Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 17.djvu/164

 156 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Finances went wrong, some say. Finances always go wrong in failures; but not worse in this case than in the revoluion of 1776, when Washington was at the head. So far did they go wrong then that not even success could rescue the worthless paper money of our fathers from repudiation and oblivion, and even to this day the very worst fling that can be made at the Confederate note reaches a climax in the expression, **It is not worth a continental/*

JEFFERSON DAVIS CREATED AND MAINTAINED A NATION.

Blame Jefferson Davis for this or that ; discount all that critics say, and then behold the mighty feat which created and for four years maintained a nation ; behold how armies without a nucleus were marshalled and armed — how a navy, small indeed, but one that revolutionized the naval warfare of all nations and became the terror of the seas, was fashioned out of old hulks or picked up in foreign places ; see how a world in arms was held at bay by a people and a soldiery whom he held together with an iron will and hurled like a flaming thunderbolt at their foes.

THE CABINET OF JEFFERSON DAVIS.

In his Cabinet he gathered the foremost civilians of the land — Toombs, Hunter, Benjamin, Bragg, Watts, Davis, Memminger, Trenholm, Walker, Randolph, Seddon, Breckenridge, Mallory, Reagan. Good men and true were these, regardful of every duty.

HIS GENERALS AND HIS ARMIES.

To the leadership of his soldiers whom did he delegate ? If some Messioner could throw upon the canvas Jefferson Davis in the midst of those chiefs whom he created, what grander knighthood could history assemble ?

Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, G. T. Beauregard, Samuel Cooper, and Braxton Bragg were generals of the full rank.

Stonewall Jackson, Forrest, Polk, Hardee, Ewell, D. H. Hill, A. P. Hill, Hood, Richard Taylor, Holmes, R. H. Anderson, Pember- ton. Early, Kirby Smith, Longstreet, Hampton, S. D. Lee, A. P. Stewart, Buckner, Wheeler, and Gordon were their lieutenants.

Major-generals, brigadiers and field officers, cavalry leaders, artil- lerists, and infantry commanders who became world renowned,