uld have been found. It was utterly
impossible to arm and equip one hundred thousand, before the first
battle would be fought.

Ambitious Southern boys, raging for the smell of battle, rushed from
post to post, begged and pleaded for a place in the ranks. They offered
big bounties for the places assigned to men who were lucky enough to be
accepted.

The Confederate Congress, to the chagrin of their President, fixed the
time of service at six months. Jefferson Davis was apparently the only
man in the South who had any conception of the gigantic task before his
infant government. He begged and implored his Congress for an enrollment
of three years or the end of the war. The Congress laughed at his absurd
fears. The utmost they would grant was enlistment for the term of one
year.

With grim foreboding but desperate earnestness the President of the
Confederacy turned his attention to the organization and equipment of
this force with which he was expected to defend the homes of eight
million people scattered over a territory of 728,000 square miles, with
an open frontier of a thousand miles and three thousand leagues of open
sea.

CHAPTER XIV

RICHMOND IN GALA DRESS

From the moment Virginia seceded from the Union it wan a foregone
conclusion that Richmond would be the capital of the new
Confederacy--not only because the great Virginian was the Father of the
Country and his glorious old Commonwealth the mother of States and
Presidents, but because her soil must be the arena of the first great
battle.

On May 23, the Provisional Congress at Montgomery adjourned to meet in
Richmond on July 20, and Jefferson Davis began his triumphal procession
to the new Capital.

Jennie Barton, her impulsive father, the Senator, Mrs Barton, with
temper serene and unruffled, and Signor Henrico Socola of the Sardinian
Ministry, were in the party. Dick Welford and two boys were already in
Virginia with their regiments. Tom was in New Orleans with Raphael
Semmes, fitting out the little steamer _Sumter_ for a Confederate
cruiser.

Senator Barton had been requested by the new President to act as his
aide, and the champion of secession had accepted the honor under
protest. It was not of importance commensurate with his abilities, but
it was perhaps worth while for the moment until a greater field was
opened.

The arrangement made Socola's association with Jennie of double
importance. As the train whirled through the sunlit fi