as untrue to his cause or unduly timid. Neither Jefferson Davis
nor General Lee had any thought of surrender, though from the attitude
of representatives of the United States it was plain that an offer to
return to the Union would have been met with ample guaranties to the
owners of slaves and full amnesty to those who had brought on the war.
Alexander Stephens alone foresaw the outcome and began now to ask for a
new national convention in which terms of restoration and permanent
union should be fixed. Stephens was, however, already out of harmony
with President Davis; and the State of Georgia, led by Joseph E. Brown,
the Governor, and the Confederate Vice-President himself, was regarded
by loyal Southerners as recalcitrant and therefore not authorized to
propose solutions of the problem. The cup of Southern defeat and
humiliation had not been drained to the bottom.

The Confederacy owed, at the end of the year 1863, $1,221,000,000; the
State Governments, the counties and cities, probably owed as much more.
Paper money, the only medium of exchange, was fast giving way to barter.
One dollar in gold was worth twenty dollars in Confederate currency. The
monthly wage of a common soldier was not sufficient to buy a bushel of
wheat. People who lived in the cities converted their tiny yards into
vegetable gardens; the planters no longer produced cotton and tobacco,
but supplies for "their people" and for the armies. The annual export of
cotton fell from 2,000,000 bales in 1860 to less than 200,000 in 1863,
and most of this came from areas under Federal control. The yearly
returns to the planters from foreign markets alone had fallen from the
huge returns of 1860 to almost nothing in 1863, and with the
disappearance of gold, or international money, from the South, the
Governments, Confederate and State, found their systems of taxation
breaking down. Early in 1864 taxes were made payable in corn, bacon, or
wheat, not in paper money, which every one refused to accept at face
value. Planters and farmers great and small were now required to
contribute one tenth of their crops to the Government. This would have
given to the armies an ample supply, but the railroads were already
breaking down, while wagons and country roads were also unable to bear
the unparalleled burden. It was a difficult situation. The States made
it worse by resisting the authority of the Confederacy; while the
Confederacy was unable either to raise money on loan