CHAPTER XII

HELP TO THE UNION CAUSE BY POWERS IN THE UNSEEN

If you are not balked by adherence, either to the rapidly waning overpositiveness of materialism, or to the ferocious orthodoxy which denies that there has been any providential interference in human affairs since that told of in the bible; and if you are exempt from the fear of being regarded as superstitious which keeps a great number of even the most cultivated people forever in a fever of incredulity as to every example of what they call the supernatural, you have long since become convinced that evolution is intelligently guided by some power or powers in the unseen. I seem to myself to discern plainly in many important crises of history the palpable influence of what are to me the directors of evolution. Washington, to found our great federation, and Lincoln to perpetuate it--these come at once as examples. Now follow me while I try to show you what the directors did in preparation for and in conduct of the brothers' war, of purpose that the north should triumph and save the union. Of course I am precluded from all attempt to be exhaustive. I shall only glance at a few of the facts that appear to me cardinal and most important.

In the first place, they deferred the war until under the effect of foreign immigration the population of the north greatly outnumbered that of the south and had become almost unanimous against slavery; and until the south was almost entirely dependent upon her railroads and her river and ocean commerce. Had secession occurred because of the excitement over the application of Missouri for admission into the union with a slave constitution, there might have been a war, but it would have been short, the end being that every foot of the public domain admitting of profitable slave culture would have fallen to the south. Suppose a serious effort had been made in 1833 to collect the revenue in South Carolina, how long would the south have endured invasion of the little State and slaughter of its citizens? Even President Jackson would have soon forgotten his enmity to Calhoun and recognized that blood is thicker than water. The time was not then ripe, as the directors saw; and so they effected an adjustment of the controversy. It did not suit the directors to have the war commence in 1850, for there was at the time no general use of ironclads, and the railroad system was far from completion. Consider for a moment the advantage to the north of having gunboats and the disadvantage to the south of not having them. Fort Donelson really fell because of gunboats. Grant got re-enforcements in time to save him from disastrous defeat at Shiloh because of the command of the river by gunboats. The gunboats caused the fall of Vicksburg. And it was the holding of the James from its mouth to Fort Darling by gunboats which gave Grant such secure grip at Petersburg that Richmond had to fall at last, and with it the confederacy.

Now a word as to the southern railroads. Next to the navigable rivers they were the lines of easiest penetration to invaders. Remember how the British in 1898 advanced in Africa only as they completed their railroad behind them. Of course had the railroad been already made their advance would have been along it. How could Sherman have ever crossed the devastated tract from Dalton to Atlanta had he been without the railroad behind him? During his retreat Johnston kept the invading army between himself and the railroad without which it could not have been subsisted, and staid so close that Sherman had him constantly in view; conduct which is still lauded by some people in the south as masterly beyond compare.

To conceive more vividly the river and railroad situation which I am striving to explain, suppose that during the Revolutionary war the States had been as dependent as the south afterwards became upon rivers and railroads, and the British had and the Americans did not have iron-clad gunboats; as matters now look, our forefathers would have been beaten back to the foot of the throne. I believe that the railroads alone would have rendered their subjugation certain.

So much for the matchless judgment shown by the directors in deciding as to the time of the war. I shall now tell what I have long thought is most unmistakably their work in conducting that war.

As soon as secession was an accomplished fact, they deprived the better southern statesmanship of all guidance of the brothers' war now inevitable and about to begin. In such a war a proper executive is of far more importance than good legislators and even good generals. Toombs was the man who stood forth head and shoulders above all others as the logical president of the southern confederacy. But the wily directors hypnotized the electors into believing that Davis, because of his military education, service in Mexico, and four years' secretaryship of war, was the right man. It is generally believed in the south that the considerations just mentioned turned the scale in favor of Davis. But sometimes I think that the true explanation is different. Stephens has told how Toombs was got out of the way. When this narrative[111] was published, both Toombs and Davis, with many of the partisans of each were alive, and regard for them may have kept him silent as to a reported mischance to Toombs, which provoking opposition--as was whispered--from some of those who had been among his most earnest supporters, decided him to retire. A biographer writes: "There was a story, credited in some quarters, that Mr. Toombs's convivial conduct at a dinner party in Montgomery estranged from him some of the more conservative delegates, who did not realize that a man like Toombs had versatile and reserved powers, and that Toombs at the banquet board was another sort of a man from Toombs in a deliberative body."[112]

Something like that stated in the quotation just made did happen, as Stephens was wont to relate at Liberty Hall--the name which he gave his hospitable home at Crawfordville, Georgia. I was present more than once at such times.

Such could have been the work of the directors.

Georgia, being the pivotal State of the new federation, was by many conceded the presidency. Besides Toombs she had two other men, far abler statesmen than Davis and then as conspicuous in the public eye--A. H. Stephens and Howell Cobb. The election of either one of these would really have been the same almost as the election of Toombs, for the three were in complete accord, and Toombs was the natural and actual leader. So great was their fealty to him that neither one could have been induced to stand for the place after he had missed it. The directors saw to it that neither one of the three should be president of the Confederate States.

Suppose that Toombs--or that either Stephens or Cobb--had been made president, what a different conduct there would have been of the war. Besides being the foremost statesman of the south, Toombs was its very ablest man of affairs, and as far superior to Davis in practical and business talent as a trained and experienced man is to an untrained and inexperienced woman. Not intending to disparage the other great qualifications of Toombs, I must emphasize it that of all his contemporaries he alone evinced a clear understanding of the principles according to which the confederate currency could have been better managed than were the greenbacks by the other side. A letter of his during the war to Mr. James Gardner, of Augusta, Georgia, published at the time in the paper of which the latter was then editor, shows insight and grasp of the subject equal to Ricardo's. Toombs as president of the confederacy would have had congress enact proper currency measures. When he was in place to advise and lead, his influence exceeded by far that of any other man that I ever knew.

But this, important as it is, is far from being the most important. He and Stephens were fully convinced at the very first of the overruling importance to the confederacy of these two things: (1) to make full use of cotton as a resource; (2) to prevent a blockade of the southern ports. I make these extracts following from a speech of Stephens's at Crawfordville, Georgia, November 1, 1862:

"What I said at Sparta, Georgia, upon the subject of cotton, many of you have often heard me say in private conversation, and most of you in the public speech last year to which I have alluded. Cotton, I have maintained, and do maintain, is one of the greatest elements of power, if not the greatest at our command, if it were but properly and efficiently used, as it might have been, and still might be. Samson's strength was in his locks. Our strength is in our locks of cotton. I believed from the beginning that the enemy would inflict upon us more serious injury by the blockade than by all other means combined. It was ... a matter of the utmost ... importance to have it raised. How was it to be done?... I thought it ... could be done through the agency of cotton.... I was in favor, as you know, of the government's taking all the cotton that would be subscribed for eight per cent bonds at a rate or price as high as ten cents a pound. Two millions of the last year's crop might have been counted upon as certain on this plan. This, at ten cents, with bags of the average commercial weight, would have cost the government one hundred millions of bonds. With this amount of cotton in hand and pledged, any number, short of fifty, of the best ironclad steamers could have been contracted for and built in Europe--steamers at the cost of two millions each, could have been procured, equal in every way to the 'Monitor.' Thirty millions would have got fifteen of these, which might have been enough for our purpose. Five might have been ready by the first of January last to open some one of the ports blockaded on our coast. Three of these could have been left to keep the port open, and two could have conveyed the cotton across the water if necessary. Thus, the debt could have been promptly paid with cotton at a much higher price than it cost, and a channel of trade kept open till other ironclads, and as many as were necessary, might have been built and paid for in the same way. At a cost of less than one month's present expenditure on our army, our coast might have been cleared. Besides this, at least two more millions of bales of the old crop on hand might have been counted upon--this with the other making a debt in round numbers to the planters of $200,000,000. But this cotton, held in Europe until its price became fifty cents a pound, would constitute a fund of at least $1,000,000,000 which would not only have kept our finances in sound condition, but the clear profit of $800,000,000 would have met the entire expenses of the war for years to come."[113]

The reader who carefully reflects over the passage just quoted may well think that the extravagant profit pictured savors more of Mulberry Sellers than of a cool-headed statesman; but if the war price of cotton be recalled he readily agrees that under the plan proposed the south could easily have got a fleet of the best ironclads. Such a fleet would have kept the southern ports open. The advantage of which would have been very great. It would have held the Mississippi from the first, or have recovered it after the capture of New Orleans. It would have cleared the gunboats out of all the navigable rivers in the south. And we must not forget how it might have ravaged the northern coast, perhaps capturing New York, and forcing an early peace.

I must make you see the greatness of cotton as a resource. There has been from soon after the invention of the gin a steadily increasing world demand for it, and the south has practically monopolized its production. I can think of no other product of the soil except wine and liquor that is as imperishable. But wine and liquor spill, leak, and evaporate, while cotton does neither. If you but safe it against fire it will not deteriorate by age. In 1884 I was told of a sale just made of some cotton for which the owner had refused the famine price in 1865. It brought the market price of the day, and experts said it sampled as well as new cotton. It was at least 19 years old. Wine and liquor cannot be compressed, but the same weight of raw cotton becomes less and less bulky every year. By reason of the foregoing, cotton is always the equivalent of cash in hand. Now add the effect of the steadily growing war scarcity, and remember how easy it was during the first two years of the war to carry out cotton in spite of the blockade. The European purchasing agent of the Confederate States government says "it possessed a latent purchasing power such as probably no other ... in history ever had."[114] He means cotton. There were several million bales of it in the confederacy, all of which could be had for the taking--much of it for merely the asking. And there were a legion of carriers eager to run the blockade. I cannot understand how Professor Brown could have ever written, "The government had not the means either to buy the cotton or to transport it."[115] Surely the government could have seized the cotton as easily as it did all the men of military age, and collected the tithes in kind.

If Toombs had been president of the southern confederacy, the very best possible use of its cotton as a resource would have been made. At the time, if but managed with the financial skill which he always showed, that cotton would have been a great war chest in a secure place, always full and appreciating. It is very probable that almost at the beginning of the war the confederacy would have struck terror into its adversaries with some warships far superior to any with which the United States could have then supplied itself. In this case there never would have been any Monitor. And the south would have had all the benefits of wise husbandry and conduct.

During his short premiership of the confederacy Toombs showed marked ability. Note his extraordinary insight when instructing the commissioners, that "So long as the United States neither declares war nor establishes peace, the Confederate States have the advantage of both conditions;" and consider how accurately he foresaw that the north would be rallied as one man to the stars and stripes by attack upon Fort Sumter, and how earnestly he opposed the proposed attack.[116]

Stephens was thoroughly against the policy of many pitched battles. He counselled from the very first that we should draw the invaders within our territory, where, having them far from their base and taking advantage of our shorter interior lines, we could when the right moment came, by attacking with superior numbers, virtually destroy their entire army. The more I think over it, the more clearly I see that this was the true way for us to have fought. Stephens's influence would have been so great with Toombs or Cobb as president that he would have shaped the conduct of the war.

There would have been no keeping of inefficient men in high command; and no efficient one would have been kept out. Mr. Lincoln would have had an executive rival worthy of his steel. As the former searched diligently and with rare judgment for his commander-in-chief and at last found him in Grant, so Toombs would in all probability have found the proper southern general in the west. It would have been Forrest. The marvellous military genius of this illiterate man, who at the beginning of the war could not have put a recruit through the manual of arms, showed him far superior to his superiors who sacrificed the southern army at Fort Donelson. The lieutenant-colonel would not surrender, and his escape with his entire command proved that he could have executed the offer he had made to the commander to pilot the whole army out. From this moment Forrest moves on and upward with the stride of a demigod. The night after Johnston has fallen at Shiloh he alone in the southern army discovers that Grant is receiving by the river thousands as re-enforcement, and he gives Beauregard wise counsel which the latter is not wise enough to heed. Read his letter of August 9, 1863, to Cooper, adjutant-general of the Confederate States,[117] in which he proposes to do what will virtually wrest the Mississippi from the federals, and the sane comment thereon of his biographer.[118] Think of him just after the battle of Chickamauga; how, had Bragg listened to him, he would have reaped the fruits of a great victory which he was too stupid to know he had won. Meditate the capture of Fort Pillow, in spite of its strong defences and the succoring gunboat, by dispositions of his troops and a plan of attack which, though made and executed on the spur of the moment, are the most superb and brilliant tactics of all the engagements of the brothers' war. And his incomparable conduct by which the army of Sturgis was almost annihilated at Brice's Cross-Roads. The conception of Forrest is as yet, even in the south, very untrue. He is thought of only as always meeting charge with countercharge, in the very front crying "Mix!" sabring an antagonist, and having his horse killed under him. When he is rightly studied he is found to be a happy compound of the characterizing elements of such fighters as mad Anthony Wayne and Paul Jones, of such swoopers and sure retirers as Marion and Stonewall Jackson, of such as Hannibal, whose action both before, during, and after the engagement, is the very best possible. Of all the northern generals Grant showed by far the best grasp of the military problem. I think Forrest's grasp was equal. Toombs would have divined the genius of Forrest. The confederate army under him would probably have equalled--possibly surpassed--the achievements and glory of that under Lee.

It was one of Toombs's epigrams that the southern confederacy died of too much West Point. Of course one must not unjustly disparage the military school. Yet there were plainly graduates on both sides who had in them too much of it. This was true of Halleck and McClellan; also of Davis and Bragg. Mr. Davis, by reason of his exaggerated West Point spirit, was not nearly so well qualified as Mr. Lincoln for finding the few real generals in the south. Toombs, with the help of Stephens and all the real statesmen of the section, would have kept the best generals in command.

Let us briefly summarize. Had Toombs been president these things would have followed:

1. The cotton of the south, fully realized as a resource, would have given her an adequate gold supply, a stable currency, and an unimpaired public credit. It would have also kept our ports open and the hostile gunboats out of our rivers.

2. There would have been no unwise waste of our precious soldiers. As it was, their very gallantry in our contest with a foe so greatly outnumbering, was made a guaranty of defeat.

3. These magnificent soldiers would have been led always by the best commanders.

These were resources enough, and more than enough, to have won for the south. I often paralleled her neglect to use them with the supineness of the French Commune in 1871. Lassigaray tells us how there were piles of money and money's worth in the bank deposits and reserves, which could have all been had by mere taking.[119] But the Commune made no use of this great treasure. It surprises one as he reads of it. Then it occurs to him that the new French government was in the hands of men who generally had had no experience in government whatever. It was widely different with the southern confederacy. No other revolutionary government ever started with so little jolt and difficulty. The grooves along which it was to run were all ready. "Confederate States" was instantaneously substituted for "United States" in the constitution, organic federal statutes, and the thoughts of the people, and the administration of the new government seemed to everybody in the south but a continuation of that of the United States. And this new federation was inaugurated by the best-trained statesmen in America. That these men should have overlooked the great resources we have pointed out is a far more strange and wonderful blunder than was that of the raw and inexperienced managers of the Commune. You can explain it only by recognizing it as the accomplishment of fate. Fate put in charge of the fortunes of the confederacy an executive as just as ever was Aristides, and as much respected and confided in by his people. That executive most conscientiously drove out of the public counsels the only men who could have saved the southern cause.

To the foregoing I shall add but a few other instances briefly told.

Grant was at the opening of his career put in a place which taught him the importance of gunboats, and held there until his skill in using them had given him resistless prestige. Beauregard's failure to make use of the daylight remaining after the fall of Albert S. Johnston seems to have been prompted by the powers who had the future conqueror in charge. Had he been sent against Lee in 1862 or 1863 he would hardly have done better than McClellan, Burnside, or Hooker. Compare how the powers in charge of the Roman empire prevented a too early encounter of Scipio with Hannibal.

Ordinary conduct ought to have captured McClellan instead of driving him to the James. The tone of McClellan's boasting over the flank movement by which he successfully marched across the entire front of Lee's army within cannon shot is really that of a man who feels that he has miraculously escaped an unshunnable peril.

The directors sent Stuart astray and hypnotized Lee into believing that Gettysburg was to be another Chancellorsville.

They blinded Davis to the merits of Forrest. Especially to be thought of here is the rejected proposal of the latter to recover the Mississippi shortly after the fall of Vicksburg.

I need not go further. The student of the brothers' war can add to the foregoing many other favors shown the union cause by the powers in the unseen.

Of course we of the south stood by our side, fighting to the last against increasing odds with the resoluteness of hereditary freemen. In spite of all their potency the powers were often hard pressed by Lee, Jackson, Forrest, and the incomparable valor of the confederate soldiers. These should have some such eternizing epitaph as this:

"For four years they kept the fates banded against them uneasy."

The parallelism of the fall of the confederacy to that of Troy has incalculably deepened the interest I take in Vergil's great description. Especially of late years do I realize more vividly how his goddess mother removed the cloud darkening his vision, and gave Æneas to see Neptune, Juno, and Pallas busy in the destruction of the burning city; and a lurid illumination falls upon the statement,

"Apparent diræ facies inimicaque Troiæ Numina magna deum."[120]