During the first two years, the captures were so infrequent that, it may be safely stated, never before was a Government at war so well supplied with arms, munitions, clothing and medicines—everything, in short, that an army requires—with so little money as was paid by the Confederacy. The shipment from England to the Islands in ordinary tramp steamers; the landing and storage there, and the running of the blockade, cost money; but all that was needed came from cotton practically given to the Confederate Government by its owners.
The supplies were, in every instance, bought at the lowest cash prices by men trained in the work as contractors for the British army. No credit was asked. Merchants having needed supplies were frankly told that our means were limited, and our payments would be made by cheques on Fraser, Trenholm & Co., Liverpool, an old established and conservative house. The effect of such buying was to create confidence on the part of the sellers, which made them more anxious to sell than were we to purchase. When the end came, and some of the largest sellers were ruined, I never heard a word of complaint of their being over-reached or in any manner treated unfairly.
As long as the system thus described continued, the South not only equipped an army able to cope with the colossal forces constantly advancing upon it, but it accomplished this without distressing its people with taxes. And thus, in part, was answered Mr. Cushing's apparently unanswerable exclamation: "What possible chance can the South have?"
But the supply of acceptable arms was not equal to the demand. The civilized powers had but recently been equipped with modern arms. The United States had the Springfield; England had the Enfield, which was practically the same as the Springfield; Austria had a rifle bearing a close resemblance to both, and of about the same calibre; Prussia had a breech-loader which no Government would now think of issuing to troops; France had an inferior muzzle-loader, and was experimenting with an imitation of the Prussian needle-gun, which finally proved ruinous to the Empire. There were few arms for sale, even in the arsenals of Europe, which Mr. Cushing had said would be open to the United States and closed to the South. Austria, however, had a considerable quantity on hand, and these an intermediary proposed I should buy.
I knew something of the armament of Austria, having visited Vienna in 1859, with a letter from the United States War Department, which gave me some facilities for observation. At first I considered the getting of anything from an Imperial Austrian Arsenal as chimerical. But my would-be intermediary was so persistent that, finally I accompanied him to Vienna and, within a few days, closed a contract for 100,000 rifles of the latest Austrian pattern, and ten batteries, of six pieces each, of field artillery, with harness complete, ready for service, and a quantity of ammunition, all to be delivered on ship at Hamburg. The United States Minister, Mr. Motley, protested in vain. He was told that the making of arms was an important industry of Austria; that the same arms had been offered to the United States Government and declined, and that, as belligerents, the Confederate States were, by the usage of nations, lawful buyers. However unsatisfactory this answer may have been to Washington, the arms were delivered, and in due time were shipped to Bermuda from Hamburg. Mr. Motley offered to buy the whole consignment, but was too late. The Austrian Government declined to break faith with the purchasers.
I confess to a glow of pride when I saw those sixty pieces of rifled artillery with caissons, field-forges, and battery-wagons, complete—some two hundred carriages in all—drawn up in array in the arsenal yard. It was pardonable for a moment to imagine myself in command of a magnificent park of artillery. The explanation of Austria's willingness to dispose of these batteries is that the authorities had decided on the use of gun-cotton in the place of powder; and the change involved new guns, although those sold to me were of the latest design for gunpowder. I believe gun-cotton was given up not long after.
Again Mr. Cushing's "What possible chance can the South now have?" was in part answered. At least one of the greatest arsenals of Europe had been opened to the South.
That the ports of the South were blockaded, as Mr. Cushing said they would be, was true; but never before had steam vessels been employed by a vigilant enemy to search out the weak intervals in the line and avail himself of darkness and even storm, to enter and leave blockaded harbors. In spite of large squadrons, under command of competent and zealous officers, enough war material was carried into ports of the Confederate States to enable them, for three years, to contend vigorously against all the armies the United States could collect, not only from its own population, but from all the countries of Europe.
Well may the people of the Northern portion of the reconstructed Union be proud of their fellows, who for four long years contended against such fearful odds.