The Memphis Daily Appeal's March 21, 1864 edition seethes with Confederate anger over what it calls the greatest "moral outrage" of the war: the Union Secretary of War has authorized Northern Methodist Bishop Ames and Baptist missionaries to seize control of Southern churches and replace Confederate ministers with abolitionist preachers. The paper warns that this is merely the opening salvo—eventually, the South will be taxed to pay for "abolition harangues and infidel sermons." Alongside this ecclesiastical fury, the paper publishes General Joseph E. Johnston's long-delayed official report on the Vicksburg campaign, defending his controversial surrender. The edition also speculates nervously about Grant's spring strategy: Northern papers claim he'll concentrate 250,000 men on Richmond, but the Appeal doubts this, predicting instead a major push through Georgia and Alabama that could threaten Atlanta.

By March 1864, the Confederacy was fracturing—not just militarily but spiritually and politically. The Union's aggressive move to reshape Southern churches reflects the North's shift toward "hard war," treating occupied territory as conquered enemy land rather than wayward states. Meanwhile, the article on Georgia's constitutional resolutions hints at a growing peace movement within the South itself, with politicians like Governor Brown questioning whether indefinite war serves the cause of freedom. Johnston's report touches the deepest Confederate wound: the loss of Vicksburg six months earlier, which had split the Confederacy in two. This March moment captures the South at a crossroads—militarily weakened, religiously under siege, and politically divided over whether to continue fighting.

• A soldier writes in complaining that hotel keepers on the Western and Atlantic railroad are charging soldiers $5 per meal while feeding state railroad employees for $1 per meal—revealing both wartime inflation and class resentment within the Confederate war effort.
• The Appeal mentions that General W.H. Fitzhugh Lee, son of Robert E. Lee, was among 584 Confederate prisoners just exchanged, and that General Bragg was coordinating with Lee, Longstreet, Hood, and six other generals in Richmond, prompting worry that 'if the Yankees were aware of this remarkable concentration of rebel military genius at Richmond at this time, they would very likely fit up another raid.'
• A young, modest brigadier general is pranked by an old navy officer who asks with false concern what 'all you Beauregards coterie of the army' were up to in the Secretary of War's office—suggesting tension and gallows humor even among Confederate high command.
• The paper reports that the new Confederate 'Currency Act' will limit the Secretary of the Treasury to issuing only six percent bonds instead of flooding the market with 40 million in notes monthly, allowing creditors to receive a 'certificate of indebtedness, payable two years after peace'—a stunning admission that even Confederate officials doubted victory.
• The Richmond correspondent describes how returned Confederate prisoners were paraded through the capital with President Davis greeting them by hand, yet notes the 'forbidding skies' and 'keen wind' of March 16th created 'a general hubbub' as ice threatened spring blossoms—nature itself seeming to mock Confederate hopes.

• Bishop Ames, named as the Union's ecclesiastical enforcer, was actually a war correspondent's favorite target—the Appeal's outrage reflects real Northern-Southern theological warfare. Ames would survive the war and become a major voice in Reconstruction Methodist politics, proving the paper's fears were not entirely unfounded.
• General Johnston's report, called for by Congress in December 1863 but just now published, had been deliberately suppressed by Richmond authorities—this delay itself signals Confederate anxiety about accountability. Johnston would later clash bitterly with Jefferson Davis over strategy, and his vindication through this report would become a flashpoint in Lost Cause mythology.
• The paper mentions Grant's rumored 250,000-man Army of the Potomac concentration. In reality, Grant had just been given supreme command that month (March 1864) and was still organizing his massive coordinated offensives—the Overland Campaign would indeed target Richmond, beginning six weeks later with catastrophic casualties at the Wilderness.
• The Appeal's dismissal of Northern newspaper 'parade of intention' about campaigns reflects genuine Confederate frustration: Sherman's Atlanta campaign and the great 1864 Union offensives were indeed being openly discussed in Northern papers, yet the South seemed helpless to stop them—a sign of the Union's growing industrial and informational dominance.
• The mention of hotelkeepers exploiting soldiers for $5 meals offers a visceral detail: that sum could buy a Confederate soldier roughly two days' rations. By March 1864, Southern inflation was catastrophic—within a year, a single meal would cost ten times that.