With that campaign of Bristoe, and the fiasco of Mine Run, the year of
1863 ended.
It left the South bleeding, and what was worse,--discouraged. Affairs
were mismanaged. The army had scarcely sufficient meat and bread to
live on. The croakers, clad in black coats, and with snowy shirt
bosoms, began to mutter under their breath, "It is useless to struggle
longer!"--and, recoiling in disgust from the hard fare of "war times,"
began to hunger for the flesh-pots of Egypt. Manna was tasteless now;
the task-master was better than the wilderness and the scant fare. Oh!
to sit by the flesh-pots and grow fat, as in the days when they did eat
thereof! Why continue the conflict? Why waste valuable lives? Why think
of still fighting when flour was a hundred dollars a barrel, coffee
twenty dollars a pound, cloth fifty dollars a yard, and good whiskey
and brandy not to be purchased at any price? Could patriotism live amid
trials like that? Could men cling to a cause which made them the
victims of Yankee cavalry? Why have faith any longer in a government
that was bankrupt--whose promises to pay originated the scoffing
proverb, "as worthless as a Confederate note!" Meat and drink was the
religion of the croakers in those days. Money was their real divinity.
Without meat and drink, and with worthless money, the Confederacy, in
their eyes, was not the side to adhere to.
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