be supposed, however, that Lee
himself had the slightest sympathy with the congressional cabal which
had forced upon the President this reorganization of the army. In
accepting his new position he pointedly ignored Congress by remarking,
"I am indebted alone to the kindness of His Excellency, the President,
for my nomination to this high and arduous office."

The popular clamor for the restoration of Johnston had still to be
appeased. Disliking Johnston and knowing that the opposition was using
a popular general as a club with which to beat himself, Davis hesitated
long but in the end yielded to the inevitable. To make the reappointment
himself, however, was too humiliating. He left it to the new
commander-in-chief, who speedily restored Johnston to command.

Chapter X. Disintegration

While these factions, despite their disagreements, were making valiant
efforts to carry on the war, other factions were stealthily cutting
the ground from under them. There were two groups of men ripe for
disaffection--original Unionists unreconciled to the Confederacy and
indifferentists conscripted against their will.

History has been unduly silent about these disaffected men. At the
time so real was the belief in state rights that contemporaries were
reluctant to admit that any Southerner, once his State had seceded,
could fail to be loyal to its commands. Nevertheless in considerable
areas--such, for example, as East Tennessee--the majority remained to
the end openly for the Union, and there were large regions in the
South to which until quite recently the eye of the student had not been
turned. They were like deep shadows under mighty trees on the face of a
brilliant landscape. When the peasant Unionist who had been forced
into the army deserted, however, he found in these shadows a nucleus
of desperate men ready to combine with him in opposition to the local
authorities.

Thus were formed local bands of free companions who pillaged the
civilian population. The desperadoes whom the deserters joined have been
described by Professor Dodd as the "neglected byproducts" of the old
regime. They were broken white men, or the children of such, of the sort
that under other circumstances have congregated in the slums of great
cities. Though the South lacked great cities, nevertheless it had its
slum--a widespread slum, scattered among its swamps and forests. In
these fastnesses were the lowest of the poor whites, in whom hatred of