of my wagons that the men might prepare and cook their flour, as we were still without meat; unfortunately, the night was then far advanced, and, although every effort was made in the darkness to get the wagons forward, dawn of the morning of the 17th broke upon us before many of the men had time to do more than prepare the dough. Soon, thereafter, an officer of Lawton's staff dashed up to me, saying, 'General Lawton sends his compliments, with the request that you come at once to his support.' 'To arms!' was instantly sounded, and quite a large number of my brave soldiers were again obliged to march to the front, leaving their uncooked rations in camp.

"Not far distant in our front were drawn up, in close array, heavy columns of Federal infantry; not less than two corps were in sight to oppose my small command, numbering approximately two thousand effectives. However, with the trusty Law on my right, in the edge of the wood, and the gallant Colonel Wafford in command of the Texas Brigade on the left, near the pike, we moved forward to the assault. Notwithstanding the overwhelming odds of over ten to one against us, we drove the enemy from the wood and corn-field back upon his reserves, and forced him to abandon his guns on our left. This most deadly combat raged till our last round of ammunition was expended. The First Texas Regiment had lost in the corn-field fully two thirds of its number; and whole ranks of brave men, whose deeds were unrecorded save in the hearts of loved ones at home, were mowed down in heaps to the right and left. Never before was I so continually troubled with fear that my horse would further injure some wounded fellow-soldier lying helpless upon the ground. Our right flank, during this short but seemingly long space of time, was toward the main line of the Federals, and, after several ineffectual efforts to procure reënforcements and our last shot had been fired, I ordered my troops back to Dunkard church for the same reason which had previously compelled Lawton, Hays, and Trimble to retire (a want of cartridges). Upon the arrival of McLaws's division we marched to the rear, renewed our supply of ammunition, and returned to our position in the wood near the church, which ground we held till a late hour in the afternoon, when we moved somewhat farther to the right and bivouacked for the night. With the close of this bloody day ceased the hardest-fought battle of the war."

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WE HAD NO RESERVE.

341

The following account of Colonel Taylor, in his "Four Years with General Lee," is more comprehensive, embracing the other forces besides Hood's brigade:

"On the afternoon of the 16th, General McClellan directed an attack by Hooker's corps on the Confederate left-Hood's two brigades-and during the whole of the 17th the battle was waged, with varying intensity, along the entire line. When the issue was first joined, on the afternoon of the 16th, General Lee had with him less than eighteen thousand men, consisting of the commands of Longstreet and D. H. Hill, the two divisions of Jackson, and two brigades under Walker. Couriers were sent to the rear to hurry up the divisions of A. P. Hill, Anderson, and McLaws, hastening from Harper's Ferry, and these several commands, as they reached the front at intervals during the day, on the 17th, were immediately deployed and put to work. Every man was engaged. We had no reserve.

"The fighting was heaviest and most continuous on the Confederate left. It is established by Federal evidence that the three corps of Hooker, Mansfield, and Sumner were completely shattered in the repeated but fruitless efforts to turn this flank, and two of these corps were rendered useless for further aggressive movements. The aggregate strength of the attacking column at this point reached forty thousand men, not counting the two divisions of Franklin's corps, sent at a late hour in the day to rescue the Federal right from the impending danger of being itself destroyed; while the Confederates, from first to last, had less than fourteen thousand men on this flank, consisting of Jackson's two divisions, McLaws's division, and the two small divisions, of two brigades each, under Hood and Walker, with which to resist their fierce and oft-repeated assaults. The disproportion in the center and on our right was as great as, or even more decided than, on our left."

In the "Report of Committee on the Conduct of the War," Part I, p. 368, General Sumner testifies as follows:

"General Hooker's corps was dispersed; there is no question about that. I sent one of my staff-officers to find where they were, and General Rickets, the only officer he could find, said that he could not raise three hundred men of the corps. There were

troops lying down on the left, which I took to belong to Mansfield's command. In the mean time General Mansfield had been killed, and a portion of his corps bad also been thrown into confusion."

The testimony of General McClellan, in the same report, Part I, p. 441, is to the same effect:

"The next morning (the 18th) I found that our loss had been so great, and there was so much disorganization in some of the commands, that I did not consider it proper to renew the attack that day, especially as I was sure of the arrival that day of two fresh divisions, amounting to about fifteen thousand men. As an instance of the condition of some of the troops that morning, I happen to recollect the returns of the First Corps, General Hooker's, made on the morning of the 18th, by which there were thirty-five hundred men reported present for duty. Four days after that, the returns of the same corps showed thirteen thousand five hundred."

On the night of the 19th our forces crossed the Potomac, and some brigades of the enemy followed. In the morning General A. P. Hill, who commanded the rear-guard, was ordered to drive them back. Having disposed his forces, an attack was made, and, as the foe massed in front of General Pender's brigade and endeavored to turn his flank, General Hill says, in his report:

"A simultaneous daring charge was made, and the enemy driven pell-mell into the river. Then commenced the most terrible slaughter that this war has yet witnessed. The broad surface of the Potomac was blue with the floating bodies of our foe. But few escaped to tell the tale. By their own account, they lost three thousand men killed and drowned from one brigade alone. Some two hundred prisoners were taken."

General McClellan states, in his official report, that he had in this battle, in action, 87,164 men of all arms.

The official reports of the commanding officers of our forces, made at the time, show our total effective infantry to have been 27,255. The estimate made for the cavalry and artillery, which

1862]

OUR CROP OF COTTON.

343

is rather excessive, is 8,000. This would make General Lee's entire strength 35,255.

The official return of the Army of Northern Virginia, on September 22, 1862, after its return to Virginia, and when the stragglers had rejoined their commands, shows present for duty, 36,187 infantry and artillery; the cavalry, of which there is no report, would perhaps increase these figures to 40,000 of all arms.*

The return of the United States Army of the Potomac on September 20, 1862, shows present for duty, at that date, of the commands that participated in the battle of Sharpsburg, 85,930 of all arms.†

The loss of the enemy at Boonsboro and Sharpsburg was 14,794.+

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Efforts of the Enemy to obtain our Cotton.-Demands of European Manufacturers -Thousands of Operatives resorting to the Poor-Rates.-Complaint of her Majesty's Secretary of State.-Letter of Mr. Seward.-Promise to open all the Channels of Commerce.-Series of Measures adopted by the United States.Act of Congress.-Its Provisions.-Its Operation.-Unconstitutional Measures. -President Lincoln an Accomplice.-Not authorized by a State of War.-Case before Chief-Justice Taney.-His Decision.-Expeditions sent by the United States Government to seize Localities.—An Act providing for the Appointment of Special Agents to seize Abandoned or Captured Property.-The Views of General Grant.-Weakening his Strength One Third.-Our Country divided into Districts, and Federal Agents appointed.—Continued to the Close of the War.

A CLASS of measures was adopted by the Government of the United States, the object of which was practically and effectually to plunder us of a large portion of our crop of cotton, and secure its transportation to the manufacturers of Europe. The foreign necessity for our cotton is represented in these words of her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on May 6, 1862, when speaking of the blockade of our ports:

*Taylor's "Four Years with General Lec."

+ Official return from Adjutant-General's office, United States Army. "Report of Committee on Conduct of the War," Part I, p. 492.

+ Ibid., p. 42.

"Thousands are now obliged to resort to the poor-rates for subsistence, owing to this blockade, yet her Majesty's Government have not sought to take advantage of the obvions imperfections of this blockade, in order to declare it ineffective. They have, to the loss and detriment of the British nation, scrupulously observed the duties of Great Britain to a friendly state."

The severity of the distress thus alluded to was such, both in Great Britain and France, as to produce an intervention of the Governments of those countries to alleviate it. Instead, however, of adopting those measures required in the exercise of justice to the Confederacy, and which would have been sustained by the law of nations, by declaring the blockade "ineffective,” as it really was, they sought, through informal applications to Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State for the United States, to obtain opportunities for an increased exportation of cotton from the Confederacy. This is explained by Mr. Seward in a letter to Mr. Adams, the Minister at London, dated July 28, 1862, in which he writes as follows:

"The President has given respectful consideration to the desire informally expressed to me by the Governments of Great Britain and France for some further relaxation of the blockade in favor of that trade. They are not rejected, but are yet held under consideration, with a view to ascertain more satisfactorily whether they are really necessary, and whether they can be adopted without such serious detriment to our military operations as would render them injurious rather than beneficial to the interests of all concerned."

In the same letter Mr. Seward had previously said:

"We shall speedily open all the channels of commerce, and free them from military embarrassments; and cotton, so much desired by all nations, will flow forth as freely as heretofore. We have ascertained that there are three and a half millions of bales yet remaining in the region where it was produced, though large quantities of it are yet unginned and otherwise unprepared for market. We have instructed the military authorities to favor, so far as they can consistently with the public safety, its preparation for and dispatch to the markets where it is so much wanted."