Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 03.djvu/157

Rh from them, to be scattered over Texas, had been placed under the command of an officer who seemed to have been only selected for the purpose of betraying them."

In the chapter on "The Federal Volunteers," page 187, he says: "The Federal Government, therefore, was required by law to arm and equip the volunteers; but, as it stood in need of everything at the moment when all had to be created at once—as its arsenals, which would have been insufficient for the emergency even if well supplied, had been plundered by the instigators of rebellion, and could not even furnish a musket, a coat, or a pair of shoes for the improvised defenders—most of the States themselves undertook to furnish those outfits for troops which they raised."

In the chapter on "The Material of War," pages 307-8, he says: "The Confederate Government could not count upon the industry and commerce of the Rebel States to supply its troops with provisions, equipments and arms to the same extent as its adversary. But at the outset of the war they possessed a very great advantage. As we have stated elsewhere, Mr. Floyd, Secretary of War under President Buchanan, had taken care, a few weeks before the insurrection broke out, to send to the South all the arms which the Government possessed. He thus forwarded one hundred and fifteen thousand muskets, which, being added to those already in the arsenals of Charleston, Fayetteville, Augusta, Mount Vernon, Baton Rouge, etc., secured a complete armament for the Confederate armies of superior quality."

Here again the author manifests the exceeding carelessness he has exhibited in ascertaining his facts.

The army of the United States had always been very small in time of peace, and after 1855, up to the beginning of the war, consisted of only eight regiments of infantry, four regiments of artillery, and five mounted regiments, numbering about ten or eleven thousand men in all. The great bulk of that army had been employed on the Western frontier as a protection against the Indians from time immemorial, and Governor Floyd, as Secretary of War, made no change in the policy of the Government in that respect. General Twiggs, the officer alluded to as having been selected for the purpose of betraying the troops placed under him, had been on frontier duty during the greater part of his military life, and had been in command in Texas from a period dating long before secession was contemplated. The troops under him that are represented as having been withdrawn from the Federal forts and