nugatory by the inadequate provisions for their execution. In no respect was the timid and demagogical legislation of the Confederate Congress, so illustrated as by its adoption of a system of impressment, which aggravated the very evil it was designed to remedy.

Various expedients were attempted, with partial success, for obtaining subsistence beyond the limits of the Confederacy. It will be readily seen, however, how precarious was this dependence. It was impossible for the Confederacy to maintain its armies, while its resources in every other respect were rapidly reaching the point of exhaustion. In the end the want of food proved the most efficient adversary of the South. The final military catastrophe made the Federal army master of a country already half conquered by starvation.[70]