General Lee had long before expressed his belief that without the help of the slaves the war must end disastrously. But all men knew that a slave who had been a soldier could be a slave no longer. The owners were not prepared to free their slaves, and they refused therefore to arm them. In November--with utter ruin impending--a Bill was introduced into the Confederate Congress for arming two hundred thousand negroes. It was debated till the following March. Then a feeble compromise was passed, merely giving the President power to accept such slaves as were offered to him. So inflexibly resolute were the leaders of the South in their hostility to emancipation. It was wholly unimportant. At that time Government could have armed only another five thousand men; and could not feed the men it had. The finances of the Confederacy were an utter wreck. Government itself sold specie at the rate of one gold dollar for sixty dollars in paper money. [Sidenote: Feb. 17, 1864 A.D.] Mr. Davis, by a measure of partial repudiation, relieved himself for a short space from some of his embarrassments; but no device could gain public confidence for the currency of a falling power. A loaf of bread cost three dollars. It took a month’s pay to buy the soldier a pair of stockings. The misery of the country was deep, abject, unutterable. President Davis came to be regarded with abhorrence, as the cause of all this wretchedness. Curses, growing ever deeper and louder, were breathed against the unsuccessful chief.