THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 19 had quickly assumed in the hands of Mr. Jefferson Davis the dictatorial form. Sustained by an Oligarchy of three hundred thousand slaveholders, of whom he was the choice, and whose violent passions he personified, Mr. Davis had set himself actively at work to cieate an army fit to contend against the formidable preparations of the federal government. A former pupil of West Point, a former General of volunteers in Mexico, a former Secretary of War in the Union, he had all the requisite conditions to perform his task well. Ue applied to it his rare capacity. He was seconded by the flower of the former federal staff, by the more military spirit of the Southerners, and also by the assistance of all the adventurers, filibusters and others, whom the South had always nurtured in view of those continual invasions to which slavery condemns her. I have no idea of drawing here a sketch of the separatist army; but I wish to point out two important differences which mark its organization as compared with that of the North. The officers were chosen and nominated directly by the President, and were sent with the regiments to fill their positions. There was no comradeship between them and the soldiers. The soldiers did not know them, and therefore regarded them as their superiors. They were not men who were subsequently, in private life, to find themselves again their equals. In short these officers belonged to that class of slave owners who living by the labor of their inferiors and accustomed to command them, attached to the soil by the hereditary transmission of the paternal estate and of the black serfs who people it, possess to a certain extent, the qu alities of aristocrats. In theii hands the discipline of the army could not suffer. Numerous shootings caused discipline to be respected, and on the day of battle they led their soldiers valiantly, and were valiantly followed. In the second place, Mr. Davis quickly perceived that the volunteer system would be powerless to furnish him wi ch enough men to sustain th b fratricidal strife into which
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