n soldiers and no man could foresee the end.

Davis had begun in April, 1861, without an arsenal, laboratory or powder
mill of any capacity, and with no foundry or rolling mill for iron
except the little Tredegar works in Richmond.

He had supplied them.

Harassed by an army of half a million men in blue led by able generals
and throttled by a cable of steel which the navy had drawn about his
coast line, he had done this work and at the same time held his own
defiantly and successfully. Crippled by a depreciated currency,
assaulted daily by a powerful conspiracy of sore-head politicians and
quarreling generals, strangled by a blockade that deprived him of nearly
all means of foreign aid--he had still succeeded in raising the needed
money. Unable to use the labor of slaves except in the unskilled work of
farms, hampered by lack of transportation even of food for the army,
with no stock of war material on hand,--steel, copper, leather or iron
with which to build his establishments--yet with quiet persistence he
set himself to solve these problems and succeeded.

He had created, apparently out of nothing, foundries and rolling mills
at Selma, Richmond, Atlanta and Macon, smelting works at Petersburg, a
chemical laboratory at Charlotte, a powder mill superior to any of the
United States and unsurpassed by any in Europe,--a mighty chain of
arsenals, armories, and laboratories equal in their capacity and
appointments to the best of those in the North, stretching link by link
from Virginia to Alabama.

He established artificial niter beds at Richmond, Columbus, Charleston,
Savannah, Mobile and Selma of sufficient capacity to supply the niter
needed in the powder mills.

Mines for iron, lead and copper were opened and operated. Manufactories
for the production of sulphuric and nitric acid were established and
successfully operated.

Minor articles were supplied by devices hitherto unheard of in the
equipment of armies. Leather was scarce and its supply impossible in the
quantities demanded.

Knapsacks were abolished and haversacks of cloth made by patriotic women
with their needles took their places. The scant supply of leather was
divided between the makers of shoes for the soldiers and saddles and
harness for the horses. Shoes for the soldiers were the prime necessity.
To save leather the waist and cartridge-box belts were made of heavy
cotton cloth stitched in three or four thicknesses. Bridle reins were
made of co