dined to Stephens's view should consider well the little scene depicted by the diarist, Jones, as occurring in the War Office at Montgomery, when the Confederacy was hardly born. Toombs was holding forth to members of the cabinet — in a public office, mind you, before the gaping clerks. " He was most emphatic in the advocacy of his policy, and bold almost to rashness in his denun- ciation of the mainly defensive idea. He was opposed to all delays as fraught with danger. . . . He was for mak- ing the war as terrible as possible from the beginning. It was to be no child's play. ... He denounced with bitterness the neglect of the authorities in Virginia. The enemy should not have been permitted to cross the Po- tomac. . . . Virginia alone could have raised and thrown across the Potomac 25,000 men, and driven the Yankees beyond the Susquehanna. But she, to avoid responsibility, had been telegraphing Davis to come to the rescue ; and if he (Toombs) had been in Davis's place, he would have taken the responsibility." ^1 This is the tongue which, Stephens thinks, could have saved the Confederacy !
Well, he did not become president, at any rate, and it is to be noted that he characteristically gave his hearty support to the election of Davis. What then ? Davis, who realized how mighty a power the man had been, was ready to ofEer him a place in the cabinet, the most hon- orable, if not the most important, and Toombs became secretary of state. He held the position about five months. His biographer implies that having put everything in the
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