COMMERCIAL SPECULATION IN THE WAR. 427 ence between that sum and the nominal cost measures the aggregate depreciation of the money. The principal cause of the depreciation of this money, in the last twelve months of the war, was the distrust of success entertained by the classes who controlled the value of the money. The principal causes of its deprecation in the antecedent period, were the excessive issues of it by Government, and the influence of speculation. It is probably useless to declaim against a vice so prejudicial as speculation to both the individual and general interests of a country circumstanced like the Confederacy. It is a display of the worst form of selfishness; a selfishness that feeds upon the privation, want, and necessity of fellow-citizens engaged in mortal struggle with a formidable public enemy; a selfishness that appropriates all that it can grasp, at a time when each individual should give up for the general good all that can be spared; a selfishness worse than that for which Ananias and Sapphira were struck down by the hand of God, inasmuch as it seeks not only to withhold what is one's own, but to engross also whatever else can be compassed by craft and greed. The best communities contain persons of this sordid temper; and the temptation to its indulgence in a country isolated and beleaguered by armies and blockading fleets, where the supplies of every article are limited, are too strong to be resisted by the class whose inclinations are set in that direction. The speculation commenced in such articles as cut nails, salt, and leather. There were but two nail factories in the Confederacy, and the stocks of these establishments were accessible and easily engrossed. Within the first six months of the war, the entire stock of cut nails in the Confederacy were in the hands of less than half a dozen speculators in Richmond; and the price was abruptly put up from four dollars to seven, and then to ten per keg. There was but one considerable saline in the Confederacy, and this was operated by a single firm, which ran up the price of this prime necessary of life, within two years, from the ante-war price of one cent per pound, to twenty-five cents per pound in specie or fifty cents in Treasury notes. Leather was one of those articles which, though tanned in very numerous establishments conducted on a small scale throughout the country, yet was everywhere found to be in smaller quantity than was needed by the people, and which might safely be bought up right and left wherever found. These are but examples of the subjects of the speculation and extortion that became rife throughout the Confederacy. The effect was greatly to augment and aggravate the burden of the war upon the people; but its most serious evil was in the depreciating influence it exerted upon the currency. The great mass of the people were desirous to receive this money at the normal rates; but finding themselves obliged to pay extortionate prices for commodities which they stood in need of purchasing, they were driven, against their will, to demand increased prices for the products and property which they sold. The fury and intensity of speculation forced the people into reluctant acquiescence in the depreciation of the currency. But there is this consolatory observation to be made on the subject: namely, that the classes who devoted themselves assiduously to speculation, as a general rule, came out losers at the close of the war; while the masses of people who eschewed this disreputable avocation, generally saved a comfortable portion of their original means. That the depreciation of the Confederate currency was partially superinduced by speculation and circumstances other than its mere redundancy, is sufficiently proved by the fact, that the grand total of circulation in the North reached the stupendous figure of nine hundred and fifty millions of dollars, while the depreciation of greenbacks, at the close of the war, was less than one and a half for one. It is plain, therefore, that depreciation is not the necessary result of mere redundancy, and may be prevented by provident and timely measures. The ability with which the Federal finances were conducted, especially in avoiding this depreciation, is one of the most remarkable incidents of the war. If early and proper measures had been adopted, the Confederate currency would doubtless, likewise, have proved as manageable as any other branch of the Confederate finances. These measures should have looked to the provision of an adequate demand for the circulation that was issued in such profusion. This demand could have been abundantly established by means of taxation, of the sale of Government bonds of long dates, and by the intervention of a system of discounts through the instrumentality of a Bank of Exchequer. The circulation should not have been issued directly from the Treasury. It should have been placed under the absolute control of an issuing agency, which would have served as a regulator and balance-sheet in the movement, and preserved an equilibrium between the efflux and influx of the circulation. Taxation should have been imposed from the beginning, and executed promptly; not postponed several years, and then tardily put in force. The sales of bonds should have been conducted by a great and respectable banking institution, directed by eminent and reputable financiers; not entrusted to ignorant and irresponsible stock and exchange brokers. Such a financial institution could have. established and maintained an influx of the circulation commensurate with the efflux. With this reflux in full flow, the volume of the currency might have been increased with impunity. And, if, besides, the circulation had been in the form of notes of the bank, rather than in that of notes of the Treasury; then, when the unfortunate end came, the debts due to the bank would still have given a partial value to this circulation; and prevented the total wreck of cash means which at last overtook the people of the South. CHAPTER XXVI. 9966 THE THE NEW ATTEMPT UPON FORT SUMTER AND CHARLESTON.-GEN. GILLMORE'S COMMAND.-HIS THE most remarkable military event of the midsummer of 1863 was the successful defence of Charleston against a most imposing demonstration of the enemy's power by land and by sea. We have seen how unsuccessful was the naval attack upon this city in April, 1863. It was not long, however, before another attempt was planned upon Fort Sumter and Charleston, the steps of which were the military occupation of Morris Island and the establishment of batteries on that island to assist in the reduction of Fort Sumter. The establishment of these batteries and the reduction of the Confederate works-Fort Wagner and Battery Gregg-was a matter of great engineering skill, and Gen. Q. A. Gillmore was selected to command the land forces of the enemy engaged in these operations. Morris Island was on the south side of the entrance to the harbour, about three and a half miles in length, low, narrow, and sandy, and separated from the mainland adjacent to it by soft, deep, and impracticable marshes. Its capture, although principally designed to open a way to the enemy's iron-clads, would also serve the purpose of making the blockade of Charleston harbour more thorough and complete, by allowing a portion or all of the blockading fleet to lie inside the bar. But the most important object, as we have indicated, was to secure a position whence it was hoped Fort Sumter might be demolished, and the co-operation of a heavy artillery fire extended to the fleet, when it was ready to move in, run by the batteries on James and Sullivan's Islands, and reach the city. Gen. Gillmore assumed command on the 12th June, and at once proposed to commence a base of operations on Folly Island. This island, the south end of which controlled the waters of Stone Harbour and Inlet and the water approaches from James Island, had been occupied in force by the enemy since the 7th April.' But Gen. Beauregard appears to have had no idea of what was going on there; he never made a reconnoisance of the enemy's outposts on the island; and he was bitterly accused in the Richmond Sentinel, the organ of President Davis' administration, for a want of vigilance, which had permitted the enemy, unknown to him, to construct a base of operations actually within speaking distance of his pickets. It is true that the enemy threw up earthworks and mounted heavy guns on Folly Island under a screen of thick undergrowth; but it is certainly to the last degree surprising that he should have succeeded in secretly placing in battery forty-seven pieces of artillery so near to the Confederate lines that a loud word might have revealed the work, and exposed moreover to a flank and reverse view from their tall observatories on James Island. Indeed there was a circumstance yet more curious. A blockade runner had been chased ashore just south of the entrance to Lighthouse Inlet, and it actually occurred that the vessel was wrecked by Confederate soldiers within pistol range of the enemy's battery on Folly Island, without their being in the least aware of such a grim neighbour. This battery was ready to open fire on the 6th July. A plan of attack upon Morris Island was now deliberately formed, one part of which was a strong demonstration of Gen. Terry's division, some four thousand infantry, on James Island so as to draw off a portion of the Confederate force on Morris Island. While this demonstration was taking place, two thousand men of Gen. Strong's brigade were to embark in small boats in Folly River, effect a landing on Morris Island, and, at a given signal, attempt to carry Fort Wagner by assault. The batteries on the north end of Folly ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER. 431 Island were also ordered to be unmasked, by opening out the embrasures and cutting away the brushwood in front of them. At daybreak of the 10th July, forty launches containing Strong's assaulting column crept up Folly River with muffled oar-locks; the ironclad fleet crossed the bar, and took up its position in the main ship-channel off Morris Island; two hundred axemen suddenly sprung from behind the batteries on Folly Island, and felled the trees which hid them from view; embrasure after embrasure was laid bare; and at five o'clock the first gun was heard from the suddenly revealed battery, and the dense white smoke which rose above the tall pines marked the new line of conflict. Meanwhile the assaulting column had landed; the Confederate lines were drawn within eight hundred yards of Fort Wagner; and offensive operations were suspended for the day. An assault on Fort Wagner was ordered at five o'clock the next morning. The Seventh Connecticut Regiment was to take the lead, followed by the Seventy-Sixth Pennsylvania and Ninth Maine. Gen. Strong, who led the assaulting column, gave a Cromwellian order: "Aim low, and put your trust in God!" The Connecticut soldiers took the double-quick, and with a cheer rushed for the works. Before they reached the outer works, they got a terrible fire from the Confederate rifles, and the fort opened with three 8-inch howitzers, heavily charged with grape and canister. The men went over the outer works with an extraordinary courage, that must be recorded to their honour, and were advancing to the crest of the parapet, when it was discovered that the regiments which were to support them had staggered back and lost their distance. The Connecticut regiment was left to effect its retreat through a sheet of fire. Nearly one half of them were killed or wounded. But the loss of the Confederates was quite as large. Gen. Beauregard estimated his losses in opposing the landing of the enemy at three hundred killed and wounded, including sixteen officers. The attack was undoubtedly a surprise to him, as he had persisted in the belief that the demonstration against Charleston would be made by the old route-James Island-and accordingly had almost stripped Morris Island of his artillerymen and infantry, to meet the advance of Terry. But although the assault on Fort Wagner was repulsed, the remissness of Gen. Beauregard with respect to the battery on Folly Island was to cost dear enough. It compelled the evacuation of all the fortified positions of the Confederates on the south end of Morris Island; in fact, surrendered all the island except about one mile on the north end, which included Fort Wagner and Fort Gregg on Cumming's Point; and virtually made the reduction of these works but a question of time. It was very clear that the enemy, having once obtained a foothold on Morris Island, would eventually compel an evacuation by the operations of siege, and that it was im |