The Papers of Jefferson Davis
October 24, 1864
From: Benjamin Wilkes (DNA, M-437, R-145, F-81-23)
“A humble plantation man” from Bedford County, Virginia believes there are too many professional men in the quartermasters and commissary departments who had no experience with farming before the war; tax in kind should be one-third of what is produced, leaving producers to do what they think best with the balance; if government needs more, should pay market prices; with farmers in the service and refugee blacks unemployed, “starvation will be the result…I think if better cannot be done the govermnt. Had best buy the negers at gold valuation, “about $100 each; “ it mite be best to set them all free—it would be better for us to do so than to have it done for us”; Impressment produces much dissatisfaction; currency reform needed; says he wrote early in the war {not found} “on the wheat that would keep longest…I thought then and think now gratest trouble a head is supplies for I could not then nor can I now see any prospect of the end of this warr”.
Taken From the Papers of Jefferson Davis Volume II
By Jefferson Davis, Haskle M. Monroe, James McIntosh
Published by LSU Press, 1971
ISBN 0807129097, 9780807 129098
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