THE IMPRESSMENT LAWS.

487

the government insisted upon taking the ship. Other vessels were built, and paid for by the credit of the private parties, and by receipts of cotton from those successively put on the line; and the enterprise went on, but with results far below the necessities of the country.

During the whole period of the efforts to put the question of meat supply from abroad upon what the bureau of subsistence deemed a proper footing, the meat in the limits of the Confederacy was being constantly reduced in amount, though under constantly increasing efforts to get it for the army.

The well-known effects of a depreciating currency in causing supplies to be hoarded, rendered it necessary to impress them. This mode was legalized by acts of Congress, which failed, however, to enforce it by any penalty, and rendered it nugatory in many instances by requiring that in all cases the impressment should be accompanied by a proffer of the money. In some States the feeling against it had rendered it almost inoperative, and the judiciary, gubernatorial or legislative action of several had practically nullified the law. As a substitute, to last until the currency could have been amended, it might have answered; but experience showed that, as a permanent system, it would be resisted and evaded to such an extent as to render it of little avail in drawing out a sufficiency, when to furnish it even for the army was to produce privation at home. Under the rapid depreciation of our currency, which was now thought by many to have reached a point of hopeless bankruptcy, and when the prices under the schedule fixed by the Commissioners of Appraisement in the various States were merely nominal, it was regarded by the people as an unjust and tyrannical tax, to be resisted to the point of compelling its abandonment as a mode of supply.

It will thus be seen, on a general survey of the whole subsistence policy of the Confederate government-its practical rejection of trade with the enemy, its feeble and mismanaged efforts in running the blockade, and the small yield of impressments-that there could be but one result and that a constant diminution of supplies to the point of starvation. It was a policy of blunders; it lacked some steady and deliberate system; and it finally, as we shall see, in the close of the year 1864, got to that point where the whole system of Confederate defence was bound to break down by the want of subsistence, even without a catastrophe of arms!

It is astonishing what silly devices were hit upon in Richmond to meet the coming necessity, and how the empirical remedies of shallow brains aggravated the disorder. One of these so-called remedies proved one of the vilest curses that was ever fastened upon the Confederacy. On the 6th November, 1863, an order was issued by the Secretary of War, that no supplies held by a party for his own consumption, or that of his einployés or slaves, should be impressed, and that "no officer should at any

time, unless specially ordered so to do by a general Commanding, in a case of exigency, impress supplies which were on their way to market for sale on arrival."

The construction given to that order filled the land with purchasersprivate individuals, railroad companies, manufacturers of all kinds, corporations of every class, relief associations of cities, towns and counties, were personally or by their agents in the market buying a year's supply, unlimited as to price, and protected from impressment. Speculators, whose purchases were generally in transitu, found themselves protected, and the government playing into their hands. The sudden influx of purchasers into the market stimulated the cupidity of producers and holders of the neces saries of life, and induced them to withhold their supplies, under the expec tation of higher prices, and actually raised the prices of all the prime articles fully one hundred per cent. within a single month. The purchasing officers of the government could not buy; nor was it reasonable to expect parties to sell to the government at schedule price, when double that price was offered at their doors by others. They could not impress, for holders had, with great promptness, contracted for all their supplies to parties who paid them higher prices, and thus it naturally and surely happened that the regular supplies of the government were cut off. The whole land was infected by speculators pampered by Mr. Seddon, the Secretary of War; and the soldier, who was without shelter fighting our battles, found himself discriminated against in favour of the private citizen-who, with a roof above him, could better stand a short allowance of food,—and put at the mercy of the most heartless and hateful speculators, who had no conception of the war beyond that of dollars and cents.

It has been remarked that the shiftlessness of the people of the South, their want of commercial tact or of business knowledge, so to speak, however it might have been doubted before, was fully proved in the war, and that this cause, as much as anything else, contributed to the ruin and prostration of the Confederacy. The unbusiness-like mind of the South was well illustrated in its commissariat; and the mismanagement of this bureau confirms the truth of the general observation. It is curious, indeed, how this observation extends to all the affairs of the Confederacy. There was a stock of childish expedients in times of grave distress in the Confederacy, at which the world was rather disposed to laugh, despite the necessities they indicated. When iron became scarce, an association of ladies was formed to advertise an appeal all through the Confederacy for broken pots and pans with which to build an armoured steamer. When the Confederate finances declined, it was proposed by a foolish woman of Mobile, who had probably never heard of the law of supply and demand, that all of her sex in the Confederacy should be shorn, and each head of hair bringing a certain price in the European markets, to realize thus many millions

MAKE-SHIFTS OF THE CONFEDERACY.

489

of dollars; and the proposition was seriously entertained in the newspapers. But what shall be said of the government that actually and officially, in the course of a system of finance to meet necessities counted by thousands of millions of dollars, made appeals to the people to donate silver plate and jewelry, and published monthly lists of contributions of rings, sugar-pots and spoons! These curious lists may still be found in the files of the Richmond newspapers. Such vagaries are subjects of grave consideration by the historian. They illustrate the general character of make-shifts in the He who seeks to solve the problem of the downfall of the Southern Confederacy, must take largely into consideration the absence of any intelligent and steady system in the conduct of public affairs; the little circles that bounded the Richmond Administration; the deplorable want of the commercial or business faculty in the Southern mind.

war.

CHAPTER XXX.

A TRAIN OF CONFEDERATE SUCCESSES IN THE BEGINNING OF 1864. THE BATTLE OF OCEAN POND. GEN. SEYMOUR'S EXPEDITION INTO FLORIDA.—ITS DEFEAT AND COMPLETE DISASTER. SHERMAN'S EXPEDITION IN THE SOUTHWEST.-HIS FIRST EXPERIMENT OF THE MOVABLE COLUMN."-HIS DESIGNS UPON MOBILE AND THE CONFEDERATE LINES IN NORTH GEORGIA. THE CO-OPERATING COLUMN OF CAVALRY.-GEN. POLK EVACUATES MERIDIAN, AND FALLS BACK TO DEMOPOLIS.-FORREST DEFEATS THE FEDERAL CAVALRY.-DISASTROUS AND DISGRACEFUL CONCLUSION OF SHERMAN'S ADVENTURE.—THE RED RIVER EXPEDITION.-GEN. BANKS' DESIGNS UPON TEXAS.-THE CONFEDERATE COMMANDS IN THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI.—THE FEDERAL ADVANCE UP RED RIVER. THE CONFEDERATES FALL BACK TOWARDS SHREVEPORT.-BATTLE OF MANSFIELD.-HOW THE ACTION WAS BROUGHT ON.-ROUT OF THE ENEMY.-SINGULAR SCENES ON THE PURSUIT.-BATTLE OF PLEASANT HILL.-AN UNFORTUNATE MISTAKE OF ORDERS.-CHURCHILL'S CORPS PANIC-STRICKEN.— GEN. WALKER HOLDS THE FIELD. THE ENEMY CONTINUES HIS RETREAT TO ALEXANDRIA.HIS MARCH A CAREER OF UNPARALLELED COWARDICE AND CRIME.-LARGE SPOILS OF THE CONFEDERATES. THE EXTENT OF BANKS' DISASTER.-TERMINATION OF HIS VISION OF EMPIRE WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI.-FORREST'S EXPEDITION UP THE MISSISSIPPI.-CAPTURE OF FORT PILLOW.-HOKE'S OPERATIONS ON THE NORTH CAROLINA COAST.-COMPARATIVE UNIMPORTANCE OF THESE CONFEDERATE SUCCESSES. THE RAID OF ULRIO DAHLGREN.THE PARTS OF CUSTER AND KILPATRICK.-FAILURE AND LUDICROUS COWARDICE OF THE

SEVERAL EXPEDITIONS.-DAHLGREN'S ATROCIOUS DESIGNS. HE RETREATS, AND IS

CHASED BY POLLARD.-MANNER OF HIS DEATH.-DISCOVERY OF THE DAHLGREN PAPERS."-SENSATION IN RICHMOND.-PRESIDENT DAVIS' MELODRAMA.-STATEMENT OF EDWARD W. HALBACH IN RELATION TO THE "DAHLGREN PAPERS."—THE PAPERS FIRST FOUND BY THE SCHOOLBOY LITTLEPAGE.-HOW TRANSMITTED TO RICHMOND. THE THEORY OF FORGERY.-ITS UTTER ABSURDITY.

ALTHOUGH the Northern public was gratified in contemplating the sum of Federal victories in the year 1863, it had yet to see in the early months of 1864 a remarkable train of Confederate successes, which, in the aggregate, did much to re-animate the Confederates, and to subdue expectation at Washington. These successes were principally a decisive victory in Florida; the defeat of Sherman's expedition in the Southwest; and a triumphant issue in the most important campaign that had yet taken place west of the Mississippi River.