famine in the South. The farmers found it difficult to save their meat,
owing to the scarcity of salt. It is a curious fact, that, when the
famine was at its height, a pound of salt was worth a pound of silver.
Foreseeing this famine, a great many shrewd business men had laid in
large stocks of salt, storing it about in large warehouses in different
parts of the State. They were about to realize immense fortunes out of
the sufferings of the people, when Governor Brown stepped in and seized
all the salt the State authorities could lay hands on, and prohibited
the shipment of the article out of the State. The Legislature afterwards
came to the support of the governor; but if the matter had been
discussed in the Legislature in advance of the action of the executive,
the speculators would have had timely notice, and the State authorities
would have found no salt to seize.

[Illustration: The Salt Famine 284]

This salt famine was almost as serious as any result of the war, and
it hung over the State until the close of the contest. In thousands of
instances the planters who had been prodigal of salt before the war, dug
up the dirt floors of their smokehouses, and managed to extract a small
supply of the costly article. The Legislature was compelled to
organize a salt bureau, and for that purpose half a million dollars was
appropriated. The State, in self-defense, took into its own hands the
monopoly of manufacturing salt and of distributing it to the people.

The next difficulty with which the people of Georgia had to contend was
the Conscription Act. This act passed the Confederate Congress in April,
1862. It had been recommended by Mr. Davis in a special message, and
Congress promptly passed it. Nobody in Georgia could understand why
such a law had been recommended, or why it had passed. It was the most
ruinous blunder of the Confederate Government during the war. If such a
law was necessary, it showed that the Confederacy had fallen to pieces.
If it was not necessary, its enactment was a stupendous piece of
folly; and such it turned out to be. Under the last call for troops
for Confederate service, Governor Brown had no difficulty in furnishing
eighteen regiments. He could have gone on furnish ing troops as long as
there was any fighting material left in the State; but as soon as the
Conscript Act went into operation, the ardor of the people sensibly
cooled. The foolish law not only affected the people at home, but hurt