Unless Atlanta falls.

DAVIS

And then?

LEE

If General Hood fails to hold Atlanta, Sherman can cut the South in two
and my supplies fail. My men are living now on parched corn. If Sherman
takes Atlanta, I cannot get the corn.

DAVIS

What is the spirit of your men at this moment, General?

LEE

A more formidable force was never set in motion than the army I
command, sir. They are our stark fighters--men who individually or in
the mass can be depended on for any feat of arms in the power of
mortals to accomplish. I know them from experience. They will blanch at
nothing--yet they must have food.

DAVIS

You shall have it. But after one year--then what?

LEE

It's solely a question of man power, sir. I _must_ have more men.

DAVIS

And you suggest?

LEE

That you immediately begin to arm and drill 500,000 negroes for my
command.

DAVIS

And you think they would make good soldiers?

LEE

Led by their old masters--they'll fight--to a man.

DAVIS

It would be necessary to give each black volunteer his freedom?

LEE

Of course. I, as you know, freed my own slaves before entering the
service of the South. It is one of the ironies of Fate that I am
supposed to be fighting for slavery--I who refuse to own a slave and my
opponent General Grant is through his wife's estate a slaveholder.
Slavery is doomed, sir. It can never survive this tragedy. The
Legislature of Virginia came within one vote of freeing her slaves,
years ago.

DAVIS

I know. But the great Gulf States and South Carolina with their
majority of Negro population will never agree to the arming of half a
million slaves.

LEE

And you will allow Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina to defeat
a plan necessary to save the life of the Confederacy?

DAVIS

The States are sovereign, General Lee--for this principle we are
fighting.

LEE

Then I think it may be time to ask ourselves, heart to heart, the
question whether the Confederacy, as organized, does not carry wit