and fourteen Union prisoners were selected by lot and held as hostages for the safety of the condemned men. The latter were ultimately put on the footing of prisoners of war by order of the National government, and subsequently a cartel was adopted for the exchange of prisoners, which remained in force till its suspension in 1864, caused by disagreement as to the status of negro soldiers. In November, 1861, a presidential election was held in the Confederacy, and Mr. Davis was chosen president for six years without opposition. In his message to the provisional congress at its last session, 18 Nov., 1861, he briefly sketched the situation at the close of the first year of the war, alluding to the Confederate successes, the contest for the possession of Kentucky and Missouri, and to the “Trent” affair. (See Wilkes, Charles.) He urged the construction of another railway line through the Confederacy, asserted the improvement of the south in military means and financial condition, and the inefficiency of the blockade, and said: “If it were indeed a rebellion in which we were engaged, we might find ample vindication for the course we have adopted in the scenes which are now being enacted in the United States.” The first congress under the permanent constitution met in Richmond, on 18 Feb., 1863, and Mr. Davis was inaugurated on 23 Feb. The Confederacy had just met with its first serious reverses in the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson; but in his inaugural, after a vindication of the right of secession, Mr. Davis indulged in many favorable hopes. “The final result in our favor,” said he, “is not doubtful. Our foes must sink under the immense load of debt which they have incurred. . . . In the heart of a people resolved to be free, these disasters tend but to stimulate to increased resistance.” In his short messages of 35 Feb. and 15 Aug. he suggested various measures for the improvement of the Confederate forces. The result of the reverses in the early months of the year, to which had now been added the capture of New Orleans, began to show itself in a growing opposition to Mr. Davis's administration, which up to this time had seemed all but universally popular, and this opposition increased in force up to the latest days of the war. One of the first acts of the congress was to pass a sweeping conscription law, to which Mr. Davis reluctantly assented. This was stoutly resisted in some quarters, and led to a spirited correspondence between Mr. Davis and Gov. Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, who disputed the constitutionality of the measure. Congress also authorized the suspension of the habeas corpus act for ten miles around Richmond, and the formation of a military police, for the alleged reason that the government was continually in danger from the presence in Richmond of National spies, and the consequent plots and intrigues. Mr. Davis was present with Gen. Lee at the battle of Fair Oaks on 31 May, and, after the wounding of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in that engagement, assigned Lee to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, having previously, on 13 March, charged him, “under the direction of the president, with the conduct of military operations.” During a visit to the army in the western department, in December, 1862, Mr. Davis, in an address to the Mississippi legislature, defended the conscription law and declared that “in all respects, the Confederacy was better prepared for war than it was a year previous.”
The proclamation of emancipation by President Lincoln, to take effect 1 Jan., 1863, called out from Mr. Davis a retaliatory proclamation, dated 23 Dec., 1862, in which, after reciting, among other acts, the hanging of William B. Mumford for tearing down the United States flag at New Orleans, after the city was captured by the National forces, Gen. Benjamin F. Butler was declared a felon, and it was ordered that all commissioned officers serving under him, as well as any found serving in company with slaves, should be treated as “robbers and criminals deserving death.” These threats, however, were not generally executed, though supported by the legislation of the congress. In his message of January, 1863, Mr. Davis announced his intention of turning over National prisoners for prosecution in state courts, as abettors of servile insurrection; but this proposition was rejected by congress, and provision made for their trial by military tribunals. The two long messages sent by Mr. Davis to congress in 1863 consist largely of discussions of the position of foreign powers, especially Great Britain, with reference to the war. The one dated 7 Dec. announces the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and urges “the compulsory reduction of the currency to the amount required by the business of the country,” together with other measures for improving the finances, which had become hopelessly depreciated. They had never been on a sound basis, and the currency had declined in value till it was nearly worthless. In April, 1863, in compliance with a request of the Confederate congress, Mr. Davis had issued an address to the people of the south, in which he drew the happiest conclusions as to the success of the Confederacy, from the way in which, in the face of obstacles, it had already organized and disciplined armies. “At no previous period of the war,” said he, “have our forces been so numerous, so well organized, and so thoroughly disciplined, armed, and equipped as at present.”
The disasters of July—at Gettysburg and Vicksburg—coming in the face of this assertion, and the state of the currency just mentioned, emboldened the opposition party in all parts of the Confederacy fiercely to assail the administration. Mr. Davis was held responsible for the advance into Pennsylvania, and accused of partiality in appointing Pemberton to command in the west. Charles C. Memminger, secretary of the treasury, resigned, and his place was filled by George A. Trenholm; but the new secretary was unable to stop the depreciation of the currency. The lack of coin in the country, the inability of the people to bear more taxation, and the spirit of speculation fostered by the enormous issues of paper money, hastened the financial ruin of the Confederacy. Food, too, was scarce. Kentucky and Tennessee, whence had come most of the meat supplies, were lost to the Confederacy, and the army was on half-rations. At this time there was a clamor against the commissary-general, Col. Northrop. A committee of the Confederate congress investigated the matter and exonerated him; but the opponents of the administration have continued to hold him, and Mr. Davis through him, responsible for the scarcity of food in the Confederacy, and therefore, indirectly, for much of the sufferings of Union prisoners during the war. The exchange of prisoners had been interrupted for some time by the refusal of the Confederate government to recognize negroes as National soldiers, and after many futile attempts to come to an understanding with the National government, “We offered,” says Mr. Davis (“Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government,” vol. ii., p. 601), “to the United States government their sick and wounded, without requiring any equivalents.”
The year 1864 opened with Confederate successes in Florida, the southwest, and North Caro-
