Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/480

442 rifles or &quot;any kind of weapon that will be useful in the field.&quot; Agents were appointed in various central positions to collect and forward these private arms. Regiments were recruited and mustered into service armed with guns suitable only for the sports of the forest.

Similar calls were also made for sulphur, lead and saltpeter. Speculation in these articles had occurred and was officially condemned. Bells were asked for to be converted into cannon. General Beauregard made his own special appeals for the gift of the bells of the churches. Women gave up their kettles and other copper utensils ; country forges turned steel files into rude bayonets and useless pikes. Every available piece of metal capable of being used in increasing the munitions of war was brought into the common stock.

But it will be observed that in the meanwhile the administration was availing of every opportunity to get cargoes of cotton out to sea, and to bring in through blockade a return cargo of arms, clothing and blankets. Some of these returns came into obscure ports while others came by way of Mexico, overland, through Texas. The large quantity of arms which had been captured from the Federals was now in Confederate service, and manufacturing was urged and established to provide the supplies needed by armies in the field.

By the first of April the general condition of the Confederacy for defense was greatly improved. The absentees from the armies had returned, new recruits had come in, the short term regiments had re-enlisted, and the general spirit of the army and the people improved.

One event scarcely known, however, throughout the Confederacy, was the enforced abandonment, by the direction of the war department, of all lower Florida. The State had enjoyed a general exemption from invasion until the naval expeditions under Dupont resulted in the capture of the towns on the Atlantic side with little