[68] General D. H. Hill has given a most manly exhibition of feeling toward Mr. Davis, in an article published, some months since, in his magazine. We quote from General Hill, who alludes, at length, to the alleged rancor of Mr. Davis toward his opponents. General Hill prefaces his remarks with the declaration, that he “has never been among the personal friends of Mr. Davis;” that he was “at no time an admirer of his executive abilities;” and further declares himself to have been the recipient of an “unexplained, and perhaps unexplainable wrong,” at the hands of Mr. Davis. Says this gallant soldier:
“It was said of Mr. Davis that he could see no good in his enemies and no evil in his friends. I know of one instance, at least, of incorrectness of the former statement. I was present when a discussion took place in regard to the suppression of a newspaper because of the disloyal character of its articles, which were producing desertion in the army, and disaffection among the people at home. The editor had been converted to Unionism by the battle of Gettysburg and fall of Vicksburg, and, like all newborn proselytes, was fiery in his zeal. A cabinet officer present said: ‘This man is not more disloyal than ——’ (naming a well-known editor, whose assaults upon Mr. Davis at this time were very virulent.) ‘I don’t see how one paper can be suppressed without suppressing the other.’ To this a gentleman replied: ‘You are unjust. Mr. ——, though an enemy of the President, yet shows by his abuse of the Yankees that he has no love for them. The other editor betrays hatred of the President and of his own people.’ Mr. Davis immediately assented to this, saying: ‘You have exactly described the difference between the two men.’... But it is not true that he could see no good in his enemies, and that he pursued them with rancorous hate. I do not doubt that in the comparison with his supposed friends, they were in his estimation both intellectually weak and morally perverse. But, apart from this, he could be just and appreciative of their merits. I saw him several times during the session of a Confederate Congress in which he had been harshly assailed. Once he alluded incidentally to his troubles, but without the least resentment in language or manner. I think that there was no instance of the suppression of a newspaper, though several editors were notoriously disloyal to the Confederate cause, and still more of them intensely hostile to the Confederate President. Like Washington, Mr. Davis held ‘error to be the portion of humanity, and to censure it, whether committed by this or that public character, to be the prerogative of a freeman.’”
[69] At the beginning of the war, the South had only fifty millions of coin, and had a paper circulation of about the same amount.
[70] My limited space has prevented the extended account of the Confederate Commissary Department, which was originally designed. The history of its commissariat is an important chapter in the history of the Confederacy. President Davis was much abused for his retention of Colonel Northrop, who has been charged, both during and since the war, with incompetency, corruption, and every conceivable abuse of his office. The amount of truth, in the charge of corruption against Colonel Northrop, may be estimated, when we state a fact known almost universally in Richmond, that few persons suffered the privations of the war more severely than he. Hundreds of the most respectable gentlemen in the South willingly testify to the unimpeachable patriotism and purity of Colonel Northrop. Equally false was the statement that Mr. Davis gratified merely his personal partiality in appointing Commissary-General a man who had given no previous evidence of fitness. Colonel Northrop, when in the regular Federal army, had seen extensive service in that department, where he was detailed, after having been disabled. His services were amply testified to by his superiors, who regarded him as having peculiar qualifications for the duties of the commissariat. Of these facts Mr. Davis had personal knowledge, though, when he placed Colonel Northrop at the head of the Confederate commissariat, they had not met for more than twenty years.
Again, when commissioned by Mr. Davis, Colonel Northrop was the Commissary-General of South Carolina—a position to which he would hardly have been invited, without at least some conviction, by the authorities of that State, of his fitness. It is well known, too, that a committee of the Confederate Congress investigated the affairs of the Commissary Department, and made a report which amply and honorably vindicated Colonel Northrop. Indeed, a member of that committee, one of the ablest men in Virginia, and not friendly to Mr. Davis, declared it to be the best managed department of the Confederate Government.
Editors perpetually clamored against Colonel Northrop for issuing half rations to the army, who daily issued half sheets to their subscribers—refusing to understand that in each case the cause was the same, viz., an exhaustion of supply, resulting from the depletion of the resources of the country.
[71] We present two resolutions of a series adopted by Federal prisoners of war:
“Resolved, That whilst allowing the Confederate authorities all due praise for the attention paid to our prisoners, numbers of our men are daily consigned to early graves in the prime of manhood, far from home and kindred, and this is not caused intentionally by the Confederate Government, but by the force of circumstances; the prisoner is obliged to go without shelter, and, in a great portion of cases, without medicine.
“Resolved, That whereas, in the fortune of war, it was our lot to become prisoners, we have suffered patiently, and are still willing to suffer, if by so doing we can benefit the country, but we would most respectfully beg to say that we are not willing to suffer to further the ends of any party or clique, to the detriment of our own honor, our families, and our country; and we would beg this affair be explained to us, that we may continue to hold the Government in the respect which is necessary to make a good citizen and a soldier.