Davis might have borne with patience, although it was intended as a
notification that his meddling with military affairs must come to an
end. But far worse was the bitter necessity put upon him as a sequel to
this act, of reappointing General Joseph E. Johnston to the command of
the army which was to resist Sherman's victorious march to the north.
Mr. Seddon, rebel Secretary of War, thinking his honor impugned by a
vote of the Virginia delegation in Congress, resigned. Warnings of
serious demoralization came daily from the army, and disaffection was so
rife in official circles in Richmond that it was not thought politic to
call public attention to it by measures of repression.
It is curious and instructive to note how the act of emancipation had by
this time virtually enforced itself in Richmond. The value of slave
property was gone. It is true that a slave was still occasionally sold,
at a price less than one tenth of what he would have brought before the
war, but servants could be hired of their nominal owners for almost
nothing--merely enough to keep up a show of vassalage. In effect, any
one could hire a negro for his keeping--which was all that anybody in
Richmond, black or white, got for his work. Even Mr. Davis had at last
become docile to the stern teaching of events.
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