recruiting his army with negroes from the great
plantations along the coast, and resting up his army for his march
through the State. Negroes flocked to his army by the thousands, and
were formed into regiments and brigades, officered by white men. Even
our own Generals and some of our statesmen at this time and before
were urging Congress to enlist the negroes, but the majority were
opposed to the movement. To show how confident were our leaders even
at this late day of the Confederacy, I will quote from Wm. Porcher
Miles, then in the Confederate Congress, in reply to General
Beauregard urging the enlistment of the slaves. It must be understood
that at this time Lee had all he could do to hold his own against
Grant, growing weaker and weaker as the days rolled by, while Grant
was being reinforced from all over the United States. Lee had the
solitary railroad by which to subsist his army. Sherman had laid waste
Georgia and was now on the eve of marching; through South Carolina.
The Army of the Trans-Mississippi was hopelessly cut off from the
rest of the Confederacy. The Mississippi River was impassable, to say
nothing of the Federal pickets that lined its banks and the gunboats
that patrolled its waters, so much so that one of our Generals is said
to have made the report "that if a bird was dressed up in Confederate
gray, it could not cross the Mississippi." Hood's Army was a mere
skeleton of its former self--his men, some furloughed, others returned
to their home without leave, so disheartened were they after the
disastrous defeat in Tennessee. Still all these conditions being known
and understood by the authorities, they were yet hopeful. Says Mr.
Miles in Congress:

"I cannot bring my mind to the conviction that arming our slaves will
add to our military strength, while the prospective and inevitable
evils resulting from such measures make me shrink back from such a
step. This can be when only on the very brink of the brink of the
precipice of ruin."

From such language from a Confederate Congressman, dark as the day
looked on February 4th, 1865, the date of the letter, the people
did not seem to feel that they were on the "brink of the precipice."
Continuing, Mr. Miles goes on in a hopeful strain:

"But I do not estimate him [speaking of Grant] as a soldier likely
to decide the fate of battle. We have on our rolls this side of
the Mississippi four hundred and one thousand men, one hundred and
seventy-five thous