Excerpt from State Normal Magazine, Vol. 4: May, 1900

May, 1864. The changes in this, compared with the preceding congress, were remarkable and significant. The new Senators were Richard W. Walker, from Alabama; Augustus H. Garland, Arkansas; John W. C. Watson, Mississippi, and W. A. Graham, from North Carolina. The changes in the House were so numer ous as, almost, to amount to a new congress. Georgia led in this change, returning nine new, out of its ten members. North Carolina came next with seven out of ten. Texas four out of six, etc. It was remarkable that but few changes were made in the delegations from Kentucky and Missouri. The seven new Representatives from North Carolina were James T. Leach, Josiah Turner, Jr., John A. Gilmer, James M. Leach, George W. Logan, James G. Ramsay, and Thomas C. Fuller. Of these, Gilmer and J. M. Leach had been members of the United States Congress; the oth ers had some legislative experience, with the exception, I believe, of Messrs. Logan and Fuller.

R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, was elected President pro tem. Of the Senate, and Thomas S. Bocock, also of Virginia, was again elected Speaker of the House, having occupied that position in the preceding congress. The outlook of the Con federacy, at this time, was gloomy and discouraging. Furious and unrelenting war had raged for more than three years. Lincoln had called out eight hundred thou sand men, as a cost of nearly three thousand million dollars, and was preparing to call for as many more men, at even a greater outlay of money. The Mississippi river was in his possession from mouth to source - thus cutting the Confederacy in twain. The whole Atlantic and Gulf coast, with the exception of the ports of Charles ton, Savannah and Mobile, which were closely blockaded, were in the possession of the enemy. Albert Sydney Johnston and Stonewall Jackson had fallen - the one in the hour of defeat, the other in the hour of victory, while hundreds of other lead ers, the pride and hope of the country, with thousands of the rank and file of the army, had fallen on bloody fields of strife. The gallant Lee had retired from Mary land and Pennsylvania after the terrible conflicts of Antietam and Gettysburg. Grant with more than a hundred thousand veterans was entering the Wilderness, to be held at bay by Lee with less than half that number; and Sherman with an army nearly equal to Grant's was bearing down upon Johnston, who stood at Dalton with fifty five thousand to dispute his march to the sea.

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