still further weakened the arm of Confederate administration. Even
William L. Yancey, the most fiery of the secessionist leaders of 1860,
devoted all his eloquence and abilities, from 1861 to the time of his
death in 1863, to attacking the Government of his own making. And to
make matters worse, the supreme courts of North Carolina and Georgia
undertook to annul the conscript law and other important acts of the
Confederate Congress, and thus inaugurated a war of the judges which
seriously undermined the prestige and the morale of the Confederate
Government. Confederate officers enrolled men for the army only to have
them released by state judges supported by their respective governors.
All the influence and abilities of Lee and Davis were required to
prevent a break-down in the spring of 1864, when the calls for more
troops and additional supplies were so numerous and pressing. West
Virginia was gone, Kentucky and Missouri, too, were wholly within the
Federal lines; and most of Tennessee, half of Mississippi, and nearly
all the region beyond the great river were lost to the Richmond
Government. New Orleans and Norfolk were once more parts of the United
States, while large strips of territory in eastern North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Florida were held in subjection by frowning gunboats.

[Illustration: The Confederacy in 1863]

A little cotton found its way through the beleaguered ports of Mobile,
Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington to Europe, and brought the lucky
blockade runners and their owners rich returns. But trade was so small
and the dangers of capture were so many that few could look with any
real hope for a return of prosperity until the war was over. Europe
must intervene if cotton and tobacco and sugar were to regain their
kingly state. And this was the warmest wish of the Confederate
chieftains. When the battle of Fredericksburg was fought, all the world
thought that the desired recognition would come at once. James M. Mason,
the commissioner to England, wrote home that a large majority of the
House of Commons was willing to vote for acknowledging Southern
independence, and Charles Francis Adams, the Minister of the United
States, was of the same opinion. Gladstone, then one of the most popular
members of the British Cabinet, and a majority of his colleagues favored
the South. Palmerston declared, when the Emancipation Proclamation was
read to him, that Lincoln abolished slavery where he had no power