The Supply of Arms; of Men.—Love of the Union.—Secessionists few.—Efforts to prevent the Final Step.—Views of the People.—Effect on their Agriculture.—Aid from African Servitude.—Answer to the Clamors on the Horrors of Slavery.—Appointment of a Commissary-General.—His Character and Capacity.—Organization, Instruction, and Equipment of the Army.—Action of Congress.—The Law.—Its Signification.—The Hope of a Peaceful Solution early entertained; rapidly diminished.—Further Action of Congress.—Policy of the Government for Peace.—Position of Officers of United States Army.—The Army of the States, not of the Government.—The Confederate Law observed by the Government.—Officers retiring from United States Army.—Organization of Bureaus.
The question of supplying arms and munitions of war was the first considered, because it was the want for which it was the most difficult to provide. Of men willing to engage in the defense of their country, there were many more than we could arm.
Though the prevailing sentiment of the Southern people was a cordial attachment to the Union as it was formed by their fathers, their love was for the spirit of the compact, for the liberties it was designed to secure, for the self-government and State sovereignty which had been won by separation from the mother-country, and transmitted to them by their Revolutionary sires as a legacy for their posterity for ever. The number of those who desired to dissolve the Union, even though the Constitution should be faithfully observed—those who, in the language of the day, were called "secessionists per se"—was so small as not to be felt in any popular decision; but the number of those who held that the States had surrendered their sovereignty, and had no right to secede from the Union, was so inappreciably small, if indeed any such existed, that I can not recall the fact of a single Southern advocate of that opinion. The assertion of the right is not to be confounded with a readiness to exercise it. Many who had no doubt as to the right, looked upon its exercise with reluctance amounting to sorrow, and claimed that it should be the last resort, only to be adopted as the alternative to a surrender of the equality in the Union of States, free, sovereign, and independent. Of that class, forming a large majority of the people of Mississippi, I may speak with the confidence of one who belonged to it. Thus, after the Legislature of Mississippi had enacted a law for a convention which, representing the sovereignty of the State, should consider the propriety of passing an ordinance to reassume the grants made to the General Government, and withdraw from the Union, I, as a United States Senator of Mississippi, retained my position in the Senate, and sought by every practicable mode to obtain such measures as would allay the excitement and afford to the South such security as would prevent the final step, the ordinance of secession from the Union.
When the last hope of preserving the Union of the Constitution was extinguished, and the ordinance of secession was enacted by the Convention of Mississippi, which was the highest authority known under our form of government, the question of the expediency of adopting that remedy was no longer open to inquiry by one who acknowledged his allegiance as due to the State of which he was a citizen. To evade the responsibilities resulting from the decree of his sovereign, the people, would be craven; to resist it would be treason. The instincts and affections of the citizens of Mississippi led them with great unanimity to the duty of maintaining and defending their State, without pausing to ask what would be the consequences of refusing obedience to its mandate. A like feeling pervaded all of the seceding States, and it was not only for the military service, but for every service which would strengthen and sustain the Confederacy, that an enthusiasm pervading all classes, sexes, and ages was manifested.
Though our agricultural products had been mainly for export, insomuch that in the planting States the necessary food-supplies were to a considerable extent imported from the West, and it would require that the habits of the planters should be changed from the cultivation of staples for export to the production of supplies adequate for home consumption and the support of armies in the field, yet, even under the embarrassments of war, this was expected, and for a long time the result justified the expectation, extraordinary as it must appear when viewed by comparison with other people who have been subjected to a like ordeal. Much of our success was due to the much-abused institution of African servitude, for it enabled the white men to go into the army, and leave the cultivation of their fields and the care of their flocks, as well as of their wives and children, to those who, in the language of the Constitution, were "held to service or labor." A passing remark may here be appropriate as to the answer thus afforded to the clamor about the "horrors of slavery."
Had these Africans been a cruelly oppressed people, restlessly struggling to be freed from their bonds, would their masters have dared to leave them, as was done, and would they have remained as they did, continuing their usual duties, or could the proclamation of emancipation have been put on the plea of a military necessity, if the fact had been that the negroes were forced to serve, and desired only an opportunity to rise against their masters? It will be remembered that, when the proclamation was issued, it was confessed by President Lincoln to be a nullity beyond the limit within which it could be enforced by the Federal troops.
To direct the production, preservation, collection, and distribution of food for the army required a man of rare capacity and character at the head of the subsistence department. It was our good fortune to have such an one in Colonel L. B. Northrop, who was appointed commissary-general at the organization of the bureaus of the executive department of the Confederate Government. He had been an officer of the United States Army, had served in various parts of the South, had been for some time on duty in the commissariat, and, to the special and general knowledge thus acquired, added strong practical sense and incorruptible integrity. Of him and the operations of the subsistence department I shall have more to say hereafter, when treating of the bureaus of the Confederacy.
Assured of an army as large as the population of the Confederate States could furnish, and a sufficient supply of subsistence for such an army, at least until the chances of war should interfere with production and transportation, the immediate object of attention was the organization, instruction, and equipment of the army.
As heretofore stated, there was a prevailing belief that there would be no war, or, if any, that it would be of very short duration. Therefore the first bill which passed the provisional Congress provided for receiving troops for short periods—as my memory serves, for sixty days. The chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, the heroic Colonel Bartow, who sealed his devotion to the cause with his life's blood on the field of Manassas, in deference to my earnest remonstrance against such a policy, returned with the bill to the House (the Congress then consisted of but one House), and procured a modification by which the term of service was extended to twelve months unless sooner discharged.
I had urged upon him, in our conference, the adoption of a much longer period, but he assured me that one year was as much as the Congress would agree to. On this, as on other occasions, that Congress showed a generous desire to yield their preconceived opinions to my objections as far as they consistently could, and, there being but one House, it was easier to change the terms of a bill after conference with the Executive than when, under the permanent organization, objections had to be formally communicated in a message to that branch of Congress in which the bill originated, and when the whole proceeding was of record.