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.