OVERLAND TRADE WITH THE SOUTH. in 1864, 198,000; and in 1865, 462,000; 167 guerillas were told [that] to destroy this cotton, they would have to fight, and they let it pass. Now this may cr may not be true; but the bearing of the farmers, their plain simple story impressed me, and I relaxed the usual rules of trade and allowed them to carry back clothing and necessaries for their families." * A few days later he wrote that over 1,000 bales had been received in small parcels from farmers who wished to carry out to their starving families the clothing and groceries necessary to their existence. He then continued: "Though in some cases the privilege has been and will be abused, I think it good policy to encourage it, that the farmers and property holdcrs may realize their dependence on other parts of our country, and also realize that a state of war long continued will reduce them to a state of absolute ruin."† In spite of the vigilance of the Union officers, however, the traffic had its sinister side, Sherman writing on August 11, 1862, as follows: "The commercial enterprise of the Jews soon discovered that ten cents would buy a pound of cotton behind our army; that four cents would take it to Boston, where they could receive thirty cents in gold. The bait was too tempting, and it spread like fire, when here they discovered that salt, bacon, powder, firearms, percussioncaps, etc., etc., were worth as much as gold; and, strange to say, this traffic was not only permitted but encouraged. Before we in the interior could salt and millions of dollars had been disbursed, and I have no doubt that Bragg's army at At first the overland trade with the South was conducted with a rare degree of honesty, and much of it, though know it, hundreds, yea thousands of barrels of against the letter of the law, was inculpable and unobjectionable. On October 4, 1862, Sherman, then in command at Memphis, wrote to Grant: 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." ‡ This trade in cotton was participated in by the officers and men of the army|| 168 ILLICIT COTTON TRANSACTIONS. and one Louisiana citizen was sent beyond the military jurisdiction for attempting to bribe the commanding general" to confirm him in the possession of a certain lot of cotton."* In the summer of 1862 a steamboat on the Mississippi was seized" for carrying salt down the river without permit and changing it off for cotton." On October 9, 1862, Sherman wrote to Grant: "My own opinion is that all trade should be absolutely prohibited to all districts until the military commander notifies the Government that the rebellion is suppressed in that district, for we know, whatever restraint is imposed on steamboats, that clerks and hands do smuggle everything by which they can make profit. The great profit now made is converting everybody into rascals and it makes me ashamed of my countrymen every time I have to examine a cotton or horse case. I have no doubt that our cause suffers from the fact that not only horses and cotton are bought of negroes and thieves under fabricated bills of sale, but that the reputations of even military men become involved."‡ bribery and corruption seem to go into every branch of the service."* On January 21, 1863, Charles A. Dana writes to Stanton from Memphis: "The mania for sudden fortunes made on cotton, raging in a vast population of Jews and Yankees scattered throughout this whole country, and in this town almost exceeding the number of the regular residents, has to an alarming extent corrupted and demoralized the army. Every colonel, captain or quartermaster is in secret partnership with some operator in cotton; every soldier dreams of adding a bale of cotton to lis monthly pay. I had no conception of the extent of this evil until I came and saw for myself. Besides, the resources of the rebels are inordinately increased from this source. Plenty of cotton is brought in from beyond our lines especially by the agency of Jewish traders, who pay for it ostensibly in Treasury notes, but really in gold." † The effect of this intersectional trade was to hamper the movements of the Northern armies and to supply the Confederates with a great variety of necessities which they could not have obtained otherwise. On May 10, 1864, On December 31, 1862, General Hovey General C. C. Washburn made the folwrote from Mississippi: "Unprincipled sharpers and Jews are supplying the enemy with all they want. Our forces penetrated ninety miles into the very heart of Mississippi, and everywhere we were met with boots, shoes, clothing and goods purchased by open and avowed rebels at Delta and Friar's Point. The Yankees are deluging the country with contraband goods, and letters intercepted from the army show from whence they are receiving their supplies. War and commerce with the same people! What a Utopian dream!" || On February 20, 1863, General Hurlburt speaks of the "terrible smuggling" at Memphis and says that lowing report: "The practical operation of commercial intercourse from this city with the States in rebellion has been to help largely to feed, clothe, arm and equip our enemies. Memphis has been of more value to the Southern Confederacy since it fell into Federal hands than Nassau. To take cotton belonging to the rebel Government to Nassau, or any foreign port is a hazardous proceeding. To take it to Memphis and convert it into supplies and greenbacks and return to the lines of the enemy, or place the proceeds to the credit of the rebel Government in Europe, without passing again into rebel lines, is safe and easy. I have undoubted evidence that large amounts of cotton have been and are being brought here to be sold, belonging to the rebel Government. The past and present system of trade has given strength to the rebel army while it has demoral * Official Records, vol. xxii., pt. i., p. 230. Ibid, vol. lii., pt. i., p. 331. THE POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT. ized and weakened our own. It has invited the enemy to hover around Memphis as his best base of supply, when otherwise he would have abandoned the country. It renders of practical noneffect the blockade upon the ocean, which has cost, and is costing, so many millions. It opens our lines to the spies of the enemy, and renders it next to impossible to execute any military plan without its becoming known to him long enough in advance for him to prepare for it. The facts here stated are known to every intelligent man in Memphis. What is the remedy for these great and overwhelming evils? Experience shows that there can be but one remedy, and that is total prohibition of all commercial intercourse with the States in rebellion." * General Daniel E. Sickles fully corroborated General Washburn in a letter of May 31, 1864, and continued: "I would respectfully recommend that all trade with persons beyond our lines be interdicted and that commanding officers of squadrons and military districts be held responsible for the enforcement of the prohibition. The effect upon our army and navy cannot be otherwise than injurious when they see a vast trade carried on with our enemies. This intercourse enriches a mercenary horde, who follow in the rear of our forces, corrupting by the worst temptations those in authority, giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and relieving that extreme destitution of the insurgent population which would operate as a powerful inducement toward the restoration of tranquillity and order.” † On December 7, 1864, General E. R. S. Canby wrote: "If this trade is carried on in the manner and to the extent claimed by the speculators who now control it, its inevitable result, in my judgment, will be to add strength and efficiency to the rebel armies east and west of the Mississippi equivalent to an addition of 50,000 men, and will stimulate into active opposition to the successful prosecution of our operations at least 10,000 men within our own lines. The rebel armies, east and west of the Mississippi, have been supported mainly during the past twelve months by the unlawful trade carried on, on the river. The 169 city of New Orleans, since its occupation by our forces, has contributed more to the support of the rebel armies, more to the purchasing and equipment of privateers that are preying upon our commerce, and more to maintain the credit of the rebel Government in Europe than any other port in the country with the single exception of Wilmington."* On December 12, 1864, Lincoln wrote to Canby explaining somewhat the attitude of the Government: "As to cotton by the external blockade, the price is made certainly six times as great as it was. And yet the enemy gets through at least one-sixth part as much in a given period, say a year, as if there were no blockade, and receives as much for it as he would for a full crop in time of peace. The effect, in substance, is, that we give him six ordinary crops without the trouble of producing any part but the first, and at the same time leave his fields and his laborers free to produce provisions. You know how this keeps up his armies at home and procures supplies from abroad. For other reasons we cannot give up the blockade, and hence it becomes immensely important to us to get the cotton away from him. Better give him guns for it than let him, as now, get both guns and ammunition for it. But even this only presents part of the public interest to get out cotton. Our finances are greatly involved in the matter. The way cotton goes now carries so much gold out of the country as to leave us paper currency only, and that so far depreciated as that for every hard dollar's worth of supplies we obtain, we contract to pay two and a half dollars hereafter. This is much to be regretted; and while I believe we can live through it, at all events it demands an earnest effort on the part of all to correct it. And if pecuniary greed can be made to aid us in such effort, let us be thankful that so much good can be got out of pecuniary greed."† Undoubtedly it was unfortunate, that, at the outset, the President did not place the entire business under the supervision of the generals commanding the various departments, as he did 170 CORRUPTION IN THE ARMY. toward the close of the war; for neither Lincoln nor Chase had the time, knowledge, or business ability successfully to cope with a matter so intricate, and the Treasury agents demonstrated not only their impotence to manage the traffic but their liability to connive at fraudulent transactions. As Sherman said: * "As to Treasury trade agents and agents to take charge of confiscated and abandoned property, whose salaries depend upon their fees, I can only say, that as a general rule, they are mischievous and disturbing elements to a military government, and it is almost impossible for us to study the law and regulations so as to understand fully their powers and duties. I rather think the Quartermaster's Department of the Army could better fulfil all their duties and accomplish all that is aimed at by the law.” † Rhodes says that, while suspicions against two brigadier-generals were officially stated, newspaper charges were made against one major-general, and rumors were circulated implicating two others, there does not seem to be convincing evidence of the corruption of any major-general holding high and responsible position except Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, who was in command at New Orleans for some time. According to his biographer|| Butler was worth about $150, *In 1865 the Federal grand jury at Mobile, Alabama, when investigating the confiscating frauds, found that in Alabama alone these agents had stolen 125,000 bales of cotton, at that time worth $50,000,000, most of which was private property. Only two of these agents were convicted and these were penalized only $90,000 and $250,000 respectively. † Official Records, vol. xlvii., pt. ii., p. 88. United States, vol. v., p. 303. Parton, General Butler at New Orleans. 000 when he went to New Orleans in 1862, but by 1868 this modest sum had grown to a fortune of $3,000,000.* Many contended that the prosperity of the North was fictitious, that only the speculators and Government contractors were better off than they were before the war, and that, while the laborer's cost of living had doubled, his wages has remained practically stationary. Rhodes† quotes the Springfield Republican: "In many manufactories, whose profits have been augmented beyond the wildest dreams of their owners, wages are only from twelve to twenty per cent higher than they were before the war, and there is absolutely want in many families while thousands of young children who should be at school are shut up at work that they may earn something to eke out the scant supplies at home." In the Falkner report‡ are these words: *On Butler see also the Diary and Correspondence of S. P. Chase, in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1902, vol. ii.; the report of E. B. Washburne, chairman of the committee of both Houses of Congress appointed to investigate the trade with the Southern States (Report 24, 38th Congress, 2 session); Moorfield Storey, The Record of B. F. Butler (Boston, 1883); and on the cotton transactions in general Fleming, Documentary History of Reconstruction, vol. i., pp. 25-33, and the same author's Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, p. 284 et seq. United States, vol. v., p. 203. Arranged by Prof. Roland P. Falkner from statistics gathered by experts and presented to the Senate on March 3, 1893, by Nelson W. Aldrich. LABOR CONDITIONS. wage-earners from the decreased wages due to depreciated currency and the general social disturbance." the laborers were Nevertheless never out of work and the demand for them became so great that by an act approved July 4, 1864, Congress encouraged the immigration of foreign laborers. In a letter to Stanton dated December 10, 1863, a number of Boston business men stated that: "In the free States the great numbers already drawn from the workshops and field have seriously embarrassed many branches of the industry upon which the production of the country depends. We earnestly recommend that permission should be immediately given to the loyal States to recruit soldiers in those parts of the rebel States within our control, both to fill up the white regiments now there and to create such black regiments as you may deem it expedient to authorize.† On the whole wages seem to have remained stationary in the face of rising prices of commodities, and employers appropriated to themselves all or nearly all the profits accruing without sharing the prosperity with their employes through the medium of higher wages. At New York the price of eggs rose from 15 cents per dozen in 1861 to 25 cents in 1863, cheese from 8 to 18 cents per pound and potatoes from $1.50 to $2.25 per bushel, while almost all other commodities rose from 60 to 75 per cent. and, in many cases, 100 per cent. On the other hand, wages did not show a corresponding increase, thus making the situation of the laborer far worse than * Pp. 177, 180, 189. Official Records, ser. iii., vol. iii., p. 1162. 171 before the war. The wages of blacksmiths, for instance, increased from $1.75 to $2 per day, of bricklayers from $1.25 to $2, and of common laborers from $1 to $1.25; while the average increase in all trades was about 25 per cent., or less than onehalf the advance in prices. During the last two years of the war, however, labor recovered much of the ground lost during the first two years, and at the close of the war wages more nearly equalled prices than at any time previously. The wages of women, on the other hand, were disgraceful and showed no appreciable gain during the war; in some lines of women's work there was an actual decline. This was particularly true of the seamstresses, thousands of whom were employed in making clothing for the armies, some in the Government employ and others in the employ of contractors. An average week's wage paid by the contractors was $1.54, while in 1861 the Government paid only 171⁄2 cents for making a shirt, and three years later, when prices themselves were highest, only 15 cents.* At this time women were largely employed in the industries and very often were given the places of striking |