2

cation from that chief leader of the Rebellion. In that "message," Davis congratulated his confederates on the accession of States to their league. He assured them that the National Government had now revealed its intentions to subjugate them by a war "whose folly" was "equaled by its wickedness," and whose "dire calamities would fall with double severity" on the loyal people themselves. He charged the President with "a violation of an armistice" concerning Fort Sumter, and declared the assertion that the insurgents commenced hostilities, to be "an unfounded pretense." He argued that the Confederacy was "a great and powerful nation," because the Government had made such extensive preparations for its overthrow; also that the nationality of the leagued insurgents had been recognized by the Government, by its establishment of "blockades by sea and land;" also that the idea that the inhabitants of the "Confederate States" were citizens of the United States was repudiated by the Government, in making war upon them "with a savage ferocity unknown to modern civilization."

With the same disregard of candor which characterized Beauregard's proclamation at Manassas, in June, and with the same evident intention to "fire the Southern heart," Davis said of the warfare of the Nationals: "Rapine is the rule; private residences, in peaceful rural districts, are bombarded and burnt," and pains taken to have "a brutal soldiery completely destroy every article of use or ornament in private houses." "Mankind will shudder," he continued, "to hear the tales of outrages committed on defenseless females, by soldiers of the United States now invading our homes." He

1 This picture is from a sketch made by the author, while on a visit to Montgomery, early in April, 1866. The mahogany furniture was the same as that used by the conspirators at the formation of their Confederacy. 2 See pages 305 to 809, inclusive, volume I. 3 See page 550, volume I.

BANISHMENT AND CONFISCATION ACTS.

33

charged the Government with making "special war" on the South, including the women and the children, "by carefully devised measures to prevent their obtaining medicines necessary for their cure," with "cool and deliberate malignity, under pretext of suppressing an insurrection." He spoke of "other savage practices which have been resorted to by the Government of the United States," and cited the case of the prisoners taken with the pirate-ship Savannah, already referred to in this work.' After speaking of the annunciation at the seat of Government, that the States were subordinate to the National authority and had no right to secede, and that the President was authorized to suspend the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus, "when," as the Constitution says, "in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it," he said: "We may well rejoice that we have severed all connection with a Government which thus tramples on all the principles of constitutional liberty, and with a people in whose presence such avowals could be hazarded." He then spoke of the enthusiasm of the Southern people, their abundant offers of aid to the Confederacy, and the "almost unquestioning confidence which they display in their government during the impending struggle;" and he concluded his communication by saying: "To speak of subjugating such a people, so united and determined, is to speak in language incomprehensible to them. To resist attacks on their rights or their liberties, is with them an instinct. Whether this war shall last one, or three, or five years, is a problem they leave to be solved by the enemy alone; it will last till the enemy shall have withdrawn from their borders-till their political rights, their altars, and their homes, are freed from invasion. Then, and then only, will they rest from this struggle, to enjoy in peace the blessings which, with the favor of Providence, they have secured by the aid of their own strong hearts and sturdy arms."

a Aug. & 1861.

With a determination such as Davis expressed, the " Congress" made provision for the contest, and for creating that "United South" which had been proclaimed to the world. For the latter purpose it passed an act which authorized the banishment from the limits of the "Confederate States" of every masculine citizen of the United States (with some exceptions named') over fourteen years of age, who adhered to his Government and acknowledged its authority. The act prescribed as the duty of all courts of justice to cause the arrest of all Union men who did not proclaim their allegiance to the conspirators or leave the Confederacy within forty days, and to treat them as "alien enemies.” Another act authorized the confiscation of every species of property within the limits of the Confederacy belonging to such “alien enemies" or absent citizens of the United States, with the exceptions mentioned. Various measures were adopted for the increase and efficiency of the army and navy, and for carrying on the immense financial operations of the socalled government. It was officially reported that there were two hundred

1 See page 557, volume I.

Aug. 31.

2 The citizens of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, the Territories of New Mexico, Arizona, and the Indian Territory south of Kansas, and the District of Columbia, were excepted.

3 Further issues of Treasury notes were authorized, and provision was made for a war-tax, for the creation of means for their redemption, to the amount of fifty cents upon each one hundred dollars in value of real estate, slaves, merchandise, stocks of corporations, money at interest or invested in various securities, excepting Confederate bonds, money in hand or in bank, live stock, gold watches, gold and silver plate, pianos, horses, and pleasure carriages.

VOL. II.-41

34

a Aug. 31, 1861.

RETALIATION.-ATTITUDE OF THE CONFEDERATES.

thousand soldiers in the field; and Davis was authorized to increase this force by an addition of four hundred thousand volunteers, to serve for not less than twelve months or more than three years. He was authorized to send additional commissioners to Europe; and on the last day of the session" an act was passed giving him authority to inflict retaliation upon the persons of prisoners of war. This measure had special reference to the captives of the pirate-ship Savannah, concerning whom, as we have observed,' Davis had already sent a threatening letter to the Presi dent, to which no reply was given. Under the provisions of that act, Colonel Corcoran and other officers were closely confined as hostages, and treated worse than the pirates were.3 The latter, as we have observed, were, for the sake of humanity, treated as prisoners of war, and in due time the hostages. were exchanged.

On the establishment of the so-called government at Richmond, Davis's committee of advisers, whom he dignified with the title of "Cabinet," was reorganized. R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, had become his "Secretary of State." Judah P. Benjamin, his law officer, was made "Secretary of War," and was succeeded in his office by ex-Governor Thomas Bragg, of North Carolina. The other members of the "Cabinet" were the same as those first appointed. In every phase of its organization, the "new government" was modeled after the rejected one; and in form, and numbers, and operations, the Confederacy presented to the world the outward aspect of a respectable nation. Seals were devised for the use of the several "Departments;" and on that made for the "Department of State," which, more than others, might be seen abroad, was the significant legend, in indifferent Latin, NULLA PATRIA AMICTÆ FIDEI, meaning, No country, no fatherland, that does not keep faith, or where faith is covered up-that is to say, We reject the National Government because it is faithless." With this feeling they set about the establishment of a new empire, with wonderful energy, and called forth all of the industrial resources of the region under their control, with results the most

1 See page 557, volume I.

2 This letter was taken by Captain Thomas H. Taylor, with a flag of truce, to the head-quarters of General McDowell, at Arlington House, when the bearer was conducted to the quarters of General Scott, in Washington City, where the letter was delivered.

See note 2, page 557, volume I. The trial of the officers and crew of the Savannah occurred at New York, in October, 1861. It continued seven days, when, the jury disagreeing, the prisoners were remanded to the custody of the marshals. In the mean time, William Smith, another Confederate privateersman, had been tried in Philadelphia, and found guilty of piracy, the penalty for which was death by hanging. Now was afforded an opportunity for the exercise of that system of retaliation which the Confederate "Congress" had authorized. Accordingly, on the 9th of November, 1861, Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of War," instructed General Winder to select by lot "from among the prisoners of war of the highest rank" one who was to be confined in a cell appropriated to convicted felons, to be a hostage for Captain Smith, of the Savannah, and to be executed if he should suffer death. Also to select in the same way thirteen other prisoners of war, the highest in rank, to be confined in cells used for convicted felons, and to be treated as such so long as the National Government so treated a "like number of prisoners of war captured by them at sea." This order was read by General Winder, in the presence of seventy-five captive officers, in the old Tobacco Warehouse, in Richmond, on the 10th of November. He had six slips of paper, each containing the name of one of the six colonels of the National Army then held as prisoners. These were handed to Colonel W. R. Lee, of the 20th Massachusetts Regiment, recently captured at Ball's Bluff, who was directed to place them in a deep tin case provided for the purpose, when Mr. Ely was directed to draw one out, the officer whose name it should bear "to be held as hostage for William Smith, convicted of piracy." The lot fell upon Colonel Corcoran, then a prisoner in Castle Pinckney, in Charleston harbor. The names of the other thirteen hostages were drawn in the same way. They were: Colonels Lee, Wilcox, Cogswell, Wood, and Woodruff; Lieutenant-Colonels Bowman and Neff; Majors Potter, Revere, and Vogdes; and Captains Rockwood, Bowman, and Keffer.-Journal of Alfred Ely, Nov. 10, 1861, pages 210 to 216, inclusive. See engraving on page 35.

4 See page 258.

CONFEDERATE MANUFACTURES.-REGIMENT OF SPIES. 35

astonishing. The blockade becoming more and more stringent every day, they perceived the necessity of relying upon their own ingenuity and industry for the materials of war; and forges, and foundries, and powder manufactories soon appeared in various parts of the Confederacy, while those already established were taxed to their utmost capacity in responding to orders. Of these the great Tredegar Iron Works, at Richmond (see page 36), was the most extensive of its kind within the limits of the Slave-labor States, and some of the most effective heavy ordnance used by the Confederate Army, and projectiles of various kinds, were made there, directly under the eye of the so-called government. The labors of this establishment in the cause of the rebellion made its name and deeds familiar to every American. Jefferson Davis was quick to act upon the authority of the decree of the Confederate "Congress" concerning the banishment of Union men. He issued a proclamation on the 14th of August, in accordance with the intent of that decree; and then commenced those terrible persecutions of loyal inhabitants within the limits of the "Confederate States," under the sanction of law, which made that reign of terror in those regions tenfold more dreadful than before. This, and the Confiscation Act, put the seal of silence upon the lips of nearly all Union men. Few could leave, for obstacles were cast in their way. To remain was to acquiesce in the new order of things, or suffer

1 This delineation of the seal is from a pass which the "Secretary of State" of the Confederacy issued in the following form:

"To all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting:

[SEAL.]

"CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.

"I, the undersigned, Secretary of State of the Confederate States of America, hereby request all whom it may concern, to permit safely and freely to pass, A B, a citizen of the Confederate States of America, and in case of need to give him all lawful aid and protection.

"Given under my hand and the impression of the seal of the Department of State, at the City of
Montgomery, May 20, 1861.
"ROBERT TOOMв8, Secretary of State."

While on a visit to Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in the spring of 1866, the writer met a resident of Wilmington and a native of North Carolina, who had been employed in the secret service of the National Government during a portion of the war, with the commission of colonel, and in command of a regiment of $50 spies, who were scattered over the Confederacy. He also entered the service of the Confederacy as a spy, in order that he might work more efficiently for his Government, and was furnished with a pass like the above, on the margin of which, it should have been mentioned, was an exact description of the person to whom it was given. He desired to furnish each of his spies with such a pass. Through some of them in Richmond, he procured a large number of blank passes. These required the impression of the seal of the "State Department." He went to Richmond, and through spies there, professedly in the service of the Confederates, he was introduced to Judah P. Benjamin, then "Secretary of State," and visited his office daily for about a fortnight, endeavoring to ascertain where the seal of the "Department" was kept. He was finally successful. One day, when no one was in the office but a boy, he sent him on an errand, and then going boldly to the place where the seal was kept, he made an impression of it in wax. He then started with his own pass to "go into the Yankee lines." He hastened to Washington, and thence to New York, where he had a seal cut in steel precisely like the original." With this he stamped the blank passes, which he properly filled up and signed successfully with the forged name of Benjamin. With these he furnished his spies with passes, and they performed essential service by gaining information in the camps and at the Capital, and in communicating with the blockading squadrons. The commander of this regiment of spies was arrested several times on suspicion, but was never implicated by suffi cient proof.

36

PERSECUTION OF LOYALISTS IN EAST TENNESSEE.

intensely. Then, for the same reason that gave truth to the proclamation of the despot-"Order reigns in Warsaw"-there was a "United South" in

favor of the conspirators. Under their subordinate officers, civil and military, almost unbounded license was exercised, and no man's life, liberty, and property were secure from violence.

2

In districts of the Confederacy, such as East Tennessee, where the blight of slavery was but little known, where a greater portion of the inhabitants were loyal to their Government, and where the Confederates held sway, the keenest cruelties were exercised. Those who, in East Tennessee, had voted for the Union at the election of which Governor Harris made fraudulent returns, were continually persecuted. Good and peaceable citizens were taken before magistrates without cause, and imprisoned without mercy. They were arrested by the authority of processes issued by J. Crozier Ramsey, the Confederate district attorney, who was assisted in the work of crushing the Unionists in that region by R. B. Reynolds, a Confederate commissioner, and W. B. Wood, a Methodist clergyman from Alabama, who bore the commission of a Confederate colonel. Under the direction and assistance of these men, loyalists were hunted, arrested, taken to camps and prisons, and insulted and abused by mobs. Confederate cavalry, as well as infantry, scoured the country, offering every indignity to men and women, destroying the crops of the rich and poor alike, turning their horses to feed into fields of growing corn, burning barns and stacks of hay, and plundering the people of provisions. The jails were soon filled with loyalists, and an extensive disarming of the people was accomplished. So thoroughly were they under the control of the

Confederates, that in November Colonel Wood was able to write

a 1861. to Benjamin, at Richmond, "The rebellion [resistance to Confederate outrages] in East Tennessee has been put down in some of the counties, and will be effectually suppressed in less than two weeks in all the counties. Their camps in Sevier and Hamilton Counties," he continued, "have been broken up, and a large number of them have been made prisoners. It is a mere farce to arrest them and turn them

1 This view is from the ruins of the Virginia State Arsenal. The works are on the left bank of the James River, nearly opposite Mayo's Island.

2 See pages 388-389, volume I.