Ambitious Southern boys, raging for the smell of battle, rushed from
post to post, begged and pleaded for a place in the ranks. They offered
big bounties for the places assigned to men who were lucky enough to be
accepted.
The Confederate Congress, to the chagrin of their President, fixed the
time of service at six months. Jefferson Davis was apparently the only
man in the South who had any conception of the gigantic task before his
infant government. He begged and implored his Congress for an enrollment
of three years or the end of the war. The Congress laughed at his absurd
fears. The utmost they would grant was enlistment for the term of one
year.
With grim foreboding but desperate earnestness the President of the
Confederacy turned his attention to the organization and equipment of
this force with which he was expected to defend the homes of eight
million people scattered over a territory of 728,000 square miles, with
an open frontier of a thousand miles and three thousand leagues of open
sea.
CHAPTER XIV
RICHMOND IN GALA DRESS
From the moment Virginia seceded from the Union it wan a foregone
conclusion that Richmond would be the capital of the new
Confederacy--not only because the great Virginian was the Father of the
Country and his glorious old Commonwealth the mother of States and
Presidents, but because her soil must be the arena of the first great
battle.
Pages:
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217