first of the series of acts empowering him to suspend the
privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. Under this act he was
permitted to set up martial law in any district threatened with
invasion. The cause of this drastic measure was the confusion and
the general demoralization that existed wherever the close
approach of the enemy created a situation too complex for the
ordinary civil authorities. Davis made use of the power thus
given to him and proclaimed martial law in Richmond, in Norfolk,
in parts of South Carolina, and elsewhere. It was on Richmond
that the hand of the Administration fell heaviest. The capital
was the center of a great camp; its sudden and vast increase in
population bad been the signal for all the criminal class near
and far to hurry thither in the hope of a new field of
spoliation; to deal with this immense human congestion, the local
police were powerless; every variety of abominable contrivance to
entrap and debauch men for a price was in brazen operation. The
first care of the Government under the new law was the cleansing
of the capital. General John H. Winder, appointed military
governor, did the job with thoroughness. He closed the barrooms,
disarmed the populace, and for the time at least swept the city
clean of criminals. The Administration also made certain
political arrests, and even imprisoned some extreme opponents of
the Government for "offenses not enumerated and not cognizable
under the regular process of law." Such arrests gave the enemies
of the Administration another handle against it. As we shall see
later, the use that Davis made of martial law was distorted by a
thousand fault-finders and was made the basis of the charge that
the President was aiming at absolute power.

At the moment, however, Davis was master of the situation. The