Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/86

58 the method of furnishing men for the army and navy. It transpires in that official comment that "substitute brokers" did a business so important and profitable as to call for the formation of partnerships, which plied their "iniquitous transactions" so adroitly and actively and fraudulently, as to obtain large sums, "hundreds of thousands of dollars," for men who were never reported for duty. This "wrong" to the municipalities, "double and cruel wrong to the brave men lying in the trenches of the Appomattox and the James," occurred, says this merciless exposure, "when the army lay panting and exhausted in front of Petersburg," "when the government was calling loudly for recruits and new regiments," "when the gallant men were calling for help and succor," "when the conviction had been at last forced home upon the government that the people and the rebellion could only be subdued by being thoroughly whipped in its entrenched strongholds, and that to do this the army of freedom must be kept full and strong by constant reinforcements." (See Portland Advertiser, January 31, 1870.)