Part 54

In the Mexican war the commanders-in-chief on both lines were born in Virginia, one of whom became President for his exploits, and the other an unsuccessful candidate for the Presidency. This war was unpopular in the North, and hence the South furnished troops to carry it on out of all proportion to her population. The Old South, out of a total population of 9,521,437, gave 48,649 volunteers, and gave also the rifle regiment, recruited within her borders, making in all 50,000 soldiers. The North, out of a population of 13,676,439, gave but 24,698 volunteers. All New England gave 1,057 volunteers. (I use the American Almanac for these figures and the census report of 1850.)

It will be admitted, without question, that Butler's South Carolina and Davis' Mississippi gained more reputation than the other volunteer regiments. I think it will be equally admitted that Quitman's Southern division of volunteers had the confidence of General Scott, next to his two divisions of regulars. Scott's chief engineers on that wonderful march from Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico were Swift, of North Carolina, and R. E. Lee, of Virginia. His chief of ordnance was Huger, of South Carolina.

The most brilliant exploit of that war was the attack of Tattnall, of Georgia, in a little gunboat, upon the castle of San Juan D'Ulloa and the land batteries at Vera Cruz. If there was anything more daring in that war, so full of great deeds, my eyes were not so fortunate as to behold it.

The bold, bluff tar of that day had a gentle, loving heart, full of kindly sympathy with his own race and lineage, as shown by rowing through shot and shell to offer such assistance as international law permitted to the British Admiral suffering under the murderous fire of the Peiho forts in China. "Blood is thicker than water" was the grand sentiment of the grand sailor, as he hurried to the rescue of the sufferers of his own blood and race. These things don't pay; nevertheless, it would be a cold, miserable, selfish world without them.

Maryland had no reason to suppose that her sons had degenerated from the days of Otho Williams, John Eager Howard, and William Smallwood when the Mexican war brought out such men as Ringgold, the first organizer of horse-artillery; Ridgeley, his dashing successor; and Charley May, the hero of the cavalry charge upon the Mexican battery.

Coming down to the Civil War, the President on the Union side was a Southern-born man, his successor was born in North Carolina, and the commanding general, who first organized his troops, was a Virginian. His great War Secretary, the Carnot of that day, was born in Edgecombe county, North Carolina, though he would never admit it.

The Union generals who struck us the heaviest blows, next to those of Grant and Sherman, were from our own soil. From West Point there came forth forty-five graduates of Southern birth, who became Federal generals. I have their names, from George H. Thomas and George Sykes to David Hunter and John Pope, with the States of their nativity, viz.: George H. Thomas, Va.; George Sykes, Del.; E. O. C. Ord, Md.; R. C. Buchanan, Md.; E. R. S. Canby, Ky.; Jesse L. Reno, Va.; John Newton, Va.; R. W. Johnson, Ky.; J. J. Reynolds, Ky.; J. M. Brannan, D. C.; John Buford, Ky.; Thomas J. Wood, Ky.; John W. Davidson, Va.; John C. Tidball, Va.; Alvan C. Gillenn, Tenn.; William R. Terrill, Va.; A. T. A. Torbert, Del.; Samuel L. Carroll, D. C.; N. B. Buford, Ky.; Alfred Pleasonton, D. C.; I. M. Mitchell, Ky.; George W. Getty, D. C.; William Hayes, Va.; A. B. Dyer, Va.; John J. Abercrombie, Tenn.; Robert Anderson, Ky.; Robert Williams, Va.; Henry E. Maynadier, Va.; Kenner Garrard, Ky.; H. C. Bankhead, Md.; H. C. Gibson, Md.; John C. McFerran, Ky.; B. S. Alexander, Ky.; E. B. Alexander, Ky.; Washington Seawell, Va.; P. St. G. Cooke, Va.; G. R. Paul, Mo.; W. H. Emory, Md.; R. H. K. Whitely, Md.; W. H. French, Md.; H. D. Wallen, Mo.; J. L. Donaldson, Md.; Fred. T. Dent, Mo.; David Hunter, Va.; John Pope, Ky. Most of these were good officers, and some of them were superb. I could name six or eight of them who did the very best they could for their native land by going on the Federal side. In addition to these forty-five West Point Southerners in the Federal army, some of the high officers of that army were born in the South, but not educated at West Point; Joseph R. Hawley (now Senator from Connecticut); John C. Frémont, the three Crittendens, and Frank Blair.

If we come to the United States Navy we find abundant proof of Southern prowess. Farragut, of Tennessee, was considered the hardest fighter and most successful commander, as shown by his elevation to the highest rank, that of Admiral--a rank specially created in order to honor him. Winslow, of North Carolina, was made a Rear-Admiral for sinking the Alabama. Goldsborough, of Maryland, was made a Rear-Admiral for the capture of Hatteras. Many other names of gallant Southerners will readily occur to you who are more familiar with the United States Navy than I am.

I will refer to but five points more in connection with the Civil War:

_Disparity of numbers._ The population of the eleven States that seceded was, in 1860, 8,710,098, of whom 3,520,840 were slaves. That of the other States and Territories was 22,733,223, giving an excess over the whole seceded population of 14,023,125, and over the white population, of 17,543,965; the excess of population being nearly double the whole population of the States in revolt, and more than three times the white population of those States. These are tremendous odds, my countrymen, and the Old South need not be ashamed of her sons who contended for four years against them.

But as the job of "suppressing the unnatural rebellion" still dragged its slow length along, 54,137 sympathetic Union men in the Rebel States joined the Federal army, and 186,017 "brothers in black" were in some way induced to enter the service. Secretary Stanton assured the world that the "colored troops fought nobly," and that without them "the life of the nation could not have been saved." There is another interesting aspect of the numerical statistics. The seceded States are supposed to have had, from first to last, seven hundred thousand men in the field, and you must admit that this is a very large number out of a population of five millions. The other belligerent had in the field from the first to last, 2,859,132, or more than four times the Confederate forces. Where did these immense hosts come from? The Southern States on the border, slave-holding States, furnished in all 301,062, and thus the entire South gave to the Union army 541,216 fighting men. From what quarter of the globe did the remaining two million three hundred thousand come?

Rosengarten, in his book, the _German Soldier_, puts down the number of Germans in the Federal army at 187,858. I don't know certainly, but I suppose that the Irish soldiers were as numerous as the German in the Federal army, for the Irish seemed to lead every attack and cover every retreat--Sumner's Bridge, Marye's Heights, Sharpsburg, Chickamauga--always fighting with the indomitable pluck of their race. I once complimented for their gallantry some Irish troops in our service, and I modestly claimed that I had Irish blood in my veins. But as I had broken up some barrels of whiskey a short time before, they would not own me, and I heard that they said: "Af the owld hapocrit had one dhrop of Irish blood in his veins, he would never have smashed whasky as he did." Then there were in the Federal army Russians, Austrians, Hungarians, Slavs, Magyars, and Teutons alike--Scandinavians, Englishmen, Scotchmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Canadians, and the inhabitants of the far off isles of the sea. I think then that it is true that the seceded States and the border slave-holding States gave more native-born soldiers to the Union army than did the North give of her native-born sons to that army! Surely, then, General Sherman was mistaken in saying that the Civil War was a war of races, the South against the North. This is hardly fair to Farragut and Thomas and their gallant associates of the army and navy, and the half million of brave men who fought with them.

_Disparity of resources._ Oh! my brethren of the loyal North, do not taunt us with our poverty, when your own writer, Thomas Prentice Kettell, tells the world that the South gave $2,770,000,000 of her wealth to swell Northern profits. If that money were given back to us, we could get up a "big boom" sure enough, and become a veritable New South. As it was, we were poor in military resources in 1861. We were without mines, without factories, foundries, machine-shops, rolling-mills--without mechanical appliances of every kind. We rushed into war, not only without ships of war and trade, but without a single mill to make powder in the whole Confederacy, and without even a single machine to make percussion caps. We had been dependent upon the North for everything, even for the paper upon which the Ordinances of Secession were written, and for the ink and pens used in the writing. There never was a people on earth so destitute of all means of making war material and of supplying comforts and conveniences for those in camps and for those at home. From first to last, we had to depend largely upon the spoils taken from the enemy with Stonewall Jackson as Quartermaster and Commissary-General. From first to last, ours was the worst fed, worst clothed and worst equipped army in the world, deficient in medical stores, in ordnance stores, in wagons, tents, shoes--even in artillery and rifles. Theirs was the best organized, the best equipped and the most pampered army in the world, with abundant commissariat, medical supplies, transportation, ordnance stores, etc.

A young rebel lieutenant who had been accustomed at home to a dram before each meal, and at frequent intervals between these three periods, was asked when the war would be over. "I am no military man," groaned he. "I know nothing of military affairs; but one thing I do know, and that is that the Confederacy has started the biggest temperance movement the world ever saw."

You all know how readily the Irish of the two armies affiliated when they came together as captors and prisoners. At the second battle of Manassas I was amused at a conversation between some Federal Irishmen and their countrymen in my division, who were in charge of them. One of the Irish prisoners complained to one of my Irishmen that he had not had anything to eat in twenty-four hours. My man replied: "And are you after complaining of such a trifle as that? Why, Pat, me boy, in the Southern Confederacy we have one male (meal) a week and three fights a day."

_Confederate Navy._ I wished to say a few words in regard to the Confederate navy, and I regret that I am so ignorant on this subject. I had the honor to know a few, and a few only, of our naval heroes, but these were all grand men. Among them were Semmes, the Chevalier Bayard of the ocean; J. I. Waddell (of an illustrious North Carolina lineage), almost the peer of Semmes as a successful cruiser: M. F. Maury, the greatest benefactor to the merchant and naval marine the world has ever known; the brave W. F. Lynch, the Christian scholar and explorer; the gallant Pegram, Hunter, Alexander. I was proud before the Civil War of the fame of Tattnall, Ingraham, and Hollins, and was glad that they cast in their lot with their own people. I always regretted that I never saw your own Franklin Buchanan, the hardest fighter on our side, as Farragut, of Tennessee, was on their side. These two Southerners rose to the highest rank in their respective navies. But in that of which I know so little I do not wish, in my ignorance, to make distinctions. I have introduced the subject merely to express a long-felt opinion, viz.: that it required a higher and nobler patriotism for our sailors to leave the navy than for our soldiers to leave the army, for very obvious reasons: 1st, the flag to the sailor not only told him in foreign lands of his country, but it spoke of his far-off home, with all its endearments. It was hard for him to give up the old flag with all these sacred associations. 2d. Our army officers gave up generally subordinate positions to command regiments, brigades, divisions, and armies. The naval officers gave up fine positions on great ships of war to serve in little tubs of vessels, of which they must have been ashamed. 3d. The true sailor is a sailor and not a land-lubber. He never gets off his sea-legs on shore. Our patriotic naval officers knew certainly that the failure of our cause would drive them from the sea and compel them to seek business on land, in which they would feel as awkward as _Commodore Trunnion_ on the fox-hunt. All honor to the noble men who put country above self and self-interest. The Old South had thousands of unselfish men, but I put these in the foremost of them all.

_Indebtedness of the nation to the Old South._ The statesmen of the Old South were all broad-gauge men. They had fully the instincts of the Japhetic race for land-grabbing and they were eager to fulfill the prophecy in regard to the enlargement of Japhet's borders. We find, accordingly, that every inch of territory that has been added to the area belonging to the original thirteen States has been added under Southern Presidents, and all has been acquired save Alaska, during the "Era of the domination of the slave-power." When Jefferson came to the executive chair the whole Union comprised about 830,789 square miles. By wise policy and diplomacy, he won, without one drop of blood, for the paltry sum of fifteen million dollars, that vast territory out of which have been carved nine great States and six large Territories, embracing in all 1,282,005, or 415,216 square miles more than the United States possessed before his administration. That is, he doubled the area of the United States, and had this respectable slice left over. Mr. Blaine, in his recent speech at St. Louis, said in reference to this grand achievement: "In the annals of American greatness, Jefferson deserves to be ranked as the second Washington."

Monroe found a troublesome neighbor in Florida, and by the payment of five million dollars, with a few hangings by Andrew Jackson thrown in, he made loyal citizens of the United States out of the Spaniards and mongrel breeds in that territory, and enlarged the area of the Union by 58,680 square miles. Next came the annexation of Texas, under Tyler, and the Mexican war, under Polk, which added to the Union two huge States and four huge Territories, and 855,410 square miles.

These were notoriously Southern measures, advocated by Southern statemen, and carried out by Southern Presidents, in spite of the opposition of the South-hating philanthropists. This policy enlarged our territory 2,196,095 square miles, nearly treble its area, extended the power of the government from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and gained the richest mineral, farming, and grazing grounds on the globe. With prophetic vision, Southern statesmen had seen that our country must extend to the Pacific, and from its ports carry on a trade with the populous nations of the East. Think of it, but for the Old South, a Spanish province would bound the United States on the South, and the Mississippi river, under the control of France, would bound it on the west. Compare, ye English-speaking Americans, the United States which Jefferson found with the United States which Polk left, and then you will form some conceptions of the indebtedness of the nation to the Old South.

Next came the purchase of Alaska, and the gain of 577,000 square miles of territory. By a singular providence, this acquisition was advocated by the South-hating philanthropists, and consummated by a Southern President. Southern men favored it, not that they expected to gain anything thereby, but the land-grabbing instinct was strong in them, and they knew that the wives of their neighbors in the loyal North would need furs and sealskin sacques. Thus we see, that, under Southern Presidents, the area of the United States has increased from 830,789 square miles to 3,603,884 square miles; that is, it is now four times as big as it was. There is not a man of intelligence in the Union who does not know that this vast increase has been due to Mr. Jefferson and the Old South.

Oh! men of the loyal North, in view of what the Old South has done in quadrupling the national domain, with all of the inestimable advantages, thereof, let us cry quits and stop talking about Jeff Davis and the sour-apple tree, and talk rather of Jefferson, Monroe, Tyler, and Johnson. Probably, too, a few words might be whispered in commendation of the Old South for its Japhetic proclivities, for its gift of Washington, and a long line of statesmen and warriors, and for its donation out of its poverty, up to this date, of more than three billions of dollars to swell the wealth of the North.

_Results of the War._ I would place _first_ of these the general diffusion of love for the Constitution of the United States. Time was when the then South-hating philanthropists denounced it as "a covenant with death and league with hell," gotten up by the slave-power in the interests of slavery. But in 1861 the philanthropists experienced a change of heart, and ever since have talked of the Constitution as that "sacred instrument," that "bulwark of freedom," that "palladium of liberty!" I am glad of their conversion, suspiciously sudden though it was, and I hope that they will never fall from grace. As a stalwart Presbyterian, I believe in the perseverance of the saints.

_Second._ Change of views in regard to the intellectual, moral, and social status of the negro. The philanthropists used to tell of the cruelty and brutality of slave-holders to their slaves, and said that they had reduced the negroes to the lowest state of ignorance, barbarism, and bestiality. But in the reconstruction period the philanthropists underwent a radical change of views and discovered that these negroes, whom they had described as more savage and degraded than the barbarians on the Congo, were not merely enlightened, and civilized enough to be freemen and voters, but also to be United States Senators and Congressmen, Foreign Ministers, Consuls and Marshals, Governors of States, Judges, Members of State Cabinets, etc. I am glad that the philanthropists found out that the Old South had trained its slaves so carefully for these high and responsible duties. No other masters in the world's history ever gave such training to their slaves. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States are the grandest possible eulogies to the Old South.

But there was one great error in this training. The simple-hearted, confiding Southern masters, always careless of their own money, did not teach their slaves to be cautious about their investments, and tens of thousands of these credulous creatures put their money in a bank in Washington, established by the philanthropists, and _lost it all_.

_Third._ The development of great men. I love to hear the praises of the wonderful deeds of McClellan, Grant, Meade, and Hancock, for if they were such great warriors for crushing with their massive columns the thin lines of ragged Rebels, what must be said of Lee, the two Johnstons, Beauregard, and Jackson, who held millions at bay for four years with their fragments of shadowy armies?

Pile up huge pedestals and surmount them with bronze horses and riders in bronze. All the Union monuments are eloquent of the prowess of the ragged Rebels and their leaders. Suppose the tables had been turned, and that either of the five Southerners named above had been superior to his antagonists in all the appliances and inventions of war, and had been given, moreover, an excess of two million of men over them, how many statues, think ye, my countrymen, would there be of bronze warriors and prancing chargers?

The Congressmen from the Old South have voted liberally for all legitimate pension bills to Union Veterans, for they know what a tough job it was for the 2,859,132 Union soldiers, with their magnificent outfit, to overcome the seven hundred thousand Rebels, poorly fed, poorly clothed and poorly equipped. These pension bills are splendid tributes to the pluck, patience, perseverance, and fortitude of the chivalry of the Old South.

I love to hear the philanthropists praise Mr. Lincoln and call him the second Washington, for I remember that he was born in Kentucky, and was from first to last, as the _Atlantic Monthly_ truly said, "a Southern man in all his characteristics." I love to hear them say that George H. Thomas was the stoutest fighter in the Union army, for I remember that he was born in Virginia. When the old lady of the Old South hears the eulogies upon these men she pushes back her spectacles that she may have a better view of the eulogists, and says: "These were _my_ children." Then the old lady adds: "I have another son born in Kentucky, and he is not a stepson, nor did I raise him to die on a sour-apple tree."

INDEX.

Abercrombie, John, 580.

Adams, James H., 313.

Adams, John, 56, 74, 75, 84, 86, 573.

Adams, John Quincy, 52, 84, 237, 573.

Aiken, William, 331.

Alabama, 229, 306, 503, 513, 570.

Alamance, Battle of, 127, 576.

Alamance County, 67, 272, 296.

Alaska, 584.

Alexander, Addison, 571.

Alexander, Archibald, 571.

Alexander, B. S., 580.

Alexander, E. B., 580.

Alexander, E. P., 445.

Alexander, James W., 571, 583.

Alexander, Nathaniel, 259.

Alleghany Mountains, 229, 254.

Allston, R. F. W., 416.

Allston, Washington, 570.

Alston, Willis, 76, 77.

Amazon Valley, 347.

Amalgré Mountains, 437.

Amelia Court House, 516.

Amelia Springs, 516.

Amis, William, 80.

Anderson, Archer, 552.

Anderson, George B., 420, 451, 462, 463, 468, 496, 497, 498, 511, 530, 539, 543, 550.

Anderson, Robert, 580.

Anderson, R. H., 525, 550.

Anson County, 302.

Antietam, Battle of, see Sharpsburg.

Apache Indians, 437.

Appalachian Mountains, 229.

Appomattox, Account of Lee's Surrender at, by Bryan Grimes, 513-523; Appomattox, see also 500, 506, _et seq._

Archdale, John, 131.

Archer, J. J., 423, 513, 514, 517, 518.

Archer, Stephenson, 287.

Arminians, 254.

Armstrong, John, 266.

Armstrong, Martin, 266.

Asbury, Francis, 254.

Ashe, John, 574.

Ashe, Samuel, 74, 266.

Ashe, Samuel A., 446.

Asheville, 229, 230.

Ashley, Lord, 130.

Askew, A. J., 307.

Atkins, Eleanor, 240.

Atkins, Smith D., 240.

Audubon, J. J., 570.

Augusta, 561.

Austria, 417, 581.

Averell, W. W., 478.

Avery, Alphonso C., 451; his sketch of D. H. Hill, 524-563.

Avery, C. M., 439, 528.

Avery, I. E., 451, 471.

Badger, Edmund, 182.

Badger, George Edmund, sketch of, by William A. Graham, 181-207; Badger's tribute to William Gaston, 208; Badger's proposed Ordinance of Secession, 210-212; Badger's speech on Slavery and the Union, 213-229; Badger, G. E., see also 113, 126, 234, 235, 236, 237, 249, 270, 272, 290, 302, 330, 331, 337, 353, 369, 381, 422.

Badger, Lucretia, 182.

Badger, Thomas, 182.

Bailey, John L., 309.

Bainbridge, William, 578.

Baird, Bedent, 232.

Baird, Zebulon, 272.

Baker, Blake, 267, 273.

Baldwin, ----, 33, 34, 35.

Baltimore, 53, 415, 453, 502, 541, 564, 577.

Bancroft, George, 572.

Bankhead, H. C., 580.

Banks, N. P., 331, 476.

Baptists, 254.

Barnes, David A., 310, 311.

Barnett, William, 59, 60.

Barringer, D. M., 314, 415.

Batchelor, Joseph B., 313.

Battle, Cullen A., 483, 503, 506, 513, 514, 518.

Battle, James S., 389.

Battle, J. S., 482.

Battle, William H., his sketch of William Gaston, 150-160.

Baxter, Richard, 389, _et seq._

Beale vs. Askew, 307.

Beaufort, 119, 182, 185.

Beauregard, G. T., 561, 587.

Beaver Dam Creek, 230, 231.