In his message of
November he had recommended the employment of forty thousand slaves in
the army--not as soldiers, it is true, save in the last extremity--with
emancipation to come.
On December 27, Mr. Benjamin wrote his last important instruction to
John Slidell, the Confederate commissioner in Europe. It is nothing less
than a cry of despair. Complaining bitterly of the attitude of foreign
nations while the South is fighting the battles of England and France
against the North, he asks: "Are they determined never to recognize the
Southern Confederacy until the United States assent to such action on
their part?" And with a frantic offer to submit to any terms which
Europe might impose as the price of recognition, and a scarcely veiled
threat of making peace with the North unless Europe should act speedily,
the Confederate Department of State closed its four years of fruitless
activity.
Lee assumed command of all the Confederate armies on February 9. His
situation was one of unprecedented gloom. The day before he had reported
that his troops, who had been in line of battle for two days at
Hatcher's Run, exposed to the bad winter weather, had been without meat
for three days. A prodigious effort was made, and the danger of
starvation for the moment averted, but no permanent improvement
resulted.
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