208 



CONGRESS, CONFEDERATE. 



to about naught. Look at the condition of 

 the country around Richmond; hut this was 

 scarcely more than a type of every other part 

 of the Confederacy. 



Congress did not propose to reduce the ef- 

 ficiency of the different bureaus ; it did not 

 reduce, for instance, the efficiency of the ord- 

 nance and nitre bureaus, because the men must 

 be furnished with munitions of war. And yet 

 munitions of war were not all that we could 

 rely on. "We must feed and clothe the army, 

 and not only the army but the people at home. 

 Private appeals were daily coming to the mem- 

 bers of Congress from soldiers in the army 

 speaking of the sufferings at home ; how many 

 of their families are wanting the necessaries 

 of life, when they are unable to send them any 

 part of their scant pay ; how many asking for 

 relief to the farming interests ; how some, 

 stimulated by the prospects of starvation at 

 home, and the deficiency of food in the army, 

 are driven to despair and desertion. With 

 these things constantly before it, would Con- 

 gress still break down and cripple the limited 

 resources that were left us to carry on this war ? 



Mr. Chambers, of Virginia, said that manu- 

 factories were as necessary as agriculture, and 

 there was as great a deficiency in clothing to- 

 day as there was in food. Did the gentleman 

 mean to say that our soldiers deserted to the 

 Yankees because they were not fed ? "We could, 

 he believed, feed double two hundred thousand 

 men in the field; and if we could not, then 

 the sooner we made terms with Abraham Lin- 

 fcoln the better for us. We must have more 

 than two hundred thousand men in the field 

 next spring; we have now all the supplies we 

 will have then, for the farmers' productions 

 won't be available until next winter. Every- 

 body admits and expects that next spring will 

 be the worst and the heaviest and most decisive 

 campaign that will occur, and yet there is a 

 demand for more exemptions. He was not 

 opposed to the exemption of planters ; whether 

 they furnished substitutes or not, it made no 

 difference. But he was opposed to class legis- 

 lation. 



Mr. Dupre, of Louisiana, believed that if 

 Congress had given more attention to trans 

 portation, the subject of food would not now 

 be exciting so many fears. He had travelled a 

 long way in getting here, and from Western 

 Louisiana to this place he had seen very large 

 quantities of provisions, which only wanted 

 transportation to be distributed to the people 

 and the army. The cry of scarcity was a 

 stratagem employed by traitors, and it misled 

 many honest and conscientious men, who 

 really believed what they said. It was a strata- 

 gem to excite the spirits and the efforts of the 

 Northern people, and disaffection and hopeless- 

 ness in our own. 



Mr. Goode, of Virginia, was able to state 

 upon the best authority, that in reply to in- 

 quiries propounded them by Col. Preston, 

 Chief of the Conscript Bureau, all of the en- 



rolling officers of the State, who were as- 

 sembled here a few days ago, said that the 

 State could not stand another draft. It had 

 been said that the agriculturists necessary at 

 home might be enrolled and detailed. If men 

 were wanted outside the army, it was our duty 

 to exempt them by law, and not leave it to the 

 Secretary of War and the President to dole 

 out details. He was not one of those who de- 

 lighted in the Quixotic pastime of making a 

 man of straw and tilting at him ; he had no 

 fears, and the people need have no fears of the 

 Executive, and it was with no feeling of want 

 of confidence in the Executive when he said 

 that he preferred this Congress to pass its own 

 laws rather than call upon that branch of the 

 Government to do it for them. The great 

 danger to-day to our cause did not come from 

 our own Executive, it came from the tyrant at 

 Washington, and it should be the effort of this 

 Government to use all its energies in providing 

 against the calamities which that tyrant would 

 endeavor to inflict upon us. 



Mr. Holcombe, of Virginia, said that by the 

 bill of which this was an amendment, the entire 

 agricultural population would be put in the 

 army, and that in a country whose agricultural 

 population greatly outbalances that of the 

 cities and towns. Napoleon, in the ruth- 

 less conscription which he inflicted on France, 

 never went above the age of thirty years. 

 We proposed to put in all, of every age, 

 and when it was known that it was a pre- 

 carious matter to supply from week to week 

 the array in the field. When the supplies 

 were known to be so scarce, the slaves were 

 to be withdrawn from the fields, and it was 

 proposed in time to draw still more largely 

 upon the vital resources of the country. From 

 his district would be drawn one hundred 

 men for the army, and stop two thousand labor- 

 ers now engaged in producing grain for the 

 army. We had now five hundred thousand 

 men in the field to provide for ; the new law 

 would add one hundred thousand more, and 

 was it possible to escape starvation when there 

 were none at home to provide for them ? Where 

 was the weak point of the enemy? Certainly 

 not in want of provisions. It was not prob- 

 able, then, that a decisive victory could be 

 fought this spring, and no such desperate hope 

 should be allowed to animate us to such desper- 

 ate measures as that of putting everybody in 

 the army. The weak point of the enemy was 

 in its financial condition. It was our policy to 

 protract the war. Time and distance were 

 our great allies. Wo must remember that, in 

 reference to this State at least, our last crops 

 were far below the average. Our space had been 

 contracted, and all now must be devoted to 

 the production of provisions for the next year. 

 Take away the men, and starvation at home 

 and ruin in the army would be, in his opinion, 

 the inevitable result. 



Mr. McRae, of Mississippi, believed that the 

 most certain way of feeding the army was to 



