know it, hundreds, yea thousands of barrels of salt
and millions of dollars had been disbursed; and I have
no doubt that Bragg’s army at Tupelo, and Van
Dorn’s at Vicksburg, received enough salt to
make bacon, without which they could not have moved
their armies in mass; and that from ten to twenty thousand
fresh arms, and a due supply of cartridges, have also
been got, I am equally satisfied. As soon as
I got to Memphis, having seen the effect in the interior,
I ordered (only as to my own command) that gold, silver,
and Treasury notes, were contraband of war, and should
not go into the interior, where all were hostile.
It is idle to talk about Union men here: many
want peace, and fear war and its results; but all
prefer a Southern, independent government, and are
fighting or working for it. Every gold dollar
that was spent for cotton, was sent to the seaboard,
to be exchanged for bank-notes and Confederate scrip,
which will buy goods here, and are taken in ordinary
transactions. I therefore required cotton to
be paid for in such notes, by an obligation to pay
at the end of the war, or by a deposit of the price
in the hands of a trustee,
viz., the United States
Quartermaster. Under these rules cotton is being
obtained about as fast as by any other process, and
yet the enemy receives no “aid or comfort.”
Under the “gold” rule, the country people
who had concealed their cotton from the burners, and
who openly scorned our greenbacks, were willing enough
to take Tennessee money, which will buy their groceries;
but now that the trade is to be encouraged, and gold
paid out, I admit that cotton will be sent in by our
open enemies, who can make better use of gold than
they can of their hidden bales of cotton.
I may not appreciate the foreign aspect of the question,
but my views on this may be ventured. If England
ever threatens war because we don’t furnish
her cotton, tell her plainly if she can’t employ
and feed her own people, to send them here, where they
cannot only earn an honest living, but soon secure
independence by moderate labor. We are not bound
to furnish her cotton. She has more reason to
fight the South for burning that cotton, than us for
not shipping it. To aid the South on this ground
would be hypocrisy which the world would detect at
once. Let her make her ultimatum, and there
are enough generous minds in Europe that will counteract
her in the balance. Of course her motive is to
cripple a power that rivals her in commerce and manufactures,
that threatens even to usurp her history. In
twenty more years of prosperity, it will require a
close calculation to determine whether England, her
laws and history, claim for a home the Continent of
America or the Isle of Britain. Therefore, finding
us in a death-struggle for existence, she seems to
seek a quarrel to destroy both parts in detail.
Southern people know this full well, and will only
accept the alliance of England in order to get arms
and manufactures in exchange for their cotton.
The Southern Confederacy will accept no other mediation,
because she knows full well that in Old England her
slaves and slavery will receive no more encouragement
than in New England.