an address which
has been called his greatest and which produced a profound impression.
A wave of enthusiasm swept over Richmond, and for a moment the President
appeared once more to be master of the situation. His immense audacity
carried the people with him when, after showing what might be done by
more drastic enforcement of the conscription laws, he concluded: "Let us
then unite our hands and our hearts, lock our shields together, and we
may well believe that before another summer solstice falls upon us, it
will be the enemy that will be asking us for conferences and occasions
in which to make known our demands."

Chapter XI. An Attempted Revolution

Almost from the moment when the South had declared its independence
voices had been raised in favor of arming the negroes. The rejection of
a plan to accomplish this was one of the incidents of Benjamin's tenure
of the portfolio of the War Department; but it was not until the early
days of 1864, when the forces of Johnston lay encamped at Dalton,
Georgia, that the arming of the slaves was seriously discussed by
a council of officers. Even then the proposal had its determined
champions, though there were others among Johnston's officers who
regarded it as "contrary to all true principles of chivalric warfare,"
and their votes prevailed in the council by a large majority.

From that time forward the question of arming the slaves hung like a
heavy cloud over all Confederate thought of the war. It was discussed in
the army and at home around troubled firesides. Letters written from the
trenches at Petersburg show that it was debated by the soldiers, and the
intense repugnance which the idea inspired in some minds was shown by
threats to leave the ranks if the slaves were given arms.

Amid the pressing, obvious issues of 1864, this project hardly appears
upon the face of the record until it was alluded to in Davis's message
to Congress in November, 1864, and in the annual report of the Secretary
of War. The President did not as yet ask for slave soldiers. He did,
however, ask for the privilege of buying slaves for government use--not
merely hiring them from their owners as had hitherto been done--and for
permission, if the Government so desired, to emancipate them at the
end of their service. The Secretary of War went farther, however, and
advocated negro soldiers, and he too suggested their emancipation at the
end of service.

This feeling of the temper of the cou