Thos. L. Bayne to PRESIDENT’S OFFICE, May 12, 1864

Macon, May 12, 1864.

His Excellency JoS—EPH E. BRown, Governor, &c., Milledgeville, Ga.:

Sir: Your letter of the 5th instant reached me to-day, andI reply at once, to correct some of the misapprehensions under which you are laboring; and I must express my regret in finding that I was mistaken in the inference which I drew from your published proclamation, that you would co-operate with the Confederate authorities in their efforts to carry to the Army all men who could serve the country better in the field than at home. There was certainly nothing in the language I quoted from that address to induce me to look for a labored argument from you in justification of the course of those who were seeking the evasion of duty under the cover of State commissions.

27 R R—SERIES IV, VOL III

In imputing to the officers of the Confederate Government the doctrine that ‘‘the States derive their powers and the people of the States their rights and privileges from the will of Congress,” you have done them an injustice, of which I presume you were fully conscious at the time you penned the charge. To suppose otherwise would be to impute to Your Excellency a degree of ignorance which it would be offensivetointimate. Theonly ground upon which youcan justify such an imputation in this correspondence is the fact that I addressed you under (what now seems to be) the mistaken supposition that Your Excelleney had determined to comply with the act of Congress calling upon the Executives of the several States to ‘‘certify”” what officers were required for the proper administration of the respective State governments. I did not suppose that I had subjected myself to so grave and unjust a criticism by manifesting confidence in the Governor of my State to the extent of believing that he would comply with an act of Congress of which he had made no official complaint and with the provisions of which the Executives of other States had cheerfully and promptly complied. I did not suppose that the sons of Georgia, who had manifested their devotion to her, her rights, and sovereignty in every way in their power, would forfeit their claims of loyalty to that sovereignty and those rights by complying themselves and expecting others to comply with the laws of the Confederate Government. They supposed a law that could be enforced in Virginia and the other States of the Confederacy, and cheerfully responded to by Governor Smith and the Executives of other States without impairing the rights or violating the sovereignty of those States, might be enforced in Georgia with equal impunity and responded to with equal cheerfulness; and I venture, even at the hazard of incurring again Your Excellency’s rebuke, to say that such would have been the case if the Governor of Georgia had, like the Governor of Virginia, witnessed in person the privations and sufferings of our brave soldiers in the field and shared with them, as he did, the hardships of the camp and the dangers of the battle-field. It was the personal knowledge by Governor Smith of the wants of our Army and the necessity of bringing to their support every able-bodied man who could be spared from his pursuits at home, that induced on his part a cordial co-operation with the Confederate Government, increasing the numbers of the Army and thereby adding to its efficiency. A similar experience on the part of Your Excellency might have induced similar action.

It was quite natural that I should have fallen into the error of supposing that Your Excellency intended to comply with the act of Congress from another consideration. I saw in your published address that you had furnished to the authorities at Richmond the certificate which the act of Congress required. It is true you state the fact that the Legislature had declared that all civil and military officers should be exempt; still you did not say that the Legislature demanded the exemption, but that you claimed it. Your language is: ‘“‘I claim as exempt all civil and military officers of the State.” itt as you now intimate, you regarded the act of Congress as an infringement of the sovereignty and rights of the State of Georgia, why did you humble that sovereignty and compromise those rights by a pretended compliance with a law of Congress which you considered and intended to treat as a nullity?

I submit that it would have been more candid and dignified to have said to the Confederate Government that you refused to comply with a law that you had determined to nullify.

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Not only so, but in the very certificate you furnished in response to the law of Congress, you do not content yourself with informing the President of the action of the Legislature, but you add:

I therefore hereby certify, in conformity to the resolution of the General Assembly of this State, that I consider all civil and military officers of this State who hold commissions or have been appointed as directed by the constitution and

laws of this State to be necessary for the proper administration of the government of this State.

This [is] a plain, unequivocal certificate that you consider all military and civil officers in Georgia necessary for the proper administration of the State government. Now, I am informed that there are at least 2,726 militia officers in the State. In your message to the late extra session of the Legislature, alluding to the act of Congress, you say:

If the act is executed in this State it deprives her of her whole active militia.

Well, the act is being executed in Georgia with the concurrence and approval of the Legislature, and, according to your own official statement, there is now no active militia in the State.

How, then, are these 2,726 militia officers necessary for the proper administration of the State government? To what use or purpose are they applied? The only legitimate use to be made of them is, that they should take military charge of themselves, for they constitute in and of themselves their sole and entire command. You have solemnly stated that you consider them necessary for the proper administration of the State government. Such is your certificate to the President, but in your reply to my communication you no longer pretend that such is the case; you now put your action purely and simply upon the resolution of the Legislature, and seek to place upon that body the odium and responsibility of withholding these and other sinecure officials from the Army. I cannot pass unnoticed this attempt to throw upon the Legislature the just indignation universally felt at the effort to keep able-bodied men out of the service. In my former letter to you I expressed the opinion, based upon my knowledge of the members of that body, that they never intended to withhold from the Army some five or six thousand men liable to military service, as by your certifieate has been done. I repeat that opinion, notwithstanding your gratuitous assumption that it reflects upon the intelligence of the body. My remark does the members of the Legislature the justice to believe that they would scorn to participate in the wrong and injustice done both to the country and our noble Army by the withholding of these sinecure officers from military service. Your defense puts upon the members of the Legislature the entire odium and responsibility of the act. I am more than willing that they shall be the judges between us as to who has done them the greater wrong—lI, in saying that they never intended to screen holders of sinecures from their duty, or you, in making them responsible for what you have done yourself. Before your efforts to throw upon others the responsibility which has attached to yourself in this matter succeeds, the public will be curious to know why you did not arrest the action of the Legislature by your favorite resort to the veto power, if, indeed, you did not approve and sanction this wholesale exemption of sinecure officers.

In view of the fact that you first gave a certificate, as required by the act of Congress, and your present denial of any intention to recognize the obligation of the law, I conclude that your position is this: You comply with the law in form, and nullify it in substance. Whatever doctrine our supreme court may have announced in the

decisions to which you refer, I feel confident you will find nothing in those decisions to justify such a practice in morals.

Though I do find in the decisions quoted in your letter that our supreme court holds that ‘‘the enrollment (by the Confederate Government) of the officers and agents by whom the State governments are operated, and without whose agency their machinery must stop,” would be violative of the very existence of the State government, and hence void; yet you can not fail to observe the strict conformity of the act of Congress to the doctrine of our supreme court, for that act in terms exempts all officers necessary for the proper administration of the State government; but neither Congress nor our supreme court, nor anybody else but Your Excellency, ever conceived the idea that justices of the peace who never held a court, constables who never served a warrant, and militia officers who have no men to command were necessary for the proper administration of the State government, ‘‘ without whose agency the machinery must stop.”

Will even Your Excellency on calm reflection assert and certify that in any county in Georgia twenty justices of the peace and an equal number of constables are necessary for the proper administration of the State government, and that ‘‘ without their agency you have serious apprehensions the machinery of the State government must stop.” It does seem to me your fears and apprehensions might be quieted, especially in those districts which have had no justices or constables for several years preceding the time when the present incumbents sought and obtained those offices to keep out of the Army.

You seem tothink that there is ample justification for withholding these men from the field, and protecting them in their “‘ official retreats,” in the fact that there are ‘‘ Confederate officers, agents, and detailed men, who as the favorites of power have obtained safe and comfortable positions in the rear, while their less favored comrades who seldom get furloughs or details are required to meet the enemy in front.” Granting the truth and justice of this imputation upon the Confederate officers and men on duty in the rear, instead of inducing you to withhold still others from the field, if you are the friend you profess to be of our gallant soldiers in the front, it should have stimulated your efforts to fill up their decimated ranks and strengthen their efficiency. It will be hard to convince those true and brave men that you were befriending them in the hours of their greatest trials by keeping out of the Army justices of the peace who have not a Gase upon their docket, constables who never saw a warrant, and militia officers whose whole duty consists in drilling themselves. It may be that there are Confederate officers and men in the rear who are more needed in front, and who are engaged, as you allege, in attending to their private interests and the disgraceful practice of speculation. You know that such is not the case with all of these officers, and that some of them at least occupy their present positions not at their own suggestion, but in obedience to the orders of those who have the right to assign them to these duties. But if it was otherwise, there is this striking difference in their case and that of your sinecure officials: They have seen service in the field, and have borne the heat and burden of the war in the past; they have, for a time at least, endured the privations of the camp, and encountered the dangers of the battlefield, whereas your officials have from the beginning enjoyed the same quiet and security from danger which have fallen to the lot of Your Excellency. Besides, these Confederate officers and men are liable to be summoned to active service at any moment, whereas your

CONFEDERATE AUTHORITIES. 4?1

officials have secured permanent exemption. It may relieve to some extent your feelings on this subject to know that one of the main objects in organizing this Reserve Corps is to relieve these very Confederate officers and men from duty in the rear and send them to the front, leaving the easier duties in which they are at present engaged to the men now being called out. Already has this object been accomplished in part, and some of the old veterans thus relieved are on their way to join their comrades in the field. Others will follow in due time.

The habit of speculation, whether indulged in by Confederate or State officers, or any others, is equally reprehensible, and as Your Excellency doubtless has personal knowledge of such conduct among State officers, I commend to your consideration the propriety of a thorough examination into and public exposure of all such eases.

The complaint you make that your militia organization has been broken up by the action of Congress in bringing the men who composed that militia into Confederate service, and that the proper defense of the State has thereby been weakened, is not justified by the facts unless you intend to throw every obstacle in your power in the way of the efficient organization of the Reserve Corps. Unfortunately for the good of the country you have it in your power to do much mischief in this way, though it will not go to the extent you intimate.

As all the material that belonged to your active militia is transferred by the act of Congress to the Reserve Corps, I do not see why the men cannot be as well spared from their business at home to serve in the one as in the other organization. If these very men could be spared from their official duties to serve in the active militia, I do not see why they may not be as well spared to serve in the Reserve Corps. The only difference is that in the one case the force would be under your command and control, and in the other it will be under the command and control of the President. You seem to think that its efficiency would be greatly increased by having the control yourself, but in this opinion I apprehend you will find few, if any, to agree with you. One thing is certain—the Legislature entertained a different opinion, for notwithstanding your earnest protest, that body did not hesitate to say by their action in turning over these men to the Confederate authorities they preferred the President to yourself. In the correctness of that decision of the Legislature there is a very general, if not universal, concurrence. Your Excellency constitutes as far as I know the solitary exception. You say:

Prior to the extension of conscription from seventeen to fifty the President

never made a requisition upon me for troops that I did not fill. To his last call I responded with more than double the number required.

This reference to your response to the last call of the President is an unfortunate one if brought forward as evidence of your peculiar qualification for raising and organizing troops. It is true you furnished the President, on paper, double the number he asked for, but owing to your divisions of the State into territorial districts, beyond which the troops could not be required to go, the number of men obtained where their services were needed, in response to every appeal and effort that could be made, was not much greater than onehalf the number called for by the President.

The anxiety which you manifest for the agricultural interest and your fears that it might be seriously injured by a withdrawal of too

large a portion of that worthy class of our people into the public service involve matters of grave importance which have received, and will continue to receive, the earnest consideration of the Confederate authorities. Details and furloughs for the benefit of this interest can be as freely made under the existing organization as could have been done under your militia organization. If it is not done it will not be owing to any unwillingness on the part of the Confederate authorities to make such details and furloughs, but will be attributable to the fact [that] you have withheld so many sinecure officers from the service. I am aware that some of these officials belong to this class, but a large number of them are, doubtless, of that nonproducing class whose absence from home would cause no injury to the agricultural interest. If these men could have been brought into the Army a proportionate number of our farmers and mechanics could have been permitted to return to their homes. As it is, these worthy and useful citizens must be kept away from their business for the benefit of the less useful but more fortunate holders of State commissions in sinecure offices. To the utmost extent, however, that it can be done consistent with the public interest, I have no hesitation in saying details and furloughs will be granted.

In view of the deep interest you manifest on the subject, and satisfied as you must be that the resolution of the Legislature under which you profess to act was never intended to receive the construction you have placed upon it, I submit whether the circumstances would not justify another extra session of that body, that your hands might be untied and the services of your sinecure officials secured to take the place of the farmers and mechanics now kept from their farms and workshops. As in the programme of efficient defense which you had provided in your disbanded militia organization, you evidently caleulated upon the services of your militia officers in the field, I am sure you do not consider it ‘‘ necessary for the proper administration of the State government” that they should be kept permanently at home.

You are right in supposing that Iam anxious to make the Reserve Corps—to the command of which I have been assigned—as large and efficient as practicable. It is my duty to do so, and I am happy to know in discharging that duty I am advancing the best interests of the country. The strength and efficiency of the Army are objects of vital importance, and those objects cannot be more efficiently advanced than by adding to its numbers. I regret that the zeal I have manifested in this matter should have incurred your implied censure, but am consoled with the reflection that it will be more kindly and favorably regarded by the brave and gallant men of our Army, who will see in it a desire to add to their strength, increase their efficiency, and advance the best interests of our country.

The liberty exercised by Confederate officers and men of participating in the discussion of political questions affecting the interests of their State seems to be a grave offense in youreye. Iam charitable enough to believe that you would have regarded their conduct in this particular in a far different light if they could have found in Your Excellency’s course more to approve and less tocondemn. Youshould bear in mind that is your fault, not theirs.

I am, respectfully, HOWELL COBB, Major-General, Commanding.

CONFEDERATE AUTHORITIES. 423

RICHMOND, VA., May 18, 1864. Hon. JAMES A. SEDDON, Secretary of War:

Sir: I have the honor to return to you the letter of the Honorable Secretary of the 30th ultimo referred to me for remarks. I think it is true that the policy of the Government is changed to a great extent by the late act of Congress and the regulations established as therein provided. Originally the cotton paid by the Government for supplies and freight did not diminish the quantity of cotton which private vessels were required to carry out for its account. The only exception made was in the case of the Davis & Fitzhugh contract, under a proviso that they should build or purchase new steamers and bring in entire cargoes for the Government, thus providing that the supplies might be secured, and the tonnage in the trade should not be thereby diminished. Whether or not any discrimination should be made between payments of cotton obligations given by the War Department for supplies delivered, or to be delivered within the country, or such obligations as have been given by the Treasury Department for money, cannot be determined without a better knowledge than I possess of the relative wants of the Army and of the condition of the Government loan abroad. The public faith is, I consider, equally pledged in each case. In both cases, where there is no stipulation requiring the Government to make delivery of cotton at Wilmington, I think that notice should be given that payments of cotton will only be made at other ports, or at places stipulated in the obligation, leaving that port to be used by the Government for loading its own steamers, and to pay such cotton obligations as specifically require delivery there.

It is unquestionably true that every pound of cotton that goes out under the thirteenth regulation, as now interpreted, diminishes the means of the Government abroad to purchase supplies or to provide money for other use. The cotton paid by the War Department under its oldest contracts is valued at 6 pence per pound; under later contracts at 10 pence per pound. The cotton paid by the Treasury will, I suppose, cost the person receiving it about 4 pence per pound. The cotton thus paid is exported without exaction under the thirteenth regulation, and diminishes the quantity which the Government can send out on private steamers. It would be cheaper to send the cotton out for the Government, receive the enhanced price of a foreign market—say 20 pence net—and make payments by drafts on the proceeds. The object of thirteenth regulation was doubtless to encourage the introduction of new ships into the blockade trade, to appreciate the public credit, and to enable the Government to purchase foreign supplies with cotton when it had no foreign funds at its command, or at ports where it found such purchase to its advantage. Under the operation of the thirteenth regulation I am satisfied that the whole character of the trade will be changed. All owners of private vessels will provide themselves with cotton bonds, which will enable them to carry out full cargoes for their own account, and the Government will be compelled to rely upon its own steamers to carry out its cotton. There is nothing in the contracts made by the War Department which offers any profit upon cargoes of supplies delivered. The price does not cover more than cost and usual insurance and freight. The profit is made upon the cotton, which is given in payment, and as the cotton is valued at 6 pence per pound, it cannot compete with cotton delivered or bonds which may

be purchased at such rates as to reduce to 3 or 4 pence per pound the price of the cotton. If this view is correct, then any cotton that may be given in payment for supplies will not in reality diminish the quantity which will be sent out for the Government, but only divert it from being absorbed by cotton bonds. If the Government is still the owner of the bonds, or of the most of them, it may be a matter of general good policy to allow them to absorb all the outward tonnage of private vessels, and thus enhanco their value, so as to place the Treasury Department in funds to meet all the wants of the War Department for foreign supplies. If it is not the owner, and the Government has only a small number of steamers running for its own account, the necessities of the War Department will compel it to purchase some foreign supplies in its own ports and to pay for them in cotton to avoid ruinous rates of exchange. No contracts are now made for delivery of cotton at Wilmington. Two have recently been authorized by you for deliveries at Mobile and the Florida ports to encourage ships, if possible, to run between Havana and Mobile and Havana and the Florida coast, and secure much needed supplies at those ports.

Colonel Helm, at Havana, has made some small engagements with parties owning vessels and arms to deliver them on the coast of Texas, stipulating that they should receive cotton in payment. Some few exceptional contracts of the kind are desirable, and it is necessary at times 10 purchase some indispensable supplies brought in on private account, but the general policy, I think, should be, as suggested by the Honorable Secretary of the Treasury, to pay by draft against cotton exports both for imports and freights. But no cotton can be exported for Government unless it is transported to the ports in preference to private cotton, and cotton in payments of bonds which do not stipulate for delivery at ports.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Lieutenant-Colonel, &e.
[May 16, 1864.—For orders directing General Kemper to organize
the reserves of Virginia and place them at once in service, see Series
I, Vol. XXXVI, Part IT, p. 1012. ]
PRESIDENT’S OFFICE,
Richmond, Va., May 17, 1864.
DUNCAN MACAULEY, Esq.,