The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1901-08-01
ly to enforce discipline by putting every
body under surveillance.
ABUSE OF PASSPORT SYSTEM.

iy to enforce discipline oy putting every
body under surveillance.
ABUSE OF PASSPORT SYSTEM.
But this was not all. In Richmond,
where the passport system had its birth,
and where its annoying requirements We're
most stcrnly enforced against people hay-
ing manifest right to travel, there Were
still greater abuses. Will the reader be
lieve that while soldiers, provided with
the very best possible evidence of their
right to enter and leave Richmond, were
badgered and delayed as have explained,
in the passport office, the bits of brown
paper over which so great an ado was
made might be and were, bought and
sold by dealers? That such was the case
have the very best evidence, namely,
that of my own senses. If the system
was worth anything ut all, if it was de
signed to accomplish any worthy end, its
function was to prevent the escape of
spies, blockade-Iunners, and deserters;
and yet these We're precisely the people
who were least annoyed by it. BY Il
system of logic peculiar to themselves,
the Provost Marshal's people seem to have
arrived at the conclusion that men de-
sorting the army, acting as spies, or run
ming the blockade" to the North, were
to be found only in Confederate uniforms,
and against men wearing these the eff
forts of the department We're especially
directed. Non-military men had little diff
ficulty i'll getting passports at will, and
failing this there were brokers' shops in
which they could buy them at a compar-
atively small cost.
| knew one case in which an army Off
Ger i'll full uniform, hurrying through
Richmond before the expiration of his
leave, i'll order that he might he with his
command i'll n battle then impending, was
ordered about from one official to another
in Il vain search for the necessary pass
port, until he became discouraged and I'M
patient. He finally went in despair to a
jew, and bought an illicit permit to go to
his post of duty.
But even as against soldiers, except
those who were manifestly entitled to
visit Richmond, the system was by no
means effective. More than one deserter,
to my own knowledge, passed through
Richmond in full uniform, though by what
means he avoided arrest, when there We're
guards and passport inspectors at nearly
every corner, / cannot guess.
At one time, when Gen. Stuart, with
his cavalry, was encampcd within n few
miles of the city, he discovered that his
men were visiting Richmond by dozens,
without leave, which. for some reason or
other known only to the Provost-Marshafs
office, they were able to do without mo-
lcstatiOn. Gen. Stuart. finding that this
was the case, resolved to take the mat
ter into his own hands, and accordingly
with a troop of cavalry he made n de-
scent upon the theater one night. and ar
rested those of his men whom he found
there. The PrOvostMarshal, who it
would seem was more deeply concerned
for the preservation of his own dignity
than for the maintenance of discipline,
sent n message to the great cavalier,
threatening him with arrest if he should
again presume to enter Richmond for the
purpose of making arrests. Nothing could
have pleased Stuart better. He replied
that he should visit Richmond again the
next night, with 80 horsemen; that he
should patrol the streets in search of alb
sentccs from his command: and that Gen.
Windcr might arrest him if he could. The
juggling of spurs was loud in the streets
that night, but the Provost Marshal made
no attempt to arrest the defiant horse
man.
a MEDDLESoME AND DICTAToRIAL PRESI-
DENT.
Throughout the management of affairs
in Richmond a cumbrous inefficiency was
everywhere manifest. From the Presi
dent, who insulted his Premier for pre-
Stunning to offer some advice about the
conduct of the war, and quarreled with his
Generals because they failed to see the
wisdom of military movement suggest
ed by himself, down to the pettiest clerk
in Il bureau, there was everywhere a NOR
bid sensitiveness on the subject of per-
sOnal dignity, and an exaggerated regard
for routine, which seriously impaired the
efficiency of the Government and greatly
annoyed the army. Under all the cir
cumstances the reader will not be sur
prised to learn that the Government at
Richmond was by no means idOliZed by
the men in the field.
The Indebtedness of its management
began to bear fruit early in the war, and
the fruit was bitter i'll the mouths of the
soldiers. Mr.. Davis's evident hostility to
Gems. Bcauregard and Johnston, which
showed itself in his persistent refusal to
let them concentrate their men, in his
obstinate thwarting of all their plans, and
in his interference with the details Of army
organization on which they were agreed
a hostility born. as Gen. Thomas Jordan
gives us to understand, of their failure
to see the wisdom Of mis- plan of campaign
after Bull Run, which was to take the
army across the lower Potomac at q
point where it could never hope to recross,
for the purpose of capturing n small force
lying there under Gen. Sickles-was not
easily concealed; and the army was too
intelligent not to know that Il meddlesome
and dictatorial President, and bad terms
WITH MS tIpHeTdlS i'll the Helu, anu Dellt
upon thwarting their plans, was very
heavy load to carry.
The Generals held their peace, as a mat
ter of course, but the principal facts were
well known to officers and men, and when
the time came, i'll the Fall of 1861, for
the election of a President under the per-
manent constitution (Mr. Davis having
held office professionally only, up to that
timc), there was Il very decided disposition
on the part of the troops to vote against
him. They were told, however, that as
there was no candidate opposed to him,
he must be elected at any rate, and that
the moral effect of showing Il divided front
and in this way only was the undivided
vote of the army secured for him. The
troops voted for Mr.. Davis thus under
stress of circumstances, in the hope that
all would yet be WE'LL but his subsequent
course was not calculated to rcinstate him
in their confidence, and the wish that Gen.
Lee might see fit to usurp all the powers
of Government was a commonly expressed
one, both in the army and in private life
during the last two years of the war.
BLIND FAvoRITIsM.
The favoritism which governed nearly
every one of the Presidents appointments
was the leading, though not the only,
ground of complaint. And truly the army
had reason to murmur, when one of the
Presidents pets was promoted all the way
from Lieutenant-Colonel to Lieutenant
General, having been but once in battle
and then only constructively so-on his
way up, while Colonies by the hundred,
al Insn ~ L., H. 1,..