In the lower house of the Confederate Congress at Richmond, nearly the whole of the third and fourth days of the session were occupied by a fierce discussion upon a resolution offered by Foote of Tennessee, denouncing the Davis administration for its defensive war policy and demanding a change. Mr. Boyce of South Carolina also proposed to raise a committee to investigate the conduct of the war, and both made severe attacks upon the Davis administration charging to its inefficiency the late reverses. – Mr. Tripp, of Georgia, also took the same side. Mr. Jenkins of Virginia defended the Confederate Government, and both parties grew so warm that there was talk about holding Foote to “personal account” before they got through. The various propositions and resolutions were finally referred to a special committee. Mr. Foote said, among other sharp things:
“Beauregard was known to be in favor of an aggressive policy, and President Davis himself is said to have expressed surprise that our army did not advance and seize Louisville months ago. It is said that we must not question the policy of the administration, but he (the speaker) had no respect for persons when the cause of his country was at stake, and he here arraigned a portion of the cabinet as negligent in their duties. He was opposed to the discussion of the question of such vital public importance in secret session. The people are yet masters, thank God, and it was just that their wishes should be taken into consideration. Rome existed seven hundred years, yet never debated a war question in secret session, nor had England done so. The practice of discussing all State questions with closed doors , was, he believed, peculiar to Mexico, however. He was not afraid to do his duty here, so long as his conscience sustained him.
“He never would endorse the Secretary of War and Navy. He intended to make one day developments that would astonish at least somebody; he had facts, startling facts, which he intended to bring to bear on the subject. He had censured them and he would not take back a single word of what he had said. They alone are responsible for the deplorable non-action of our forces. The speaker then pointed out the advantages which, to his mind might have occurred to us, had a vigorous onward movement been adopted immediately after the battle of Manassas. And of such a movement he was yet in favor; he desired that the Yankees shall be made to pay the whole expenses of this war, that the commercial magnates of New York, Boston and Philadelphia be made to unlock their strong boxes, and to indemnify the South for losses which they had imposed upon her. He desired, above all things to drive the enemy beyond our borders. All this he would have, and nothing less.”
Mr. Boyce, of South Carolina, was quite as severe as Foote. He said;–
“It was his opinion that the policy to have been pursued at the outset was a very clear one. He had thought that we should proceed with all possible energy. We should have aimed at an offensive warfare. All the slave States should be included. In his opinion the war between the North and South might last a long time, and that hostilities might exist forever. We cannot afford to give up one inch of our southern soil. The North now exceeds us to the number of eighteen or twenty millions of white people. – We should have pursued, from the very first, more of an aggressive policy, which would have given a position to the Southern states; it would have encouraged our friends and discouraged our enemies, and such a policy had been indicated by our distinguished president, from Mississippi, when on his way to be inaugurated as president of the provisional government – that we should wage war on the enemy’s own ground. Mr. L. P. Walker, the former Secretary of War, had said at an early day that the flag of the south should float shortly over the capitol at Washington. He, the Speaker, had thought the expression unwise at that time. – We should have talked peace and acted war; used powerful terms, but prepared for active war. Audacity! – audacity! – audacity! – is the key to success. Make no show of fear; prosecute the war with great vigor. Talk of risks, have not we risked a revolution? and shall we see it fall. Shall it be said, in after days of us, the enlightened South, and be told by the genius of history, these men of the South dared to inaugurate a great revolution, but had not the courage to carry it out? Shall this be said? Never! See what France did. She not only removed a man from the army, but cut his head off. She carried a guillotine in one hand for domestic traitors and a sword in the other for her enemies. He did not want to see people beheaded, but he would adopt some measure just as decisive. This was no revolution to be conducted with kid gloves; it was a desperate contest. We should act with the spirit of the Prince of Orange. When army after army was cut to pieces, he gave orders that the dykes should be cut and the sea let in, to lash its waves over the land, rather than the Spanish flag should wave over it in triumph. This is the spirit in which we should act. If the Secretary of War is incompetent, he must be removed. The safety of our wives and daughters demand, our country demands, that these vandals of the North be beaten back; our country must live, no matter how many reputations perish. In the Speaker’s opinion, the gentleman from Virginia could not have passed a severer sentence on the officers of the Executive when he said there had been ‘no plan of war.’”
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 8, 1862, p. 1
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