and effective and present. We can easily keep in
the field an effective force of two hundred thousand. These are as
many as we can well feed and clothe, and these are sufficient to
prevent subjugation or the overrunning of our territory."

How a man so well informed and familiar with the foregoing facts could
hope for ultimate results, is hard to comprehend by people of this day
and generation. It was the plan of General Beauregard to concentrate
all the available troops in North and South Carolina on the
Saltkahatchie, to keep Sherman at bay until Dick Taylor, with the
remnant of Hood's Army, could come up, then fall back to the Edisto,
where swamps are wide and difficult of passage, allow Sherman to cross
over two of his corps, fall upon them with all the force possible,
destroy or beat them back upon the center, then assail his flanks,
and so double him up as to make extrication next to impossible. But in
case of failure here, to retire upon Branchville or Columbia, put up
the strongest fortifications possible, withdraw all the troops from
Charleston, Wilmington, and in the other cities, put in all the State
troops that were available from the three States, push forward as
many veterans as Lee could temporarily spare from the trenches,
barely leaving a skirmish line behind the works around Richmond and
Petersburg, then as Sherman approached, fall upon him with all the
concentrated force and crush him in the very heart of the State, or
to so cripple him as to make a forward movement for a length of time
impossible; while the railroads in his rear being all destroyed, his
means of supplies would be cut off, and nothing left but retreat.
Then, in that event, the whole of Beauregard's troops to be rushed on
to Lee, and with the combined army assault, the left flank of Grant
and drive him back on the James. That the soldiers in the ranks and
the subaltern officers felt that some kind of movement like this was
contemplated, there can be no doubt. It was this feeling that gave
them the confidence in the face of overwhelming numbers, and nerved
them to greater efforts in time of battle. It was this sense of
confidence the soldiers had in the heads of departments and in the
commanding Generals that gave the inspiration to the beaten army of
Hood that induced these barefoot men to march half way across the
continent to place themselves in battle lines across the pathway
of Sherman. It was this confidence in the wisdom of our r