Unwise legislation.
The statistics of production and population afford a very imperfect means of comparing the resources of the North and South.
There remains yet to be written the history of the military legislation of the Confederate Congress, without which it is impossible to know how much of the resources of the
South were wasted and how the hands of her soldiers were tied.
But I cannot speak of this important subject now. I trust that the honored Chief of the
Confederacy will not suffer what he knows of it to die with him. No one had better reason to know it, because the responsibility for the consequences of
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unwise legislation, and of unwise refusal to legislate, are now borne in noble silence by a noble soul.
Let me give you a single glimpse of the unwritten history of the war, and I give it the more willingly because it shows that self-denial was not confined to the men who bore arms.
The late
Mr. Benjamin, at one time
Secretary of War of the
Confederate States, in a most interesting letter, gave me the following illustration of the destitution of the
Confederacy in the beginning of 1862.
Mr. Benjamin was
Secretary of War at the time of the loss of
Roanoke Island.
The report of the officer in command of that post showed that its loss was due in a great measure to the supposed persistent disregard by the
Secretary of his urgent requisitions for powder and other supplies.
Mr. Benjamin had directed
General Huger to send powder from
Norfolk to the garrison at
Roanoke Island, and had been informed by
Huger that compliance with that order would leave
Norfolk without ammunition.
The report of the
commanding officer at
Roanoke Island led to an investigation of the loss of the post by a committee of Congress, and I give you the result in the language of
Mr. Benjamin:
I consulted the President,
he says, ‘whether it was best for the country that I should submit to unmerited censure or reveal to a congressional committee our poverty, and my utter inability to supply the requisitions of
General Wise, and thus run the risk that the fact should become known to some of the spies of the enemy, of whose activity we were well assured.
It was thought best for the public interest that I should submit to censure.’
It was a saying of
General Lee that all the heroism of the country was not in the army, and I think the
Secretary of War deserved a decoration.