232 



CONGRESS, CONFEDERATE. 



negro looked sad, and the gentleman enquired 

 the reason. Sambo said lie was sorrowful be- 

 cause his old master looked so downcast when 

 he parted with him ; that his master had five 

 sons in the army, but never grieved half so 

 much at parting with all of them as with him. 

 The patriotic planters would willingly put tlieir 

 own flesh and blood into the army, but when 

 you asked them for a negro the matter ap- 

 proached the point of drawing an eyetooth. A 

 great change had come over the planters with- 

 in the last two years. Two years ago, when 

 that pink of gallantry and soldierly qualities 

 was at Manassas, to keep his army from starv- 

 ing he wrote a letter to a farmer in Orange 

 county, asking him to send him sixty wagon 

 loads of corn and provisions ; to pay for the 

 grain and the expense of hauling the same as 

 soon as he was in funds. On the next Sunday 

 this letter was read at every church in Orange, 

 and on Monday morning the sixty wagons, 

 loaded with corn, were sent to General Beau- 

 regard, free of charge, and telling him to keep 

 also the wagons and teams. Such was the pa- 

 triotism in Orange county then. Now, those 

 very farmers will actually burn their wheat rath- 

 er than sell it to the Government at five dollars a 

 bushel for the use of their own sons and bro- 

 thers. They stood haggling about the price of 

 pork per pound when their sons and brothers 

 were living on a quarter of a pound a day, and 

 sometimes had none at all. What had produced 

 such a change in this people? He did not hes- 

 itate to answer, an inflated currency. No pa- 

 triotism could stand an inflated currency. Make 

 money cheap and you make men mean. But 

 the effect had been produced, and when you 

 talked of patriotism, of the planters and bone 

 and sinew of the country, these facts should not 

 be forgotten. Of late a wild spirit of specula- 

 tion had seized upon the people, which bid fair 

 to work our ruin. This is felt in the army. The 

 soldiers in the army believed they were better 

 than the people at home, but he honestly be- 

 lieved they were no better. If the soldiers 

 were sent home, in the present condition of the 

 currency, they would immediately turn specu- 

 lators and extortioners. And if the people now 

 at homo were put into the army, they would be- 

 come patriotic. The people, the farmers, have 

 bowed the knee to Baal, and nothing could be 

 done till the currency was reduced. 



When the Substitute bill passed, Congress 

 said to preachers, doctors and some others, you 

 are exempt ; and to others, you will be allowed 

 to furnish substitutes. But there was no con- 

 tract between the Government and t hese men. 

 The contract, if any there was, was between the 

 principals and the substitutes themselves. Gov- 

 ernment only said, if you can get a man who is 

 not liable to military duty to go for you, you 

 shall be exempt. But now Government wanted 

 them all, substitutes and principals. We are 

 again to conscribe all the men in the army, not 

 for three years, but for the war, if that war lasts, 

 like the contest in which the Dutch republic was 



engaged for eighty years. They stay in the army 

 till they die or our independence is achieved. 

 These men in the army did not feel it was right 

 they should do all the fighting for the protec- 

 tion of their lives and property, and for the 

 lives and greater property of the substitute 

 men. If it was said these substitute men were 

 necessary to the subsistence of the army, it 

 might, with truth, be replied that they were 

 not doing anything for the subsistence" of the 

 army. They were speculating charging from 

 fifteen to twenty dollars for a bushel of meal, 

 and upward of a thousand per cent, profit upon 

 sh^es and clothing. Our liberties were inevi- 

 tably lost unless we pass the conscript bill the 

 bill of the Military Committee. If we were going 

 to disband the army it was useless to pass any 

 other measures. 



The question being called, Mr. Maxwell's 

 amendment was lost. 



The vote was then taken on Mr. Simms' 

 amendment, proposing to repay the principals 

 a fair proportion of the money paid by them to 

 their substitutes, and the amendment was lost 

 by a vote of yeas, 10, nays, 10. 



Mr. Orr moved to amend the bill by altering 

 the enacting clause, so that instead of reading 

 " The Congress of the Confederate States do 

 therefore," it should read, " The Congress of 

 the Confederate States of America do." The 

 amendment was agreed to. The bill was then 

 passed by the following vote : 



YEAS Messrs. Brown, Caperton, Clay, Clark, Davis, 

 Dortch, Henry, Hill, Hunter, Jamison, Johnson, of 

 Arkansas, Maxwell, Phelan, Semmes, Simms, Spar- 

 row, and Wigfall 17. 



NAYS Messrs. Johnson, of Georgia, and Orr 2. 



The following is the bill as amended and 

 passed : 



A Bill to le entitled an Act to Pitt an End to the Ex- 

 emption from Military Service of those tcJio have 

 heretofore furnished Substitutes. 

 Whereas, in the present circumstances of the coun- 

 try, it requires the aid of all who are able to bear arms, 

 the Congress of the Confederate States of America do 

 enact, that no person shall be exempt from military 

 service by reason of his having furnished a substitute ; 

 but this act shall not be so construed as to affect per- 

 sons who, though not liable to render military service, 

 have, nevertheless, put in substitutes. 



The Conscription Act finally adopted de- 

 clared every man between eighteen and fifty- 

 five years of age to belong to the array, sub- 

 ject at once to the articles of war, military 

 discipline, and military penalties, and required 

 him to report within a certain time or be lia- 

 ble to death as a deserter. The whole people 

 were made soldiers under martial law. Me- 

 chanics and laboring men would be detailed 

 from the army to work on army supplies. Kail- 

 road men, telegraphers, and miners would also 

 be detailed under military rule and on the pay 

 of $13 a month. Government, State, and county 

 officers will be detached from the army. Plant- 

 ers likewise sent to oversee the negroes. All 

 the production and labor of the country was 

 under military control. 



