Nor  does  this  statement  of  the  military  population  of
the  South  exhaust  its  resources  in  men.  It  is  well  known
that  there  is  much  to  be  done  in  warfare  beside  what  is
done  on  the  firing  line.  A  vast  amount  of  work  and
labor  must  be  performed,  requiring  even  greater  physical
strength  than  to  carry  and  fire  the  musket.  The
3,000,000  or  4,000,000  of  negroes  in  the  South  are  by  no
means  to  be  left  out  in  considering  the  strength  of  the
Confederacy.  Jefferson  Davis  says  in  his  history,  volume
I,  p.  303:  "Much  of  our  success  was  due  to  the  much-
abused  institution  of  African  servitude,  for  it  enabled
the  white  men  to  go  into  the  army  and  leave  the  cultiva-
tion of  their  fields  and  care  of  their  flocks,  as  well  as  their
wives  and  children,  to  those  who,  in  the  language  of  the
Constitution,  were  'held  to  service  or  labor.'  "

From  the  beginning  of  the  struggle  to  the  end,  negroes
were  employed  in  large  numbers  to  do  the  work  which  in
the  Federal  armies  was  done  by  enlisted  soldiers.  Mr.
Davis  might,  therefore,  enlarge  his  remark  that  the
negroes  did  the  home  work  while  the  white  men  were
fighting,  by  saying  also  that  negroes  did  the  fatigue
duty  of  the  armies  while  the  white  soldiers  fought  on  the
front  line.
Fort  Donelson  was  constructed  by  negro  labor  drawn


344  Union  Cause  in  Kentucky

from  Tennessee  and  Kentucky  by  forcible  impressment.
