Joseph E. Brown to Howell Cobb, May 2, 1864

Richmond, Va., May 2, 1864.

GENERAL: I have regretted being unable sooner to reply to the inquiries of your letter to General Cooper on the subject of local reserves, but hope that no inconvenience has resulted, as I had full conference with Colonel Browne, of the President’s staff, before his departure to superintend conscription in Georgia, and requested him to confer with you and explain fully the views of the Department.

There is no doubt that before the expiration of the thirty days after notice allowed by the law organizations may be formed by volunteering under the law, and that such should be received with the officers elected by the men. Upon the expiration of the thirty days the men enrolled (being called together in each county 01 more convenient divisions) will be arranged into companies and allowed to elect their officers, and then turned over to you for organization. I would have preferred to have the men simply enrolled and turned over to you, but I did not see how, without a double set of officers, the agencies of the Conscript Bureau could well be dispensed with in the arrangement into companies and the preliminary steps to organization. Further than may be necessary for the purposes of organization, I do not deem it desirable to have these local reserves either placed or kept in camps. My own conviction of policy is very decided that the men of the reserves should be as little taken from their homes and avocations as possible, and should only be called into service in great emergencies or to repel raids. This opinion is likewise entertained by the President in somewhat less degree, and he may be disposed to call them into service somewhat more freely.

The general rule, however, will undoubtedly be retention at home. The possibility of doing this and yet holding the men organized and ready for service just as quick and for as brief a period as may be necessary, constitutes the great advantage of this organization over that of militia or State forces.

I will endeavor to secure as large a measure of exemption from active service as may be at all consistent with defense. Some few companies or regiments may constitute an exception, as some of the local forces will be required for guards in towns and at bridges or prisons, and I think some of the organizations already formed as special service ones (which contemplated something like general employment) should be selected, or some should be formed specially of material most easily to be spared, with a view to these kinds of

In the selection of officers men in active service cannot be chosen from the field even for promotion except under the liability of having their acceptance approved by the superior officers, and, indeed, I do not think it advisable attention should be called to the selection of such, as the refusal of the superiors in the field is the most probable, and the officers thus precluded would be apt to feel aggrieved.

Many very efficient officers may be obtained from the invalided and retired class or from those by various circumstances thrown out of active service, and it is very desirable the selection should be from them. The companies heretofore formed for special service should be required to conform their engagements to service in the State, and then be retained as reserves. If they do not consent they can, whenever desirable, be disbanded and the material organized into companies of the reserves. They will probably prefer generally to maintain these organizations and will readily conform.

You will exercise your discretion as to the various branches of the service into which you will throw the reserves. There should undoubtedly be some cavalry and artillery, but the proportion and the localities where to be raised or stationed are for your judgment. Every effort will be made to properly arm and equip the reserve forces, and requisitions should be made by you or the proper bureau as for armies in the field. Of course, with our limited resources, those organizations most likely to be called on from the exposure of the localities, and those reputed to be kept most constantly in service, will be prepared and first supplied. In regard to the eare of the arms, I had supposed they might be safely intrusted to the possession of the men; but if you think otherwise, and that they had better be kept stored in convenient depots, you will adopt that course.

Quartermasters, surgeons, &c., should, as far as practicable, be found among the men of the reserves, and should hold office and receive compensation as the men when in service. Some few might be necessary for more permanent service, and should be so appointed.

In relation to brigadiers, General Jackson will probably be assigned you, and Colonel Gartrell appointed as soon as his brigade is organized. The President conceives he cannot properly appoint before such organization. The same rule will be followed should other brigadiers be required.

I believe I have covered all the points of your letter. I did not answer fully your last letter, because I had explained my views in reference to the policy of pursuing the conscript system rather than relying on volunteering, and I had no satisfaction in recurring to a subject when I had the misfortune to dissent from one in whose judgment I habitually placed great reliance.

With my best wishes, most cordially yours, JAMES A. SEDDON, Secretary of War.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Milledgeville, Ga., May 2, 1864. Brig. Gen. GEORGE T. ANDERSON: Sir: I hereby acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 14th ultimo,* accompanied by the resolutions which purport to have been ‘almost unanimously adopted” by the men composing your brigade,

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condemning my action in convening the Legislature in extra session, and denouncing my message and the action of the Legislature as “unwise and unpatriotic” and intended to ‘‘subserve partisan interests.” The preamble also speaks of the willingness of those whom you denounce to sacrifice everything to ‘‘self-aggrandizement and personal ambition” and of ‘‘prostituting the dignity of high office to the accomplishment of unholy ends.”

Those who deal thus with the actions and motives of others should be prompted only by the most lofty patriotism and the purest motives, and should themselves be above suspicion of ‘‘ personal ambition for self-aggrandizement” or of a desire to ‘‘subserve partisan interests.”

How will the motives and acts of those who were the originators and managers of this meeting, and who covered the President with laudation so fulsome as to be offensive to modest merit, while they denounced the acts and impugned the motives of the Governor and Legislature of their own State, stand the test of the just rule above mentioned ?

If I mistake not, the name of the chairman of the meeting, who is a brigadier-general, has been mentioned by his friends for promotion to the position of major-general. Neither the Governor nor the Legislature of his State has any power under the acts of Congress to grant the promotion. It can come from the President alone.

The secretary of the meeting, himself a lieutenant-colonel, can be made colonel only at the will of the President. ‘The orator of the occasion, now a captain, cannot expect promotion from the State authorities. The same may probably be said of most of the others who were prominent in this meeting. While I do not charge upon them a desire to ‘‘accomplish unholy ends” for ‘‘self-aggrandizement,” I must leave it to others to say whether the judgment of condemnation pronounced by them was entirely unbiased by personal ambition and a desire for self-promotion. I apprehend the way-worn private soldier upon his weary march by day and his lonely watch by night, who serves his country only for his country’s good, while he meets the enemy in deadly conflict at the hazard of his life, can look for no personal promotion from the President which will give him high command or historic fame, has taken a more just and less excited view of this subject.

The helpless families, so dear to many of the gallant men whom you command, as well as of thousands of other brave sons of Georgia now in military service, were dependent upon the action of the Governor and Legislature of your State for bread.

The act of Congress which you so highly approved had depreciated the Confederate currency in the treasury of the State till it would no longer purchase the bread which they must have or they must die of hunger. In this condition of things the extra session which you denounce was called. The currency with which bread can be purchased was provided, and provision was made which it is hoped will secure its transportation to and save their lives.

Was this an ‘‘unhallowed purpose;” and did it accomplish an “unholy end?” I am willing for the hardy sons of toil who obey your orders and whose wives and little ones at home are dear to them to judge, and I am content to abide their decision.

The Governor and Legislature of your State whom you denounce have appropriated for this year nearly $10,000,000 to feed and clothe the suffering wives, and widows, and orphans, and soldiers, and to

put shoes upon the feet and clothes upon the backs of soldiers themselves, who are often destitute and cannot get supplies from the Confederate Government. Is this an ‘“‘unholy end” for which they deserve your denunciation ?

But you and those who act with you complain of the resolutions passed by the Legislature in response to my message, on the subject of the suspension of the habeas corpus, and those relative to the terms upon which peace should be sought. Whatever may be the opinion of those officers who managed the meeting over which you presided, I venture to say that not one private soldier in every ten in your brigade believes it is the right of Congress to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, and authorize the President to arrest the people and send them in irons to the islands or dungeons of other States, and confine them at his pleasure, and to deny to the courts the right to inquire into the cause of the imprisonment, or to place the case upon the docket, and give the accused the benefit of the speedy and impartial trial guaranteed to him by the Constitution of his country.

This is not the constitutional liberty which so many Georgians have died to defend. He who possesses this control over the personal liberties of the people has in his hands the powers of a monarch, call him by what name you may.

Again, I apprehend the private soldiers under your command, whose official promotion and self-importance do not depend upon a continuance of the war, will be unable to discover any dishonor in the resolutions of the General Assembly of their State upon the subject of peace. The Legislature has declared that negotiation as well as the sword has its proper part to perform in terminating this bloody struggle. The terms of adjustment proposed by the Legislature are the identical terms by which South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and the other States of the Confederacy stood the day that each seceded from the Union. If they were right then, why are they wrong now? What soldier, who has no stars and has no office, would not be glad to see the struggle transferred upon these principles from the battle-field to the ballot box, as proposed by the resolutions of the Legislature of your State, which seem to meet your hearty condemnation.

In conclusion permit me to remark that I have the most reliable information from your brigade since the meeting that what purports to be the almost unanimous action of those who compose it, meets the sanction of but a very small fraction of it. The resolutions were, as I am informed, prepared by some of the officers before the men were convened. When called for to ratify what the officers, without consulting them, had concocted, a comparatively small part of the brigade attended, and of those present a smaller part voted, and of that small number part voted against the resolutions, and the meeting adjourned amid cheers which resounded through your camp for him whom it was the purpose of the managers of the meeting to condemn.

All know the great advantage which the officers have over the men in the management of an affair of this kind. The officers are accustomed to command, the men to obey. They cannot meet their officers on an equality and condemn their action, but it seems they can by spontaneous acclamation in the camps, when they feel that injustice has been done, testify their approbation without being individually marked by those who have the power over them.

Begging you to assure the men under your command that I shall continue to do everything in my power. to protect and defend the great principles of constitutional and personal liberty for which they

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are fighting, and to clothe and feed their helpless wives and little ones in their absence, and to relieve their own wants when they are suffering for clothing which they cannot get from the Confederacy, I am,

very respectfully, your obedient,