Daily Advocate
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
May 17, 1861
Every man, woman and child within the borders of the Confederate States can do something to damage our enemies and strengthen our friends. This is making war.
We are twelve millions of people, “one-fifth fighting men.” But bearing arms, actual enlistment, is only a part of war making. Soldiers must be fed, armed, clad and transported. If all are soldiers, who will keep in motion the great engines of production by which alone armies are subsisted? Whence will come the sinews of war if our plantations are neglected and our too few manufacturing establishments are suffered to stop?
There will be no lack of men so long as there is plenty of means provided for their subsistence. A Confederate army of two hundred regiments would leave four men capable of bearing arms at home for each one taken away. Such an army must consume a large quantity of provisions and wear out a great quantity of clothing. But subsistence, clothing, equipments, weapons, animals for transportation and all appliances and means of war must be supplied. It will cost more than fifty millions of dollars, although that sum will be only in part lost to us, because the principal part of it will be expended for our own products and within our own borders, thanks to the vindictive policy of our enemies. Our actual loss will be mainly the value of the aggregate productive labor of the constituents of our army and the difference between the cost of their subsistence as troops and the cost of their subsistence while at home in pursuit of their ordinary civil avocations.
Those who stay at home must supply the wants of those who bear arms. Theirs is consequently a very important, a vitally essential part of the business of war making. Besides being prepared to resist local invasion, our “Home Guards” have patriotic duty to perform, quite as useful if not so promising of glory or so dangerous as joining the Army of Independence.
They have an opportunity, in obedience to the patriotic desire which is universal among us, to help our army and make war upon our enemies, in many ways.
They have an opportunity, in obedience to the patriotic desire which is universal among us, to help our army and make war upon our enemies, in many ways.
They can use redoubled care to see that there shall be, not only no diminution, but an actual increase of our agricultural products.
They can commence or enlarge the manufacture of many articles heretofore imported from the North, thus saving an immense outlay and at the same time laying deep the foundation wall for the establishment of a solid fabric of Southern independence.
They can employ strict economy in the consumption of necessaries and entirely cut off that of imported luxuries.
They can commence the manufacture of arms and ammunition for which we have within our Confederacy an inexhaustible supply of materials.
The young man who can by economy have four hundred dollars of his year’s earnings and contribute or lend it to the State or Confederate Government for war purposes, makes war quite as efficiently as if he shouldered his gun in the army for a year.
The young lady who can save the cost of one silk dress will thereby be able to give the army half a dozen soldiers’ uniforms. She can damage our enemies by refusing to buy or wear their products. She can help our friends by converting her jewelry into muskets and gunpowder.
This is everybody’s war, and all can help it on to its glorious issue. There is not a child ten years old in all our magnificent Confederacy but can do something towards it.
By diminished consumption of luxuries imported from the North and from Europe, and by the general practice of economy the people of the Confederate States have already saved since the beginning of December a sum equal in the aggregate to the probable prospective loss for
military purposes for the current year. This economy can be kept up and increased with a decided advantage to the morality and solid worth of our people. Extravagance is a vice and the parent of vices.
military purposes for the current year. This economy can be kept up and increased with a decided advantage to the morality and solid worth of our people. Extravagance is a vice and the parent of vices.
This war calls upon all to make sacrifices—most from those who have most, in wealth or talent, to give—but something, and not a little either, from all.