T. C. DeLeon, (continued 6)

This was the posture on Christmas, 1862. Three days after the enemy struck—heavily and unexpectedly.

The first intimation General Bragg had of the movement was cavalry skirmishes with his advance. These continued daily, increasing in frequency and severity until the 30th of December, when the contending armies were near enough for General Polk to have a heavy fight with the Federal right.

Next day, the weather being bitter and the driving sleet filling the atmosphere, the general battle was joined. McCowan and Cleburne, under Hardee, charged the Federal's right through a deadly hail of artillery and small arms, that darkened the air as thickly as the sleet—driving him back at the bayonet's point and swinging his front round from his center. The fierce valor of the southern troops and the brilliant dash of their leaders was resistless; and evening fell upon a field, wet with the blood of the South, but clearly a field of victory. Though the Federals fought with desperation, they were so badly hurt that Bragg believed they would fall back that night, in such confusion as to leave them his easy prey.

Morning of the New Year dawned cold, dark and stormy; but the enemy was still in sight, having only taken up a stronger position on a hill and posted his artillery most advantageously. It began to look as if General Bragg's telegram to Richmond of the victory he had gained, might require a postscript; but all that long New Year's day he allowed the enemy time to recuperate and strengthen his position.

It seemed as though another Shiloh was to be re-enacted; a victory wrenched from heavy odds by valor and skill was to be nullified by delay in crushing the enemy, while yet demoralized.

Next day came; and then Breckinridge was sent through a terrific storm of balls and shell, that cut down his gallant boys like grass before the scythe. On, into the Valley of the Shadow they strode; thinned, reeling, broken under that terrible hail—but never blenching. And the crest was won! but the best blood of Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama and North Carolina was flooding that horrid field! Over two thousand noble fellows lay stiff, or writhing with fearful wounds—thick upon the path behind the victorious column.

And then—with that fatality that seemed ever to follow the fortunes of the unfortunate general in command—the army fell back!

Broken was the goblet of victory; wasted the wine of life! And it was accepted as but small consolation, by the people who hoped and expected so much—small surcease to the sob of the widow and the moan of the orphan! that "the retreat to Tullahoma was conducted in good order."

And again the public voice rose loud and hoarse and threatening against the general and the President, whose favorite he was declared to be.

But amid the darkening clouds that frowned close and threatening upon him—fearless of the future and heedless of the ominous roar of dissatisfaction far and near—sat the ruling spirit of the storm he had raised. Grim, steady and purposeful, Jefferson Davis worked his busy brain and frail body almost past belief, to redeem the errors of his chosen instruments—seeking no counsel, asking no aid—and day by day losing the confidence of the sand-shifting populace, who had once made him their God! And one act of his now did more than all besides to reassure the public mind.

Joseph E. Johnston was sent to command the armies of the West! Since his wound at "Seven Pines," the Government—from causes unknown to the people—had allowed this brilliant soldier to rust in inactivity; and now, when all of evil that ill-fortune and want of combination could accomplish had been done in the West, he was singled out, and sent forth to reap the harvest so bitterly sown. He was told, in effect, to take the frayed and scattered ends of armies and campaigns and bind them into a firm and resisting chain of strategy; or—to bear the sins of others upon his shoulders and have the finger of History point to him as the man who lost the West! But patriot soldier and true knight as he was—little resentful of the coldness of Government as he was doubtful of his own ability—"Joe Johnston" accepted the test cheerily and went forth to do, or die.

And this worthy son of noble sires went to clear the Augean Stables of the West; and the God-speed of his own state—swelled into a hearty chorus by the voice of the country—followed him on his knightly errand!

Meantime, Lincoln's famous Proclamation of Emancipation had been promulgated. It made little difference to the people of the South; for it was at that time looked upon as a vaunt as idle as if he had declared the throne of England vacant. Secure in their belief in their right doing, and in the trusty arms and deadly rifles that defended it, the southern masses never dreamed the day would come when that proclamation would be more than the paper upon which it was engrossed. Still, in the general gloom upon them, it was taken as but another augury of the bitter spirit animating their enemies; and of the extent to which it would drive them in this war for the Union and flag.

And so the close of '62 fell dark and dismal upon the distracted country; enlivened only by the sole gleam in Virginia—the repulse of Burnside from Fredericksburg. But even the joy for this triumph was dashed by the precious blood spilled to purchase it; another vent for that steady drain of men, material and endurance—already almost past bearing.

But there was no weak yielding in Government, or in people. Men looked at each other through the gloom, and even as they asked—"Brother, what of the night?"—struck hands in a clasp that meant renewed faith in the cause and renewed determination to prove its right.

Early in the New Year, news reached Richmond of Magruder's amphibious victory, the recapture of Galveston; which town had fallen a prey to the enemy's naval power early in October. On the last night of '62—while the wearied troops of Bragg were sleeping on the bloody field of Murfreesboro—General Magruder, with a mixed command of three regiments of raw infantry, some nineteen pieces of field artillery, and a boarding fleet of four unarmed boats, came down silently to Galveston. The Federal fleet—consisting of the Harriet Lane, the Clifton, the Westfield and the Ossawa—were lying just off the town; covering it with their broadsides and supported by a force of infantry.

Coming suddenly upon them, like shadows through the darkness, Magruder's land force opened a hot fire with field artillery—and aided by the daring boarding of the Lane by Colonel Leon Smith's co-operating water party—captured the former steamer, burned one other, and drove the remaining ones, with their tenders, to sea; where it was impossible to follow them.

This gallant and comparatively bloodless raising of the Galveston blockade was a gleam of hopeful light; especially as it was almost coincident with the first approach to a naval success, by the force of Commodore Ingraham in Charleston Harbor on the 30th of January. The vessels under his command were ill-built, awkward tubs—as will hereafter be seen; but the terrible Brooke gun did its work at long range, and drove the wooden blockading fleet from the harbor for the moment.

This victory, unimportant as it was—for the blockade it claimed to raise was renewed and strengthened within a few days—was cheering; for, said the people, if the Confederates can succeed on the water, surely the star of the South is not really on the wane.

But there was, after the New Year, a sudden stoppage of active movements on both sides. The terrific crash of hostile cannon—the continuous roar of opposing small arms—and the groan of the Federal mixed with the death-cry of the Confederate, were all suddenly stilled. The fearful tornado of war that had swept for many months the once-smiling Southland—leaving its wake only the blackened track of ruin piled thick with stiffened corpses!—was suddenly hushed; as though the evil powers that had raised it must pause to gather fresh strength, before once more driving it in a fiercer and deadlier blast.

In the West, we had lost in the early year the strong position of Arkansas Post with its large accumulation of stores and its garrison of over 3,000 men; but the Queen City still sat defiant and unharmed, the hostile fleet and army having left its fruitless task; and the twin stronghold of Port Hudson showed another row of ugly teeth, into range of which no Federal force seemed yet ready to venture.

On the Atlantic seaboard, too, the prospects, at this time, appeared more cheering. Girt as it was, with one unbroken line of watchful cruisers, with every port apparently sealed by blockade—southern ingenuity and pluck still defied them and ran in precious stores of arms, clothing and medicines. General Beauregard had taken active command of South Carolina and Georgia; and had put the defenses of both coasts—especially of Charleston and Savannah—into such a state of fitness as quite satisfied the Government and made the people of those states calm and confident in his ability to protect them and theirs. General Gustavus W. Smith—the friend and comrade of General Joe Johnston—had, like him, been rewarded for his sacrifices in coming South, and his able exertions afterward, by the coldness and neglect of the Government. But like him, too, he forgot personal wrongs; and, when ordered to North Carolina, threw his whole energy and skill into the works of defense for the coast and for that vital artery of railroad, on which the life of the South depended.

Butler still waged his peculiar warfare upon unarmed men and weak women in the soft nest he had made himself, at New Orleans; but Mobile reared her defiant crest and took into her bosom peaceful vessels laden with stores of priceless utility, only to send them out again—bristling with rifled cannon, fleet-winged and agile, ready to pounce upon the Federal shipping.

In the Middle West, Johnston's presence had acted like oil upon the darkening waters of trouble and despair. There had been no record of fresh disaster, or fresh mismanagement; the troops were recruiting, resting and increasing in numbers and efficiency; the cavalry, mobilized under Van Dorn—at last placed in his proper sphere—had done efficient and harassing, if desultory warfare, upon the enemy's small posts and communications. Pegram—by his effective raid through Kentucky—had shown that her people there were not forgotten by their brothers beyond; and his skillful retreat—laden with heavy droves of cattle and in the face of a superior force—gained him high praise from his superior officers.

And so the people watched and waited—hopeless no longer, but quite recovered from the prostration of the rapid, heavy and continuous blows of the previous autumn. Steadfast and buoyant, as they were ever, the masses of the South once more turned their backs upon past disaster, looking eagerly through the dark cloud for the silver lining they felt must be beyond.

And again, as ever, they turned their eyes toward Virginia—stately and calm amid the shock of battle. And they hoped not in vain; for over her blackened fields—furrowed by shot and shell, drenched with blood of best and bravest, but only more sacred for the precious libation—was again to ring the clarion shout of victory that ever swelled from the lines of Stonewall Jackson!

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE FAILURE IN FINANCE.

When the competent historian shall at last undertake a thoughtful work upon our great struggle, there can be little doubt that he will rank among the primary causes of the Confederacy's dissolution the grave errors of its financial system.

These errors he will find not only in the theory and framework of that system—founded upon a fallacy, but also in the detailed workings of its daily management; and in persistent adherence to a line of policy, each day proved more fatal.

In a previous chapter, allusion has been made to the feeling of conscious superiority, pervading all classes of government and people at the inception of the struggle, at Montgomery. This extended to all classes of the people; and the universal belief in the great dogma of secession—"Cotton is king!"—was doubtless the foundation of that cardboard structure of Confederate finance, which the first rude shock toppled to pieces, and the inexorable breath of demand shriveled into nothingness.

At Montgomery, the promises of ease in money matters were all that could have been asked. The people, everywhere, had come forward with frank, unanimous selflessness. They had faith in the cause—faith in the Government—faith in themselves; and they proved it by their works, giving with lavish hand from their substance. It was felt that the great prosperity of the North had, in a great measure, come from the South; that the looms of New England were fed with southern cotton; that the New York custom house was mainly busied over southern exports; that the soil of the South was, by the alchemy of trade, transmuted annually into three-fifths of the gold in the Federal treasury.

"Egad, sir!—money is our last trouble, sir!" my old friend, the colonel, had cried with enthusiasm. "The country teems with riches—actually teems, sir! with gold. We have only to stretch out our hands to gather it in—more than we want, egad! Men we need, sir!—but money, never!"

And the colonel was right in theory. But that very overweening confidence in her strength proved the South's greatest weakness; and where was needed the strong, nervous grasp of a practical and practiced hand, to seize at once the threads of gold, and weave them into a solid cord of system—weak and shifting fingers were allowed to tangle and confuse them, till each in turn was snapped and rendered worse than worthless. Mr. C. G. Memminger, whom the President elevated to the Treasury Department, was untried and unknown out of his own State; but so great was the confidence of the people in their financial power—so simple did the problem of its development seem to them—that they were trustful and satisfied, until the stern grasp of necessity roughly shook them from their golden dream. And they awoke, like the sleeper of German legend, to find their hands filled with worthless yellow leaves and grains of chaff, where they had dreamed of treasure beyond compare.

Immediately upon his appointment, thoughtful men—who could look a little beyond the rose-colored clouds of the present—had pressed upon Secretary Memminger the necessity for establishing heavy foreign credits, to draw against in case of future need. The currency of the southern banks was comparatively nothing, in view of increased expenditures. The cotton which was gold—food—clothing—everything to the South, with the open ports of the North, would be more worthless than the wampum of the Indians, so soon as the threatened blockade might seal up her ports and exclude the European purchaser. But, on the contrary, if that cotton were bought on the faith of the Government—and planters would willingly have sold their last pound for Confederate bonds; if it were shipped to Europe at once and sold in her market, as circumstances might warrant, the Confederacy would, in effect, have a Treasury Department abroad, with a constantly accruing gold balance. Then it could have paid—without agencies and middlemen beyond number, who were a constant moth in the Treasury—in cash and at reduced prices, for all foreign supplies; those supplies could have been purchased promptly and honestly, and sent in before the blockade demanded a toll of one-half; but above all, the interest and principal of such bonds to the planters could have been paid in coin, and a specie circulation thus been made, instead of the fatal and endless paper issues that rendered Confederate credit a scoff, and weakened the confidence of the southern people in the ability and integrity of that department.

In this sense—and this sense alone—Cotton was king! But the hands that could have lifted him safely upon a throne and made every fiber a golden sinew of war, weakly wrested the scepter from his grasp, and hid him away from the sight and from the very memory of nations.

It was as though the youngest of the nations aped the legendary traditions of the oldest. After the potent and vigorous King Cotton was killed by starvation, Confederate finance treated him as Jewish myth declares dead King Solomon was treated. In his million-acred temple, he stood—cold, white and useless—leaning upon his broken staff; while timorous leadership gaped at his still majesty—

Had the Government bought—as was urged upon it in the fall of '61—all the cotton in the country, at the then prices, and paid for it in Confederate bonds at six per cent., that cotton—according to calculations of the best cotton men of the South—would have produced in Liverpool, during the next three years, at rapidly-increasing prices, over one thousand millions of dollars in gold! Granting this erroneous, even by one-half, it follows that the immense specie balance thus held, would—after paying all accruing interest—have left such a surplus as to have kept the currency issue of Confederate States' notes merely nominal, and even then have held them at a par valuation.

The soldier, who freely bared his breast to the shock of a hundred battles for his country, his fireside and his little ones, could then have sent his pittance of eleven dollars a month to that fireside, with the consciousness it might buy those dear ones bread at least. But long before the darkest days fell upon the South, his whole month's pay would not buy them one pound of bacon!

Secretary Memminger would seem to have had some theory, or reasons of his own, for refusing to listen to the plain common sense in these suggestions from practical sources. With a strictly agricultural population to supply, he insisted on the issue of Confederate notes in such volume that the supply far exceeded the demand. For, had there been a large manufacturing population actively employed in the South, as there was in the North, the inflation of currency might have been temporarily concealed by its rapid passage from hand to hand. But with no such demand—with only the daily necessities of the household and of the person to relieve—the plethora of these promises to pay naturally resulted, first in sluggishness, then in a complete break-down of the whole system.

Still, from the joyous days of Montgomery, and the triumphant ones after Manassas—through the doubtful pauses of the next winter and the dark days of New Orleans—on to the very Dies iræ—there pervaded government and people a secure belief that the finances of the North would break down, and the war collapse for want of money!

And so tenacious were people and rulers of this ingrained belief, that they cherished it, even while they saw the greenbacks of the Federal Government stand at 25 to 30 per cent. depreciation, while their own Treasury notes dropped rapidly from one hundred to one thousand!

Let us pause for one moment to examine upon what basis this dream was founded, before going into the sad picture of want—demoralization—ruin! into which the errors of its Treasury plunged the southern people.

Accepting the delusive estimate that all the property of the United States, in 1861, represented but one-fifth more than that of the Confederate States; and that over three-fifths of the gold duties were from cotton and cotton fabrics, and products of the South alone, it was easy for the southern eye to see a future of trial, if not of ruin, for the North. Then, too, at the beginning of the war it was reasoned that the northern army of invasion, working on exterior lines, must necessarily be greater far in numbers and in cost, than the army of defense, working on interior lines. Moreover, the vast-proposed blockade, by increasing to a point of anything like efficiency the vessels, armament, and personnel of the United States navy, would cost many millions. Thus, in short, the southern thinker could very readily persuade himself that the annual expenditures of the Federal Government must—even with the strictest economy and best management—run to unprecedented and undreamed-of sums.

The demand for increased appropriations with the very first call of Mr. Lincoln for troops, justified this belief; the budget of '62 to the United States Congress went far beyond all expectation; and the wild waste, extravagance, and robbery that swelled each succeeding estimate, were but more and more proof to the southern thinker, that he must be right. But he had made one grave miscalculation.

Into the woof of delusion which he continued to weave, for enwrapping his own judgment, such reasoner omitted wholly to cross the warp of combined result. He neglected that vastly-important filament—proper and value-enhancing handling of his valuable production; the reality that southern cotton, sugar and rice had become so great a factor in national wealth, mainly through manipulation by northern hands. He did not stop to calculate that—those hands removed and, in addition, the ports of the South herself hermetically sealed—all product, not consumable, must become as valueless as the leaves and dross of the German's dreamer!

The expenses of the North have ever been paid by the South, he reasoned. This sum now withdrawn, it follows that not only will the increased expenses of the North not be paid; but the heavy balance will be efficient in the southern Treasury, to meet our far smaller expenses.

With equal ability in management, this result might have happened; for there is no sort of doubt that depreciation in southern money was, in some regards, reason for appreciation in northern. But while the policy of the southern Treasury was weak, vacillating and destructive, that of the northern was strong, bold and cautious. While Mr. Memminger—instead of utilizing those products which had heretofore been the life-blood of northern finance—allowed the precious moments to pass; and flooded the country with paper, with only future, instead of present and actual, basis of redemption, the northern Secretary struck boldly at the very root of the matter and made each successive disaster to northern arms another link in the strengthening chain of northern credit.

The Union finances did indeed appear desperate. The stoppage of a sure and heavy means of revenue, at the same moment that the spindles of New England stood still for want of food; the increased demand for fabrics and supplies, that had now to be imported; and the vast increase of expenditure, coincident with decrease in revenue, left but had one door open to escape. The North was flooded with greenback promises to pay, issued with one sole basis of redemption—the chance of absolute conquest of a people roused, warlike, and determined to yield nothing save their lives.

To meet this issue and the interest of the vast debt incurred, taxation in the North rapidly increased, until the oppressive burden represented, in one or another shape, near 20 per cent. of the real property of the people!

Besides, the North, unlike ourselves—argued the hopeful southern financier—does not go into the war as a unit. New York, the great money center, is entirely opposed to the war; New England is discontented at the stoppage of her factories and the loss imposed upon her people; and the great West, ever more bound to the South than to the East, by community of interest and of pursuit, must soon see that her only road to salvation is down the great river that has heretofore been the one lung that gave her the breath of life! Will the cute Yankee of New England submit to be ruined, and starved, and taxed in addition? Will the great commercial metropolis let the grass grow in her streets and the vessels rot at her wharves, that once laughed with southern cotton? Will the granary and meat-house of the Union yield all her produce for baseless paper promises and, in addition pay heavy tax to carry on a war, suicidal as she must see it?

Such were the delusions of the South—based, it may be, upon reason, and only delusions because underestimating and despising the great ingenuity of the enemy, and the vast cohesive power of interest!

If the Washington government could not make the war popular, it could at least make it a great money job. If it could not bring it at once to the hearts of its people, it could at least force it directly upon their pockets.

The vast increase in army and navy gave sudden and excitingly novel employment to thousands of men then out of situations; the unprecedented demand for materials of war—arms—munitions—clothing—supplies—turned the North and East into one vast armory and quartermaster's store; while the West was a huge commissary department. Then the Government paid well and promptly, if it did pay in greenbacks. These daily changed hands and nobody stopped to inquire on what the promise to pay was based.

Great contracts were let out to shrewd and skillful moneyed men; these again subdivided became the means of employing thousands of idle hands—while each sub-contractor became a missionary to the mob to preach the gospel of the greenback!

But above all was the shrewdness and finesse with which the bonds were manipulated. The suction once applied, the great engine, Wall street, was pumped dry; and self-preservation made every bondholder a de facto emissary of the Treasury Department.

Banker and baker, soldier and seamstress, were equally interested in the currency. It became greenback or nothing, and the United States used the theory of self-preservation on which to build a substantial edifice of public credit.

These were the hard, real reasons that dissipated at last the dream of the South; that kept the greenback promise of the manufacturing North at little below gold, while the grayback of the producing South went down—down—from two—to ten—twenty—at last, to one thousand dollars for one.

CHAPTER XXVII.

DOLLARS, CENTS, AND LESS.

And now, looking back to the struggling and suffering South, one asks with wonder how these results could have transpired.

Unlike the North, the South went into the struggle with her whole soul and her whole strength. Every man came forward with one accord, willing to work in the way he best might for the cause he held sacred; ready to give his arm, his life, and all he had beside, for the general good. Whole regiments were put into service, armed, uniformed and equipped, without costing the central government one dollar; and in some instances—as of that spotless knight, true gentleman and pure patriot, Wade Hampton—raised by the energy, paid for by the generosity, and led to death itself by the valor of one man!

Corporations came into this general feeling. Railroads put their rolling-stock and their power in the hands of the Government; agreeing, as early as the origin of the Montgomery government, to take their pay at half rates and in government bonds. Banks put their facilities and their circulation, manufacturers their machinery and foundries their material, at public disposition, for the bare cost of existence. Farmers and graziers cheerfully yielded all demanded of them! And how the women wrought—how soft hands that had never worked before plied the ceaseless needle through the tough fabric—how taper fingers packed the boxes for camp, full from self-denial at home—shall shine down all history as the brightest page in story of noble selflessness.

In the deadly hail of hostile batteries; in the sweltering harvest-field of August, and at the saddened and desolate fireside of December, the southern people wrought on—hoped on!

And the result of all this willing sacrifice was greatly to reduce the burdens on the treasury. For reasons before stated the southern army was smaller, and its transportation cost far less, than that of the enemy. Its equipment was far cheaper, and its subsistence for every reason infinitely smaller.

Still, with an outlay per diem scarcely more than one-tenth that of the North—which amounted to near $4,000,000! daily; with the teeming fields and bursting warehouses filled with cotton—a year back, auriferous in every fiber—worthless now; and with a people thus united to act and to aid it, the Southern Treasury continued to flood the country with paper issues, based only on the silver lining of the cloud that hung darker and ever darker over the South.

With one-tenth the population in the field and the rest working for them, there was no real demand for this inordinate issue. One-tenth the volume of currency properly distributed, with a coincident issue of bonds, would have relieved the actual necessities of buyer and seller. But still the wheels worked on—still Treasury notes fluttered out, until every bank and store and till was glutted with them.

Then the results of the inflation came with relentless and rapid pace. With the people still convinced of the inevitable outcome of their united efforts; with the thinkers of the South still evolving their theories of the philosopher's stone to change all this mass of paper into gold; and with the press of the country blatant about the speedy and certain collapse of northern credit; above all, with millions of pounds of cotton rotting in our warehouses—Confederate money, little by little, bought less and less of the necessaries of life.

At first the change was very gradual. In the summer of 1861, persons coming to Richmond from Europe and the North spent their gold as freely as the Treasury notes. Then gold rose to five, ten, fifteen, and finally to forty per cent. premium. There it stuck for a time. But the issues increased in volume, the blockade grew more effective, and misgivings about the Treasury management crept into the minds of the people. Gold went up again, ten per cent. at a jump, until it touched a hundred—then rapidly to a hundred and fifty.

"The whole system looks devilish blue," said Styles Staple, who was curing an ugly wound in his thigh. "I've been writing 'the house' about it, and the Gov. thinks the hour has passed for utilizing the cotton. If that can't be impressed by the Government, the whole bottom will fall out of this thing before many months."

"If it ever passes the two hundred," solemnly quoth the colonel in answer, "egad, sir! 'twill go up like a rocket! Up, sir! egad! clean out of sight!"

I candidly answered that I could not see the end of the inflation.

"I do," Styles growled—"Repudiation!"

"Well, that's no end of a nobby thing!" cried Will Wyatt, who was always bored about anything more serious than the last book, or charging a battery. "Cheerful that, for a fellow's little pile to go up like a rocket, and he not even to get the stick."

"He can have the smoke, however," answered Styles more cheerily, as he hobbled over and gave a $5 note for a dozen cigars.

And this began rapidly to be the tone, everywhere out of trade. A vague feeling of insecurity about the power of the Government to check the onward flood of issue prevailed in all classes. This produced a reckless expenditure for anything tangible and portable. And at last the colonel's prediction was verified; for money touched the two hundred per cent., and went up—up—by the one hundred; until in a time incredibly short—and with such a suddenness that people had no time to be surprised—the Confederate treasury note stood still for a moment, worth twenty to one for gold!

This may be accounted for, in small part, by the scarcity of supplies and the increasing efficiency of the blockade. But it must be remembered that the value of gold remained a constant quantity and the gold dollar in Richmond, note-flooded and blockade-bound, bought more of almost any article than it ever had before.

With a string of active vessels watching every port and cove, to snap up the daring ventures between the island ports and the coast; with a powerful enemy thundering at every point of entrance to southern territory, still the fortunate man who had gold, or who could draw upon Europe, or the North, actually lived much cheaper than in any place beyond the lines! Singular as this statement may appear, it is actual fact. At this moment—before the depreciation of currency became such as to give it no value whatever—board at the best hotels in Richmond was $20 per day—equivalent to $1 in gold, while it was $3 in New York, or Washington; a suit of clothes could be had for $600 or $30 in gold, while in New York it cost from $60 to $80; the best whisky was $25 per gallon—$1.25 in gold, while in the North it was more than double.

Rapidly gold rose in the market, and in the absence of stocks became the only vehicle for financial gambling. From time to time, as a brilliant success would grace Confederate arms, the fall of Treasury credit would be checked. But it was only for the moment—and it went down steadily, rapidly, fatally. And as steadily, as rapidly and as fatally did the Treasury shuttles fly; spinning out the notes, like a whirlwind in autumn. And tighter grew the blockade, and fewer the means of supply. Stocks on hand were long since gone; little came to replace them, and the rich were driven to great straits to live, while the poor almost starved.

Away from the army lines and great centers of cities, the suffering was dreadful; impressments stripped the impoverished people; conscription turned smiling fields into desert wastes; fire and sword ravaged many districts; and the few who could raise the great bundle of paper necessary to buy a meal, scarce knew where to turn in the general desolation, to procure it even then. In the cities, it was a little better; but when beef, pork and butter in Richmond reached $35 per pound; when common cloth was $60 per yard, shoes $200 to $800 per pair, and a barrel of flour worth $1,400, it became a difficult problem to fill one's stomach at any outlay.

And all this time the soldiers and Government employés were being paid on a gold basis. The private received eleven (afterward twenty-one) dollars per month—amounting at the end of 1863 to just fifty-five cents in coin! At the last payments, before the final actions at Petersburg, the pay of a private for one month was thirty-three cents!

Nor were officers of the army and navy better paid. With their rank in the old service guaranteed them, they also received about the same pay, when gold and paper money were of equal value. Later Congress believed it would be a derogation from its dignity to "practically reduce the value of its issues," as one member said, "by raising officers' pay." Thus a lieutenant in the navy, probably of twenty years' experience, and with a family dependent upon him, though debarred from all other labor, received $1,500 per year—equal in gold to the sum of $4.25 per month; while a brigadier, or other higher general, received nearly $8 per month.

These things would provoke a smile, did they not bring with them the memory of the anguished struggle to fight off want that the wives and children of the soldier martyrs made. I have gone into detail further than space, or the reader's patience may warrant; and still, "Behold, the half is not told!"

I would not, if I could, record the bitter miseries of the last dreadful winter—paint the gaunt and ugly outlines of womanhood, squalid, famished, dying—but triumphant still. One case only will tell the tale for all the rest. A poor, fragile creature, still girlish and refined under the pinched and pallid features of starvation, tottered to me one day to beg work.

"It is life or death for me and four young children," she said. "We have eaten nothing to-day; and all last week we lived on three pints of rice!"

Will Wyatt, who was near, made a generous offer of relief. Tears sprang into the woman's eyes as she answered, "You mean kindness, major; but I have never asked charity yet. My husband is at the front; and I only ask a right—to be allowed to work for my children!"

Such were the sufferings, such the spirit of southern women!

When it was too late—when the headlong road to ruin had been more than half-way run—some feeble attempts were made to stay the downward rush. Of course, they were useless—worse than useless, in that they made widespread a feeling of distrust, already deep-seated with reflecting men. The volume of currency had reached such expansion that its value was merely nominal for purposes of subsistence, when the devices of Mr. Memminger to lessen it began to be pressed in earnest.

The people had now begun to see that the whole theory of the Treasury was false; that the moment for utilizing the cotton supply had indeed been lost; and they murmured loud and deep against the Secretary and the President; whom they believed not only retained him in office, but endorsed his destructive policy. Mr. Davis, the people said, was autocratic with his Cabinet, and would have displaced Mr. Memminger summarily, had he not favored that peculiar financial system. Mr. Davis, too, was known to have been hostile to the absorption and exportation by the Government of all the cotton. He had, moreover, recommended against any legislation by Congress to contract the currency and stop the issues. Now, therefore, the inflation and utter inadequacy of the paper money was laid at his door, as well as Mr. Memminger's; and the people, feeling there was no safety for them, began to distrust the good faith of such reckless issue. A system of barter was inaugurated among the country people; and they traded off things only needful for others absolutely essential. They began to feel a dread of taking the notes of the Government, and in many instances refused them utterly. And yet these very people yielded cheerfully to the constantly insolent, and not infrequently illegal, demands of the impressment officers.

In the cities, too, a point had been reached where the promise of the Government to pay was looked upon as a bitter joke. Bonds were constantly refused in business transactions, and only Treasury notes—as a medium of temporary exchange—were accepted.

Then, as a necessary measure, came the imperative order for funding the currency. All the millions of old issues were to be turned into the treasury, by a certain date, and exchanged for bonds. If the unlucky holder could not, or would not, deposit or exchange, he lost thirty-three per cent. of the value of the Government pledge he held. The old issues went rapidly out of sight; but the measure did not appreciably lessen the current medium, while it did very appreciably lessen the confidence in the integrity of the Department.

It is but the first step in repudiation, thought the people. If Government will on any pretext ignore one-third of its obligation, what guarantee have we for the other two? And so, justly or unjustly, the country lost all faith in the money. Men became reckless and paid any price for any article that would keep. Tobacco—as being the most compact and portable—was the favorite investment; but cotton, real estate, merchandise—anything but the paper money, was grasped at with avidity.

It has often been charged that speculators ruined the currency. But, to give the children of the devil their due—we can scarcely think but that the currency made the speculators.

Had the plain system been adopted, by which the currency dollar could have ever approximated to coin, it would have been simply impossible for the holders of supplies to have run prices up to extortionate figures. Not that I would for one instant excuse, or ask any mercy for, those unclean vultures who preyed upon the dead credit of their Government; who grew fat and loathsome while they battened on the miseries of the brave, true men who battled for them in the front ranks of the fight. But while the fault and the shame is theirs, it may not be disguised that the door was not only left open for their base plundering, but in many cases they were urged toward it by the very hands that should have slammed it in their faces.

When we come to consider the question of the blockade, we may, perhaps, see this more clearly. Meantime, in glancing down the past by the light of experience, one can not but marvel at the rapid, yet almost imperceptible, epidemic that fastened incurably upon the people, spreading to all classes and sapping the very foundations of their strength.

In the beginning, as vast crowds poured into Richmond—each man with a little money and anxious to use it to some advantage—trade put on a new and holiday dress. Old shops were spruced up; old stocks, by aid of brushing and additions, were made to appear quite salable and rapidly ran off. The demand made the meat it fed upon, until stores, shops and booths sprang up in all parts of the city and on all the roads leading into it from the camps. Gradually—from causes already noted—supplies became more scarce as money became more plenty. The pinch began to be felt by many who had never known it before; and almost every one, who had any surplus portables, was willing to turn them into money. In this way, those who had anything to sell, for the time, managed to live. But the unfortunates who had only what they needed absolutely, or who were forced to live upon a fixed stipend, that did not increase in any ratio to the decrease of money, suffered terribly.

These were only too ready to take the fever of speculation; and to buy any small lots of anything whatever that might sell again at a profit. This was the class from which the main body of amateur speculators was recruited. One successful venture led to another and gave added means for it. The clerk, or the soldier, who yesterday cleared his hundred on a little turn in whisky, to-morrow might hope to double it—then reinvest his principal and his profits. It was marvelous how values rose over night. One might buy anything, a lot of flour—a line of fruits—a hogshead of molasses, or a case of boots to-day, with almost a certainty of nearly doubling his outlay to-day week.

The ordinary channels of trade became clogged and blocked by its constant increase. Auction houses became the means of brokerage; and their number increased to such an extent that half a dozen red flags at last dotted every block on Main street. And incongruous, indeed, were the mixtures exposed at these sales, as well as in the windows of the smallest shops in Richmond. In the latter, bonnets rested on the sturdy legs of cavalry boots; rolls of ribbon were festooned along the crossed barrel of a rifle and the dingy cotton umbrella; while cartridges, loaves of bread, packages of groceries, gloves, letter paper, packs of cards, prayer-books and canteens, jostled each other in admirable confusion.

At these auctions there was utter want of system. Hogsheads of prime rum would be put up after kegs of spikes; a case of organdies would follow a good cavalry horse; and then might come four second-hand feather-beds and a hundred boarding cutlasses.

But everything soever found a purchaser; some because they were absolutely needed and the buyer dreaded waiting the next week's rise; the majority to sell again in this insane game of money-making.

But varied as were the motives for speculation, the principal ones were breadstuffs and absolute necessities of life; and while the minor speculators—the amateurs—purchased for quick profits—the professional vultures bought for great ones and could afford to wait.

The first class reached into every rank of society; the second were principally Yankee residents—caught in Richmond by the war, or remaining for the sole purpose of making it pay—and a smaller class of the lowest Polish Jews. Ishmaels both, owning no kinship and no country, their sole hope was gain—gain at the cost of reputation and credit themselves—gain even at the cost of torture and starvation to the whole South beside. These it was who could afford to buy in bulk; then aid the rise they knew must come inexorably, by hoarding up great quantities of flour, bacon, beef and salt.

It mattered not for themselves who suffered—who starved. It mattered not if the noble fellows at the front lived on a scant handful of cornmeal per day—if starving men died before the works they were too weak to mount—if ghastly objects in hospital and trench literally perished, while their storehouses burst with food—waiting for a rise!

It is too ugly a picture to dwell upon. Suffice it that the human hyenas of speculation did prey upon the dying South; that they locked up her salt while the men in the trenches perished for it; that thrice they stored the flour the people felt was theirs, in such quantities and for so long, that before their maw for gain was glutted, serious riots of the starving called for the strong hand to interfere. And to the credit of Government and southern soldier, be it said—even in that dark hour, with craving stomach and sickening soul—"Johnny Reb" obeyed his orders and guarded the den of the hyena—from his own hungering children, perhaps!

No weak words of mine may paint the baseness and infamy of the vultures of the market. Only a Doré, with a picture like his Frozen Hell, or Ugolino—might give it faint ideal.

And with the feeling how valueless was the money, came another epidemic—not so widespread, perhaps, as the speculation fever; but equally fatal to those who caught it—the rage for gambling!

Impulsive by nature, living in an atmosphere of constant and increasing artificial excitement, feeling that the money worth little to-day, perhaps, would be worth nothing to-morrow—the men of the South gambled heavily, recklessly and openly. There was no shame—little concealment about it. The money was theirs, they argued, and mighty hardly earned, too. They were cut off from home ties and home amusements; led the life of dumb beasts in camp; and, when they came to town—ho! for "the tiger."

Whether these reasons be valid or not, such they were. And really to the camp-wearied and battle-worn officer, the saloon of the fashionable Richmond "hell" was a thing of beauty. Its luxurious furniture, soft lights, obsequious servants and lavish store of such wines and liquors and cigars as could be had nowhere else in Dixie—these were only part of the inducement. Excitement did the rest, leaving out utterly the vulgar one of possible gain, so rarely did that obtain. But in these faro-banks collected the leading men, resident and alien, of the Capital. Senators, soldiers and the learned professions sat elbow to elbow, round the generous table that offered choicest viands money could procure. In the handsome rooms above they puffed fragrant and real Havanas, while the latest developments of news, strategy and policy were discussed; sometimes ably, sometimes flippantly, but always freshly. Here men who had been riding raids in the mountains of the West; had lain shut up in the water batteries of the Mississippi; or had faced the advance of the many "On-to-Richmonds"—met after long separation. Here the wondering young cadet would look first upon some noted raider, or some gallant brigadier—cool and invincible amid the rattle of Minié-balls, as reckless but conquerable amid the rattle of ivory chips.

So the faro-banks flourished and the gamblers waxed fat like Jeshurun, the ass, and kicked never so boldly at the conscript man. Nor were they all of ignoble memory. There is more than one "sport" in the South to-day, who made warm and real friends of high position from his acts of real generosity then.

Whatever may be the vices of gamblers as a class, many a soldier-boy will bear witness to the exception that proves the rule. One of the "hells" at least was a home for the refugee; and whether the Maryland soldier came dirty, and hungry and ragged from camp, with never a "stamp" in his pocket; whether he came wearied and worn, but "full of greenbacks," from a trip across the lines—the post of honor at the table, the most cordial welcome and most generous glass of wine were ever his.

However the holy may be horrified—however the princely speculator may turn up his keen-scented nose, I here record that, during the four years of dark and bloody war—of pinching want and bitter trial, there was no more generous, free-hearted and delicate aid given to the suffering soldier-boy, than came from the hand of the Baltimore faro-banker.

So in Richmond high and low gambled—some lightly for excitement's sake—some dashingly and brilliantly—a few sullenly and doggedly going in to gain. Few got badly hurt, getting more in equivalent of wines, cigars and jolly dinners than they gave. They looked upon the "hell" as a club—and as such used it freely, spending what they had and whistling over their losses. When they had money to spare they played; when they had no money to spare—or otherwise—they smoked their cigars, drank their toddies and met their friends in chaff and gossip, with no more idea that there was a moral or social wrong than if they had been at the "Manhattan" or the "Pickwick" of to-day.

I do not pretend to defend the habit; but such it was, and such all the men who remember the Capital will recognize it.

Of that other class, who "went in for blood"—some got badly hurt in reputation and in pocket. But the dead cause has buried its dead; and their errors—the result of an overstrained state of society and indubitably of a false money-system—hurt no one but themselves. ß And so, with the enemy thundering at the gates; with the echoed whoo! of the great shells almost sounding in the streets; and with the ill-provided army staggering under the burthen of defense—almost too heavy for it to bear—the finances of the Confederacy went from bad to worse—to nothing!

The cotton that the alchemy of genius, or even of business tact—might have transmuted into gold, rotted useless; or worse, as a bait for the raider. The notes, that might have been a worthy pledge of governmental faith, bore no meaning now upon their face; and the soldier in the trench and the family at the desolate fireside—who might have been comfortably fed and clad—were gnawed with very hunger! And when the people murmured too loudly, a change was made in men, if not in policy.

Even if Mr. Trenholm had the ability, he had no opportunity to prove it. The evil seed had been sown and the bitter fruit had grown apace. Confederate credit was dead!

Even its own people had no more faith in the issues of their government; and they hesitated not—even while they groped on, ever on to the darkness coming faster and faster down upon them—to declare that the cause of their trouble was Mr. Memminger; with the President behind him.

But, though the people saw the mismanagement and felt its cause—though they suffered from it as never nation suffered before—though they spoke always bitterly and often hotly of it; still, in their greatest straits and in their darkest hours, no southern man ever deemed it but mismanagement.

The wildest and most reckless slanderer could never hint that one shred of all the flood of paper was ever diverted from its proper channel by the Secretary; or that he had not worked brain and body to the utmost, in the unequal struggle to subdue the monster he had created.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ACROSS THE POTOMAC AND BACK.

Of such vast import to the southern cause was Lee's first aggressive campaign in Maryland; so vital was its need believed to be, by the people of the South; so varied and warm was their discussion of it that it may seem proper to give that advance more detailed consideration.

Imperfect and inadequate as such a sketch must be, to the soldier, it may still convey in some sort, the ideas of the southern people upon a momentous question.

Coincident with the evacuation of the Peninsula by the Federals was General Lee's movement, to throw beyond the Rapidan a force sufficient to prevent Pope's passage of that river. After Cedar Mountain, Jackson had disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him up. It was believed in the North that the advance of Pope's masses had cut him off from the main army and locked him up in the Shenandoah Valley; while the South—equally ignorant of his designs and confident of their success—rested on the rumor that he had said:

"Send me more men and no orders!"

Suddenly a beacon flashed into the sky, telling in the flames from the depots at Manassas and Bristow Stations that the famous passage of Thoroughfare Gap had been made—millions of property, stores and rolling-stock given to feed the flames. Jackson was in Pope's rear!

This Confederate corps now fronted toward the main army of Lee, and the bragging Federal found himself between the upper and nether millstones. Still he had little doubt that he could turn upon the small force of Jackson and crush it before Lee could advance to his rescue. Following this plan, and depending also upon the heavy masses Burnside was bringing down to him from Fredericksburg, Pope attacked Jackson in detail at Bristow and at Manassas, with no other effect than to be repulsed heavily in both instances.

The attack, however, warned Jackson of the enemy's purpose and of his own critical position; and, on the night of August 28th, he made a masterly flank movement that put him in possession of the old battle-field of Manassas plains; at the same time opening his communications with Lee's advance.

In all this, General Stuart gave most efficient aid both in beating back heavy attacks of the enemy's cavalry, and in keeping Jackson advised of the course of Pope's retreat—or advance, as it might be called—from Warrenton to Manassas.

By the 29th of August, Longstreet's corps had effected the passage of Thoroughfare Gap and united with Jackson; and on that day these corps engaged with Pope's advance in a terrific fight, lasting from midday till dark—the prelude to the great drama that was next day to deluge the field of Manassas a second time with the blood of friend and foe.

Before daylight next morning, the cannon again woke the wearied and battle-worn ranks, sleeping on their arms on the field they had won; and sent a fresh impulse to the hearts of their brothers, toiling steadily on to join them in the great fight to come. Heavy firing and sharp skirmishing for position filled the forenoon; but then the masses of hostile infantry joined in the shock of battle, more terrible than the one of the year before. The men were more disciplined and hardened on both sides; and the Federal leaders, feeling that their only hope lay in victory now, hurled brigade after brigade against the now vindictive and battle-thirsty Confederates.

Line after line emerges from enveloping clouds of smoke, charging the fronts that Longstreet and Jackson steadily oppose to them. Line after line melts before that inevitable hail, rolling back scattered and impotent as the spume the angry ocean throws against a granite headland!

Broken again and again, the Federals, with desperate gallantry, hurl against the unflinching crescent that pours its ceaseless rain of fire through them; while the great guns behind its center thunder and roll

sending death-winged bolts tearing and crushing through them.

Through the carnival of death Hood has sent his Texans and Georgians at a run—their wild yells rending the dull roar of the fight; their bayonets flashing in a jagged line of light like hungry teeth! Jackson has swung gradually round the enemy's right; and Stephen Lee's artillery has advanced from the center—ever tearing and crashing through the Federal ranks, scattering terror and death in its unswerving path!

The slaughter has been terrific. Federal and Southron have fought well and long. Piles of mangled and gory dead lie so mingled that gray and blue are undistinguished. But the wild impetuosity of the "ragged rebels"—nerved by the memories of this field's old glories—toned up by the Seven Days, and delirious with the glow of present victory—sweeps the Federal back and doubles his line. It breaks—fresh regiments pour in with deadly shot and fearful yell; the Federal line melts into confusion—rout! and the Second Manassas is won.

The victory was as complete as that of the year before; an absolute rout was only saved the Federals by falling back to the reserve under Franklin, when the retreat became more orderly, as there was no pursuit.

The solid fruits of the victory were the annihilation of all the plans of the gong-sounder, and the complete destruction of the new "On-to-Richmond;" the capture of over 7,000 prisoners—paroled on the field—and his admitted total loss of 28,000 men.

New glories, too, shone around the names of Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, Hood, Kemper and Jenkins; and the efficient aid and splendid fighting of the cavalry of Stuart, Hampton and Bev Robinson, here proved that arm to have reached its point of highest efficiency.

The heart of the South, still throbbing with triumph after the Seven Days and their bright corollary of Cedar Mountain, went up in one wild throb of joyous thanksgiving. So satisfied were the people of the sagacity of their leaders and the invincible valor of their troops; so carried away were they by the splendid reflection from the glory over Manassas plain—that this time they never even stopped to question why there had been no pursuit; why the broken enemy had not been completely crushed. All they felt was that Virginia was free from the invader. For General Loring, in the Kanawha, had driven the enemy before him and entirely cleared that portion of the state; while on this line he was hastening rapidly back to Washington to meet the expected advance of Lee toward the Capital.

Without resting his army, the latter divided it into three corps, under command of Jackson, Longstreet and A. P. Hill; and moved rapidly toward the accomplishment of that cherished hope of the southern people—an offensive campaign on the enemy's soil.

Jackson passed with his accustomed swiftness to the occupation of the heights commanding Harper's Ferry and to the investment of that position; while the other corps moved to the river at different points, to cut off the re-enforcements the alarmed Federals might send to its rescue. Great was the alarm and intense the excitement at Washington. The sudden turn of the tables—the cold dash to hopes that the bragging of their new hero had raised to fever heat, and the transformation of the crushed rebel into an avenging invader, created equal surprise as panic. Pope summarily dropped from the pinnacle of public favor into disgrace; and McClellan was the only mainstay the Federal Government could fall back on, to check the victorious Lee.

Meanwhile, equal excitement reigned in the Rebel Capital, but it was joyous and triumphant. The people had long panted to see the theater of blood and strife transferred to the prosperous and peaceful fields of their enemy. They had a secure feeling that when these were torn with shell and drenched with carnage; when barns were rifled and crops trampled by hostile feet, the northern people would begin to appreciate the realities of a war they had so far only seen by the roseate light of a partial press. Secure and confident in the army that was to work their oracle, the hope of the South already drew triumphant pictures of defeated armies, harassed states, and a peace dictated from the Federal Capital.

On the 14th of September, D. H. Hill, of Longstreet's corps—stationed at Boonesboro to protect Jackson's flank—was attacked by a heavy force. Heavily outnumbered, Hill fought a dogged and obstinate battle—giving and taking terrific blows, only ceasing when night stopped the fight. It was hard to tell which side had the best of the actual fighting; but the great object was gained and the next day Harper's Ferry, with its heavy garrison and immense supply of arms, stores and munitions, was surrendered to Jackson.

Great was the joy in Richmond when the news of the brilliant fight at Boonesboro—the first passage of arms on Maryland soil—and of the capture of the great arsenal of the North reached her anxious people. It was, they felt, but the presage of the great and substantial triumphs that Lee and his veterans must win. Higher rose their confidence and more secure became their calculations; and the vivid contrast between the ragged, shoeless and incongruous army of the South with the sleek, spruce garrison surrendered to them, only heightened the zest of the victory and the anticipation of those to follow.

But a sudden check was to come to this mid-career of anticipation, and a pall of doubt and dismay was to drape the fair form of Hope, even in her infancy.

Two days after the fall of Harper's Ferry—on the 17th of September—Lee had massed some 35,000 men on the banks of the Antietam, near Sharpsburg—a village ten miles north-east of Harper's Ferry. McClellan, pressing him hard with an army four times his own numbers—composed in part of raw levies and hastily-massed militia, and in part of the veterans of the armies of the Potomac—seemed determined on battle. Trusting in the valor and reliability of his troops, and feeling the weakness of being pressed by an enemy he might chastise, the southern chief calmly awaited the attack—sending couriers to hasten the advance of A. P. Hill, Walker and McLaws, whose divisions had not yet come up.

Ushered in by a heavy attack the evening before—which was heavily repulsed—the morning of the 17th saw one of the bloodiest and most desperate fights in all the horrid records of that war. Hurling his immense masses against the rapidly dwindling Confederate line; only to see them reel back shattered and broken—McClellan strove to crush his adversary by sheer strength. No sooner would one attacking column waver, break, retreat—leaving a writhing and ghastly wake behind it—than a fresh host would hurl against the adamantine line that sunk and shriveled under the resistless fire, but never wavered. In all the fearful carnage of the war—whether resulting in gloom, like that of Corinth, or purchasing brilliant victory with precious blood—men never fought better than did that battle-torn, service-worn handful that had just saved Richmond—broken the glittering, brazen vessel of destruction; and now sent its defiant yell through hostile mountains.

All that valor and endurance could do had been done; and at mid-afternoon the battle seemed well-nigh lost. Just then the missing divisions—some 12,000 men—reached the field. Wearied, unfed and footsore, they were; but the scent of battle rested and refreshed them as they went into the thickest of the fight. But even they could not save the day. Outnumbered and shattered, but unconquered still, the Confederates could not advance from the field they had held at such bitter cost. And when night stopped the aimless carnage, each army, too crippled to renew the fight, withdrew toward its base. McClellan could not pursue; and the Confederates fell back doggedly, sullenly, and recrossed into Virginia.

As usual in the North, a wild howl went up against McClellan. In response to this brutum fulmen, he was promptly removed by Halleck, for not conquering an army that had proved itself invincible!

Bitter indeed was the hour that brought to Richmond the story of Sharpsburg. Flushed with hope, undoubting of triumph, her citizens only listened for the wild cheer that would echo back from conquered Washington. But the sound that reached their ears was the menacing roar from retreating ranks that left near one-third their number stark and ghastly on that grim field, where the Death Angel has so darkly flapped his wings.

Thus ended the first Maryland campaign.

It had given the people their wish; it had carried the gray jackets over the border and stricken the enemy sorely on his own soil. But it had left that soil drenched with the blood of some of the bravest and best; the noble Branch and chivalric Starke had both fallen where their men lay thickest—torn and ghastly on that terrible field.

The details of that field which the Richmond people gathered from the northern papers, deepened their gloom. And through it rose a hoarse whisper, swelling at last into angry query, why had the campaign miscarried? If the army was inadequate in numbers, why had General Lee carried it over that river he had never crossed before, when his own army was better and the enemy less prepared? And if, as stated, the men were ill-provided in munitions and transportation—as they were known to be with clothes and rations—why had Government forced its only bulwark well-nigh to annihilation?

It mattered little, the people said, that the results had been far more disastrous to the North than to the South—both in prestige and loss. The North could far better afford it. What was the killing of a few thousand raw troops, or the destruction of a few thousand stand of arms, compared to the precious cost of holding the field at Sharpsburg?

And gradually these complaints, as in all such cases, answered themselves; and then the vials of southern wrath began to empty over the unfortunate Marylanders, who had not risen to aid their brothers in their sore need. How unjust were these charges will soon be shown.

And so the people murmured to relieve their overfull hearts, until the calm and steady course of the general they had never doubted, quieted them once more.

The outcry in the North resulted in the choice of General A. E. Burnside to command the new invasion; and he was of course hailed as the augur, who was surely this time to read the oracle. Watchful, calm, and steadfast, the Confederate waited, through the months of preparation, to meet the new advance—so disposing part of his force about Winchester as to prevent the favorite Valley-road On-to-Richmond. With a renewed, and splendidly appointed, army, Burnside moved in November toward Fredericksburg; thinking that this time he had really gotten between Lee and Richmond.

What was his disgust to find, when he reached the Rappahannock, that the Confederate army was not all at Winchester, but was before him to dispute his crossing. After some unavailing manœuvers for position, the Federals sat down on the heights of Stafford, opposite Fredericksburg; made works at their leisure; and spread a perfect city of tents and booths over a line of some five miles. Outnumbered as he was, General Lee could do nothing but watch and wait for the crossing that must come, sooner or later; and meantime he chose his line of battle.

Just back of Fredericksburg, stretching some two miles southward, is a semi-circular plain bordered by a range of hills. These stretch from Hamilton's crossing beyond Mayre's Hill on the left; and are covered with dense oak growth and a straggling fringe of pines. On these hills, Lee massed his artillery, to sweep the whole plain where the enemy must form, after his crossing; and arranged his line of battle with A. P. Hill holding the right and Longstreet the left. On the night of December 10th, Stafford Heights opened a furious bombardment of the town, tearing great gaps through the thickest populated quarters.

Into the bitter winter night tender women and young children were driven, shivering with fright and cold, half clad; seeking safety from the screaming shells that chased them everywhere. Under this bombardment, the pioneers commenced their pontoons at three points. The storm of grape and canister was too great to contest the landing, which was effected next day.

As the heavy fog that had obscured the sun cleared away, the regular lines of the Federals advanced to the attack, raked and torn by batteries. Broken, they were formed again, only to be mowed down afresh; while the scream of a thousand shells from Stafford filled the air with a continuous whoo, amid which the rattle of southern musketry sang ever fiercer and swifter. Then dark masses of blue came out of the town and formed for the charge, under a terrific fire from the Washington Artillery on Mayre's Hill. Steadily and fearlessly did Meagher's First Brigade move to the attack. Crowded into the narrow road, swept by the accurate fire of the Louisianians and McLaws' veterans—the head of the column went down, only to be filled by the gallant fellows behind. Into the jaws of death they came, up to the very works—then, with half their number dead and dying about their feet, they broke, the left gave way—and the bloody field was won at all points. The victory was terrible and complete.

But it had cost dear, and the rejoicing in Richmond was tempered with sorrow for the loss of such as Maxcy Gregg, Cobb, and many others, lying cold upon the field of victory.

And with the first feeling of triumph the news brought, came the thought that this time surely the enemy would be pushed—this time he was indeed a prey! Broken and demoralized, with a deep river in his rear that he must cross in pontoons, the people felt that he could surely be destroyed before reaching his Stafford stronghold. But once again, as ever, the shattered and broken legions of Burnside were allowed two days to recover from their demoralization; to pass at leisure, over the trap behind them.

Great was the amaze, bitter the disappointment of the people; and the inquiry how and why this had been done, became universal. But the southern people above every other feeling had now come to cherish a perfect and unquestioning faith in General Lee; and even while they wondered at a policy that invariably left a beaten enemy to recover, and only become stronger—still they questioned with a firm reliance that there must be some reason, invisible to them but good and potent still.

There were no active operations immediately succeeding Fredericksburg. Picket fighting; cavalry skirmishes, severe but fruitless; and temporary raids of the enemy to devastate the country around the rear of their army, and to penetrate into that beyond their lines, occupying the winter and early spring. But there was full leisure for the people to look upon the ugliest features of the war. Fredericksburg was a ruin, riddled with shot and shell, tenanted only by the poorest classes. Her once cheerful and elegant population were ruined and starving refugees in Richmond; the smiling tracts stretching back to the Potomac were one broad, houseless waste—browned by fire, and cut with the winding wagon-roads of the enemy. Constant incursions of his cavalry—for "raiding" had now become a feature of the war—harassed the people, everywhere removed from the immediate army lines. These slaughtered and drove off their cattle, stole and consumed their supplies, burned their barns, and destroyed their farming utensils!—a refinement of barbarity to non-combatants, never before practiced by a civilized race.

Then, too, the news from the West, heretofore sketched, reacted on Richmond; and the gloom in the Capital grew deep and universal. Burnside had, meantime, been dismissed in disgrace for his shameful failure. The inevitable howl had again gone up in the North; then the inevitable result had come. Joseph Hooker was now the coming man—the war-gong was sounded more loudly than ever; the army was re-enforced to greater size than ever; and so equipped that its general proclaimed it the "finest army on the planet." Agog with preparation, and stuffed full with promises of certain success this time, the North forgot the many slips between its lips and the coveted cup of triumph, and waited in secure impatience for the moment when the roads would permit Hooker to advance.

And the South waited, too—not hopefully, nor with the buoyant anticipation of the past, but still with a confidence in its cause and its defenders nowise diminished; with even more fixed determination never to yield, while there were muskets left and hands to grasp them.

At last the movement came. Late in April, Hooker divided his immense army into two columns, one menacing right crossing below Fredericksburg, to hold the troops at that point; the other crossing above, to flank and pass to their rear, combining with the other wing and cutting communication with Richmond. Taking command in person of his right wing—while the left was confided to General Slocum—Hooker rapidly crossed the river, concentrating not less than 60,000 men on the Chancellorsville road, eleven miles above Fredericksburg. Grasping the situation at once, Lee ordered the small force there back to Mine Run, until re-enforced; and then, on the 2d of May, Stonewall Jackson completed that wonderful and painful circuit of the enemy—so brilliant in conception, so successful in result. Late in the afternoon he reached their extreme right and rear, secure and unsuspecting. Never stopping to rest, the Eldest Son of War hurled himself like a thunderbolt on the confident and intrenched enemy—scattering the eleventh corps (Sigel's) like chaff, and hurling them, broken and demoralized, upon their supports. The very key of the enemy's campaign was driven out; and the "one hour more of daylight!" the hero-general prayed for—or the merciful sparing of his priceless life by the God of Battles—would have shown complete defeat, even annihilation, of Hooker's right.

But it was not so written in the Book of Life! A wise dispensation, whose object we may see, removed the best and greatest soldier of the war—sorely stricken by the hands of his own devoted men, in the darkness; the routed enemy was given, by this unequaled misfortune, and by fast falling night, opportunity for partial reorganization.

Hooker's right was turned and doubled upon his center; but he was still strong in numbers, and had the advantage of position and heavy works, abatis and rifle-pits.

Next morning General Lee assaulted in force, all along the line; and after heavy and bloody fighting, drove him from his position at all points. Sedgwick, however, had crossed the river at Fredericksburg, driving the Confederates from the town and carrying Mayre's Hill by assault. This acted as a check to Lee, who was forced to detach McLaws' division to drive Sedgwick back from his own rear. This he successfully accomplished, and—Anderson reaching McLaws just in time—on the 4th of May, the last of the series of the battles of the Rappahannock resulted in complete defeat of Sedgwick.

Still, Hooker was permitted to withdraw his army across the river; but the campaign of the week had been successful in utterly breaking his plans and clearly defeating him in every engagement.

CHAPTER XXIX.

OVER AGAIN, TO GETTYSBURG.

The campaign of the Rappahannock had shown brilliant flashes of strategy and valor. It had proved that a badly-provided army of less than 50,000 Confederates—barefooted, blanketless and half-fed, but properly led—could, even when surrounded and out-flanked, defeat and set at naught 120,000 of the best-appointed troops ever sent against them. It revived, in some degree, the drooping spirits of the people; but a sorrow that rose to agony wrung the heart of the South, when what was earth of her peerless, pure and idolized Jackson was laid in the Capitol, wrapped in the flag he had made immortal.

Shattered and emaciated veterans, noble-browed matrons and pale, delicate maidens gathered around that sacred bier, in the awed hush of a common sorrow, too deep for words. Tears coursed over cheeks that had been bronzed in the fire of battle; sobs rose from hearts that had lost their dearest and nearest without a murmur, save—Thy will be done! And little children were lifted up to look upon what was left of him who would ever be the greatest one of earth to them. And through the coffin-lid, that calm, still face seemed hourly to grow more holy and more radiant; the light of battle faded out from its softening lines and the seal of the God of Peace rested in plain token upon the glorified brow.

Truly did every one who looked upon it feel:

And when the funeral procession passed the streets of the Capital, the whole people stood bareheaded and mute. Following the wailing notes of the dirge with unsteady feet, moved the escort of ragged and war-worn soldiers—their tattered banners furled—and every torn dress and dented gun-carriage speaking eloquently of the right they had earned to sorrow for him. It was no mocking pageant. No holiday soldiery, spruce and gay, followed that precious bier—no chattering crowds pointed out the beauties of the sight. Solemn and mourning the escort passed; sad and almost voiceless the people turned away and, going to their homes, sat with their sorrow.

After the Rappahannock fights came a lull of several weeks; and it was early in June when General Lee advanced to force the enemy out of the state. His army had been reorganized and strengthened as much as possible; General R. S. Ewell was chosen successor to Jackson; and to him, Longstreet and A. P. Hill—raised now to a full lieutenant-general—was given command of the three corps.

Diverging from the main line, after some little coquetting for position, Ewell charged Jackson's "foot cavalry" upon Winchester, capturing the town with its heavy depots of stores and munitions; while Hill kept Hooker amused, and Longstreet slowly forged his way toward the river.

Great was the joy of the poor town when it once more welcomed the gray-jackets. From the beginning it had been battle-ground and billet of both armies a dozen times. Tossed from Federal to Confederate possession—a very shuttlecock of war—it had been harassed, robbed and pillaged by the one; drained of the very dregs by free gifts to the other. But the people of Winchester never faltered in their faith; and to-day her noble women go down the roll of heroism and steadfast truth, hand in hand with the noblest ones of our history.

And the joy in Winchester was somewhat reflected at the harassed and eager-watching Capital. Undiminished by the sorrows of the last fall, undimmed by its reverses, still burned the southern desire to plant its victorious flag on hostile soil. It was neither a thirst for vengeance nor an empty boast; rather a yearning for relief—a craving for the rest from blood and battle-shocks that such a campaign would give.

It was with deep satisfaction, then, that Richmond heard that Ewell had crossed the Potomac at Williamsport, pushed on through Hagerstown and, leaving Early at York, had passed to Carlisle; that Longstreet had followed him at Williamsport; and that A. P. Hill had crossed at Shepherdstown and pushed for Chambersburg, reaching there on the 27th of June.

Hooker, falling rapidly back upon Washington—at which point he believed the movement aimed—had been sacrificed, and with more justice than usual, to popular clamor. General Geo. G. Meade replaced him in command, and strained every nerve to collect numbers of men, irrespective of quality—seeming to desire to crush the invasion by weight alone.

Wild was the alarm in the North when the rebel advance had penetrated the heart of Pennsylvania; when York was held by Early and laid under contribution and Harrisburg was threatened by Ewell. The whole North rose in its might. Governors Seymour, of New York, Andrew, of Massachusetts, and Curtin, of Pennsylvania, put their whole militia at the service of the President; the energy at Washington, momentarily paralyzed, soon recovered; and by the last day of the month, Meade had collected an army of near 200,000 men. Many of these were, of course, new levies and raw militia; but near one-half were the veterans of the armies of McClellan, Burnside and Hooker; men who had fought gallantly on southern soil and might be expected to do so on their own.

It seems that Lee's intention was to flank Meade; and leaving him in Maryland, to pass into Pennsylvania, occupy Harrisburg, destroy communications between Washington and the North and reduce Philadelphia.

Such, at least, was the universal belief of the southern people; and so rapidly did their mercurial temperament rise under it, and so great was their reliance in the army that was to accomplish the brilliant campaign, that they looked upon it already as a fixed fact. Now, at last, they felt, we will teach the Yankees what invasion really means. With their Capital leaguered, their President and Cabinet fugitives by water, and their great thoroughfare and second city in our hands, we will dictate our own terms, and end the war.

Such might have been the case, had Gettysburg been won, or had that battle never been fought.

If Lee's intention was to flank Meade and avoid a fight at the outset of the campaign, it was thwarted by the rapid concentration of troops in his front, near Gettysburg. To prevent being struck in detail and secure his communications, Lee was forced to recall Ewell and to concentrate his army. Hill and Longstreet were ordered up from Chambersburg; and by July 1st the opposing armies faced each other; each feeling its way cautiously and knowing that the result of this grapple of the giants must in a great measure decide the war. Meade's defeat would lose Washington, leave the heart of the North open, and demoralize the only army in that section. Lee's defeat, on the other hand, would jeopardy his very existence and probably leave Richmond an easy prey to fresh advance.

But in Richmond none of this was felt; for all that was known of the army was its victorious entry into Pennsylvania; and absurdly exaggerated stories of the dire panic and demoralization of the enemy received perfect credence.

Then the shock came.

On the 1st of July, Hill's advance encountered the enemy under Reynolds; and—after a fierce struggle, in which their general was killed—drove them back into and through the town. Here they were reformed on a semi-circular crest of hills; massing their artillery and holding their position until dark. Their loss was heavier far than Hill's, and the men not in as good fighting trim; but it was very late, and General Lee feared pressing their reserve. Had he known that it was only the advance of Meade, broken and demoralized, that held the crest, he could undoubtedly have carried and occupied it. The fearful battles of the next two days, with their terrific loss of life, doubtless hung on this lost opportunity.

By next morning the enemy had massed the remainder of his army behind these hills, now frowning with two hundred guns and blue with one dense line of soldiery. Under a fearful cannonade, through a hail of bullets that nothing living might stand, Stewart works his way slowly and steadily forward on the enemy's left; driving him from line after line of works and holding every inch gained, by dogged valor and perseverance. Hays and Hoke (of Early's) advance into the ploughing fire of the rifled guns—march steadily on and charge over their own dead and dying, straight for Cemetery Heights. This is the key of the enemy's position. That once gained the day is won; and on the brave fellows go, great gaps tearing through their ranks—answering every fresh shock with a savage yell. Line after line of the enemy gives way before that terrible charge. The breastwork is occupied—they are driven out! Melting under the horrid fire, unfaltering still—the gray-jackets reach the very hill!

Nothing mortal can stand the enfilading fire. They give way—again they charge—they are at the very works! But the fire is too heavy for their thinned ranks to stand; and night falls over the field, illumined by the red flash of cannon—drenched with blood and horrid with carnage of friend and foe. But there is no advantage gained, save a slight advance of Stewart's position on their left.

With the morning of the third day came the conviction that the vital struggle must be made for Cemetery Heights. Lee must win them—and then for victory!

All the artillery was massed upon this point. Then awoke the infernal echoes of such an artillery duel as the war was never to see again. The air was black with flying shot and shell, and their wild whoo! made one continuous song through the sultry noon. Forth from the canopy of smoke and their screen of trees, comes the chosen storming party—Pickett's division of Virginians; supported on the right by Wilcox and on the left by Heth's division under Pettigrew, its own general having been wounded in the head the day before.

Unmindful of the fire-sheeted storm into which they march—down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death stride that devoted band. Now, they emerge into the Emmetsburg road, straight on for the coveted heights. On! never blenching, never faltering—with great gaps crashing through them—filling the places of the dead with the living next to die—On! into the jaws of death goes the forlorn hope! They are at the rise—they reach the crest; and then their batteries are suddenly silent!

Behind them is the ghastly road, furrowed and ploughed by ceaseless shot, slippery with blood and dotted thick with their writhing, bleeding brothers. Behind them is death—defeat! Before them a hundred belching cannon—a dense, dark mass of blue, relieved only by the volleying flash that shakes and rolls along their shattered line! Still up they go! on—ever on! That small Virginia division, shattered, bleeding—and alone reaches the works—fights for one moment and then—has won them!

But there are no supports—Pettigrew has not come up; and the decimated Virginians are literally overwhelmed by the fresh masses poured upon them. Broken, torn, exhausted, they fall back—scattered into terrible death-dealing knots, that fight their way sullenly and terribly home to their own lines!

That charge—unequaled in history—has fearfully crippled the enemy. He can not pursue. But it has failed, and the battle of Gettysburg is over!

That night General Lee fell back toward Hagerstown, turning in his retreat to show front to the enemy that dared not attack. Nine days he stayed on the Maryland shore, waiting the advance that never came; then he recrossed the river, on the night of the 13th, and again fell back to the Rappahannock lines.

The second Maryland campaign had failed!

Into the midst of the general elation in Richmond crashed the wild rumors from the fight. We had driven the enemy through the town; we held the height; we had captured Meade and 40,000 prisoners. Washington was at our mercy; and Lee would dictate terms of peace from Philadelphia!

These were the first wild rumors; eagerly sought and readily credited by the people. They were determined to believe and would see no change of plan in General Lee's forced battle at Gettysburg, instead of on the plains at Harrisburg.

Then over the general joy, creeping none knew whence nor how, but rapidly gaining shape and substance, came a shadow of doubt. Crowds besieged the War Department, anxious, excited, but still hopeful. Then the truth came; tempered by the Government, but wildly exaggerated by northern sources.

Down to zero dropped the spirits of the people; down to a depth of despairing gloom, only the deeper from the height of their previous exultation. The dark cloud from Gettysburg rolled back over Richmond, darkened and made dense a hundred fold in the transit.

The terrible carnage of that field was exaggerated by rumor. Pickett's gallant division was declared annihilated; it was believed that the army had lost 20,000 men; and it was known that such priceless blood as that of Garnett, Pettigrew, Armistead, Pender, Kemper, Semmes and Barksdale had sealed the dreadful defeat.

It only needed what came the next day, to dash the last drop from the cup of hope the people still tried to hold to their lips; and that was the news of the fall of Vicksburg, on the 4th of July.

And out of the thick darkness that settled on the souls of all, came up the groan of inquiry and blame. Why had the campaign failed? they asked. Why had General Lee been forced into battle on ground of the enemy's choosing? Why had he attacked works that only an army like his would have made an effort to take, when he could have flanked the enemy and forced him to fight him on his own terms? Why had the Government—as was alleged—allowed the crucial test of liberty—the crisis campaign of the war—to be undertaken without proper transportation and supplies of ammunition?

And why, above all, had the general they still loved and trusted, spite of their doubts—why had he sent their beloved Virginians unsupported to the shambles? Why had he fought the whole Yankee army with one division?

Such were the murmurs on every side. And though they gradually died away, after the first shock of surprise and grief had passed; still they left a vague feeling behind that all was not well; that grave errors had been committed somewhere. For the southern people could not get over the feeling that there were no odds of numbers and position that could cause defeat to a southern army, properly supplied and properly handled. So, although the murmurs ceased, the conviction did not die with them that the battle of Gettysburg was a grave error; that there had been a useless waste of priceless lives; and that the campaign had been nullified, which else had ended the war.

And unlike other post-disaster conclusions of the southern people, this did not die out. It only became strengthened and fixed, the more light was thrown on the vexed questions and the more they were canvassed. The excuses of the War Department that ammunition had given out, were scornfully rejected. Then, said the people, that was your fault. General Lee could not depend—in a campaign in the heart of an enemy's country and far away from his base—upon his captures. And as to his not intending to fight a pitched battle, how could he calculate upon that, or why then did he fight it; and upon ground of the enemy's choice?

And with the other objections to the conduct of the campaign, came that of the general's treatment of the people of Pennsylvania. It was felt to be an excess of moderation to a people whose armies had not spared the sword, the torch and insult to our unprotected tracts; and it was argued—without a shadow of foundation—that Lee's knightly courtesy to the Dutch dames of Pennsylvania had disgusted his troops.

Those starving and barefooted heroes would have thought it right if their beloved chief had fallen down and worshiped the makers of apple-butter! They felt he could do no wrong; and it was indirect injustice to the gallant dead that dotted Cemetery Hill—and to the no less gallant living ready to march up to those frowning heights again—to intimate that any action of their general would, or could, have made them fight better.

Excessive as was that moderation—ill advised as it might have proved, in case of a long campaign—it could have had no possible effect on the fortunes of the disastrous and brief one just ended.

Equally unjust as that popular folly, was the aspersion upon southern sympathizers in Maryland, that they did not come forth to aid their friends. The part of Maryland through which southern armies passed in both campaigns were sparsely settled, and that with strong Union population. The Marylander of Baltimore and the lower counties—whatever may have been his wishes, was gagged and bound too closely to express, far less carry them out. Baltimore was filled with an armed guard and was, moreover, the passage-way of thousands of troops; the lower counties were watched and guarded. And, moreover, the Confederate army was not practically in Maryland, but from the 20th of June to the 1st of July.

The taunt to the down-trodden Marylanders—oppressed and suffering bravely for conscience sake—we must in justice to ourselves believe only the result of grief and disappointment. Men, like goods, can only be judged "by sample;" and, from the beginning to the end of the war, Maryland may point to Archer, Winder, Elzey, Johnson and many another noble son—unhonored now, or filling, perhaps, a nameless grave—and ask if such men came from among a people who talked but would not act! And so in sorrow, disappointment and bitterness ended the second Maryland campaign.

And with it ended all hopes of carrying the war beyond our own gates in future; happy could we beat it thence, baffled and crushed as ever before.

For the short, sharp raid of General Early—penetrating to the gates of the Capital and with possible capabilities of even entering them—can hardly be considered an organized scheme of invasion. It was rather the spasmodic effort by a sharp, hard blow to loosen the tightening and death-dealing grip upon our throat, and give us time for one long, deep breath before the final tug for life.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE CONFEDERACY AFLOAT.

Measured by the popular test, success, the Confederate States Navy would, perhaps, be accorded little merit. Even cursory examination into the vast difficulties and discouragements with which it contended, will do it prompt justice.

No men who joined the southern service sacrificed more than her navy officers. The very flower of the old service, they had grown gray in their slow promotion to its positions of honor; their families depended for sole support upon the pittance of pay they received. Still they hesitated not a moment to range themselves under the banners their native states had unfurled. Once there, no men labored more faithfully—and efficiently. Subject to misconstruction, to jealousy, to petty annoyances—and later, to the most pinching straits of poverty—they were ever uncomplaining and ever ready.

Many and varied were the calls upon them. They commanded land batteries, trained raw gunners and drilled lubberly conscripts; they were bridge-builders, carpenters, wood-cutters, chemists and colliers; and, at the best, it was hard for the veteran who had, for forty years, trod the deck of a frigate, to be cooped in the contracted limits of a razeed tug, or an armed pilot boat. But once there he made the best of it; and how well he wrought in the new sphere, the names of Hollins, Lynch, Buchanan and Tucker still attest.

At the time the first Army Bill was passed by Congress, a law was also made securing to resigned naval officers the same rank they held in the United States service. But there was scarcely a keel in Confederate waters, and small indeed was the prospect for the future; so these impatient spirits, panting for active work, were put into unsuitable positions at the very outset. Later, a bill was passed for a provisional navy, but there was no fleet for their occupation. The department, therefore, used the discretion given it to confer a few honorary titles, and to appoint a vast number of subordinate officers, for shore duty in its work-shops and navy-yards.