dent. The Confederate soldiers did not see that their sacrifice, valor, and devotion were in reality given for the continuance of an institution which ever would widen the distance between the rich and the poor, which established class distinction and degraded labor-that they were in truth heroically fighting against their own best welfare. Many thousand soldiers in the Confederate ariny had enlisted voluntarily to sustain the Confederacy, but other thousands were there not from their own free choice. At the beginning of the conflict, when the drum - beat was heard in every village and hamlet, there had been a quick mustering of men in the South as in the North, alike inspired by a lofty patriotism: one for independence, the other for the Union. In the Southern States they enlisted for one year, under the expectation that before the end of the twelvemonth their independence would be secured; but the outcome of events indicated a desperate and long-continued struggle. Patriotic ardor in the midwinter of 1862 no longer brought volunteers to fill up the ranks thinned by battle and disease. With the opening of the year the Confederate Government beheld with alarm the dying out of the early enthusiasm. The term for which the soldiers had enlisted would soon expire. No stirring appeals could induce them to re-enlist. They had fought valiantly to preserve their rights, but they saw State sovereignty and good faith disappear in a twinkling. The Confederate Congress in secret session, April 16th, under an iron-clad rule which limited discussion to ten minutes,(') passed a law which took all able-bodied citizens between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five from the control of the States and placed them under the control of Jefferson Davis during the war, and which annulled all the contracts and terms of enlistment made with the volunteers, declaring that they must serve two years longer, or to the end of the war. It was an arbitrary assumption of power, a gross violation of public faith with the individual soldiers, under the plea of military necessity, and a complete abandonment of the principle of the sovereignty of the States, to maintain which they had seceded from the Union and inaugurated the war. All rights and liberties were swept away by the act, which fell like a thunder-bolt upon the people. Said the Governor of Arkansas: "Arkansas severed her connection with the United States upon the doctrine of State Sovereignty. She has lavished her blood in support of the Confederacy. She did this because she believed that when the evil hour came upon her the Confederate flag would give success to the people. It was for liberty she struck, and not for subordination to any created secondary power North or South." From that hour to the end of the war the people of the Confederate States could no longer claim to be fighting to maintain what their Government had deliberately abandoned. "This is the rich man's war and the poor man's fight,"() were the words of John M. Botts, of Warrenton, Virginia. He had been a member of Congress before the war, and had opposed secession. He saw that the great slave-holders were staying at home with their slaves, and that the poor men who had no slaves were to be forced into the army. A few days before the passage of the bill Mr. Botts expressed himself strongly against the proposed measure, and for giving voice to his opinion suddenly found himself in a filthy jail in Richmond, without chair, or table, or any furniture, where no one was permitted to see him. This his testimony: "More than one hundred and fifty persons were in like manner confined. Many of them were sent to Salisbury, North Carolina, where some went crazy and many died. In the Richmond prison they had the naked floors for a pallet, a log of wood for a pillow, the ceiling for a blanket. At Salisbury it was still worse. They were exposed to all the weathercold rains and burning suns alternately. But the object in view was effected by my arrest and imprisonment and that of others. It effectually sealed every man's lips. All were afraid to express opinions under the reign of terror and despotism that had been established in Richmond. Every man felt that his personal liberty and safety required silent submission to the tyranny of the Confederacy." Mr. Foote, of Tennessee, member of the Confederate Congress, animated by humane sentiments, and indignant at the exercise of arbitrary power, endeavored to obtain the release of the prisoners thus confined. He says: "I obtained from the superintendent of the prison-house in Richmond, under the official sanction of the Department of War itself, a grim and shocking catalogue of several hundred prisoners then in confinement therein, not one of whom was charged with anything but suspected political infidelity, and this, too, not upon oath in a single instance. Before I could take proper steps to procure the discharge of these unhappy men, the second suspension of the writ of liberty occurred, and I presume that such of them as did not die in jail remained there until the fall of Richmond into the hands of the Federal forces."() Wielding despotic military power, and having silenced every opposing voice, the Confederate Government, by the Conscription act, gathered in as needed all able-bodied men-at first those between eighteen and thirtyfive; later in the war extending the act to conscript all under sixty years of age-into the army. At the close of 1862 the Confederates had much reason for believing that they would ultimately secure their independence, and for the confidence which they expressed of attaining that end. This the greeting of the Charleston Courier to its readers on New-Year's morning: "That we shall conquer a peace is now beyond a peradventure settled. If the doubt ever existed, it no longer exists." These the words of the Charleston Mercury: "The new year comes in with cheerful face. Amid the desolation of ruined homesteads, the wreck of private fortunes, and the sacrifice of lives, the great cause prospers. East, the foe, beaten and disheartened, has fled from our matchless army. West, the fierce struggle for the Mississippi Valley has begun, and amid the din and tumult of the unequal combat are distinguished the shouts of victory." "The future is bright with hope," were the words of the Richmond Whig. President Davis, in his message to Congress, said: "We are justified in asserting with pride that the Confederate States have added another to the lessons taught by history for the instruction of man-that they have afforded another example of the impossibility of subjugating a people determined to be free. . . . The determination of this people has become unalterably fixed to endure any sufferings and continue any sacrifices, however prolonged, until their rights to self-government and the sovereignty and independence of those States shall have been triumphantly vindicated and firmly established." Of the Proclamation of Emancipation issued by President Lincoln, Jefferson Davis said: "We may leave it to the instincts of that common humanity which a beneficent Creator has implanted in the breasts of our fellow-men of all countries to pass judgment on a measure by which several millions of human beings of an inferior race, peaceful and contented laborers in their sphere, are doomed to extermination, while at the same time they are encouraged to a generous assassination of their masters by the insidious recommendation to abstain from violence unless in necessary defence. Our own detestation of those who have attempted the most execrable measure recorded in the history of guilty man is tempered by the profound contempt for the impotent rage which it discloses." In the Confederate Congress Mr. Foote presented a resolution to the effect that the Southern States would never consent to any armistice or reconstruction() until the Emancipation Proclamation was revoked; that there should be no negotiation for a cessation of the war except upon the basis of a recognition of the Confederacy; that there should be no alliance, commercial or political, with the New England States, but that the North-western States should have assurance of the free navigation of the Mississippi whenever they should withdraw from the Union. A great crisis confronted the people of the Northern States. The year closed, with the battle of Stone River undecided. General Grant, who had been moving in rear of Vicksburg, had been compelled to retreat ("Drum-beat of the Nation," p. 453). General Sherman had been repulsed at Chickasaw Bluffs, and General Burnside at Fredericksburg. Discouraging as were these military events, there were political events far more disquieting to loyal hearts. A new Congress had been elected. In the Congress then in session, and which would end on March 4th, there were seventy-eight members who supported President Lincoln to thirty-seven opposed to his administration; in the new Congress there would be only fifty-seven upon whom he could rely for support, while sixty-seven would be opposed to him. In the elections New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, which had voted for him in 1860, with so many true-hearted soldiers in the field fighting for the flag, now cast majorities against him. Many men who voted for him two years before, who had given all their energies for the prosecution of the war for maintaining the Union, now turned against him because he had issued the Proclamation of Emancipation. At the beginning of the war they called themselves War Democrats; but now they joined those who called themselves Peace Democrats, who did not wish to see the slaves set free, and who gave their sympathies to the South, claiming that the President had no Constitutional right to coerce a State to remain in the Union. Some of them had spoken bitter words in denunciation of President Lincoln; and when called to account by their neighbors who were loyal to the flag, had taken the oath of allegiance and had been allowed to go about their business. The soldiers called them "Copperheads," and this is the way they acquired the name: One day a squad of soldiers sitting by their camp-fire saw a copperhead snake crawling towards them, ready to strike with its poisonous fangs. "That snake is just like a Peace Democratkill him," shouted one of the soldiers. "Oh no; swear him and let him go," said another. From that moment a Peace Democrat, in the eyes of a soldier, was a "Copperhead." The soldiers under the Stars and Stripes in battle felt that their deadliest foes-those from whom they had the most to fear, who could do them the most harm-were not the brave and manly Confederates confronting them, but the insidious and secretly hostile "Copperheads," in their rear —poisoning public opinion, paralyzing loyal effort, denouncing President Lincoln as a usurper and tyrant, demanding "peace at any price "who said, "You never can conquer the South." This their description of a "Copperhead :" 'There was glorious news, for our arms were victorious- He hummed and he hawed, and he sneered and he sighed A snake in the grass, and a spy in the camp. While the honest were laughing, the Copperhead' cried. |