thropy. When proclaimed, it was justified as a thrust at an armed enemy, and declared "to be warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity." It did not include Maryland, Kentucky or Missouri, and expressly excluded portions of Louisiana and a third part of the State of Virginia.

The institution, though in the beginning the North as little as the South, had designed it, was shot down in the angry strife between the sections, like the sturdy oak, between the lines, by bullets sped at other marks, in the "bloody angle" at Spotsylvania.

It is just as absurd to say that the war was fought over the justice or morality of slavery, as it would be to declare that the conflict with the mother country, was a dispute about tea thrown overboard in Boston harbor.

HOW THE SOUTHERNER VIEWED SLAVERY.

The Southerner was as much concerned with the moral aspects of slavery as any of his countrymen. As late as 1831, Virginia, by the narrow margin of one vote, failed to disestablish the institution—a result due more to assault without, than to support of the institution within the ancient commonwealth. Even under the unfavorable conditions existing in 1861, the number of manumissions in proportion to slaves, was largely on the increase in the Southern States. The ultimate fate of the institution, if it had been left to the South in the earlier half of the century-uninfluenced by assault from withoutcan only be told by that Providence which left the Southerner no alternative but to maintain the institution against any sudden change, or else confront in his own home, the gravest problem known to government and civilization.

Violent or quick disruption of the relation between the races, would involve both in long misery. If the freedman left the country who was to take his place? If he remained what was to be the outcome? How would the civilization of the white man pulsate with the intermingled aspirations and voice of the black man? Lincoln thought of this, and the remedy for it "in room in South America for colonization?" The Southerner knew it would be impossible to induce or force the migration of millions of people, not living together in tribal relations in a separate territory of their own, but interwoven with the whole social and economic fabric and scattered over a vast country, under the same government with the white population. This was the momentous problem, involving his hearthstone, his honor, and his posterity, in comparison with which slavery

was not to be considered, which alarmed the Southerner for the future of his children and his happiness and peace in the union. The sections had grown more and more to mistrust each other. Finally a President had been elected by a sectional majority in the electoral college, who had declared that the country "could not exist half slave and half free." Then it was, not undervaluing union, but despairing of hope of longer living in peace and honor under the union of his fathers, the Southerner, in obedience to the instincts of selfpreservation and the teachings of a lofty courage, declared that he would "depart in peace," and that denied him, would stake all upon his sword. That was denied him, and then came the gun at Sumter,

and then the Confederate soldier.

THE ODDS.

The hostile sections had a common border of a thousand miles, stretching from the Atlantic ocean to the western limits of Missouri, everywhere easily crossed by armies. The South had over three thousand miles of sea-coast, without a ship to guard it; while the North had a navy which could attack this coast at pleasure, and often co-operate on rivers with invading armies in grand inland operations.

The Confederate soldier was fighting for his home, which gave him a decided moral advantage. He operated generally in his own country, which gave him a great military advantage, all the fruits of which he could not reap; since he fought men of the same race, speaking the same language, who often had "men to the manner born" in their ranks. He also had the advantage of moving on interior lines, which was largely neutralized by wretched transportation facilities, in his sparsely settled territory, and his opponent's command of the sea, and some of our great rivers. In all things else, the Confederate was at a fearful disadvantage.

His government was new, without credit, and confronting an old, established power. In men, ships and all that enters into the equipment, comfort and supply of armies, the odds against him were appalling. The official records show that the North enlisted throughout the four years of the war, two million, seven hundred and seventyeight thousand men-while the South according to the best estimate, could not muster quite eight hundred thousand men. Of the three million, five hundred thousand combatants engaged in the struggle, nearly two million more fought on the one side or the other.

Dependent wholly on agriculture, the South went with naked valor

to battle, relying on the devotion and genius of its people to work out, with the scant mechanical appliances in its borders, the great problem of war.

Our fields were white with cotton, and we had our flocks; but there were not enough factories to make cloth, and the soldier was always ragged, and often naked. Our granaries and fields in the interior were full of corn and wheat and provisions, and we had our cattle and hogs; but there were no shops or rolling mills to replace and repair our worn engines and rails, and the dilapidated railroads could not meet the wants of communities-much less supply the need of war, whereby the movement of armies was blocked, and soldiers at the front starved, while there was plenty in the rear. Tanning establishments were so few, that the authorities often had to choose between shoes for the soldier and harness for the artillery and waggons. Even when the former was preferred to the latter, it was often impossible to keep the men shod. Medicines and surgical instruments were early declared contraband of war, and there was no place in the South where they could be made. It became difficult to obtain the most common surgical instruments and the Confederate surgeon frequently fought fever and wounds, without opiates, quinine, or chloroform. Paper became so scarce, and skilled laborers so few, that the Government could not print even its paper promises fast enough to pay its soldiers. Methods hitherto unknown, were availed of to procure nitre. Salt largely disappeared, and, toward the end, sugar, coffee and tea were almost as rare as diamonds. Indeed, the blockade soon reduced the armies and people of the South almost to a state of nature, as regards the necessities and comforts of a civilized condition.

The North, on the contrary, was filled with mines, factories and looms, and had a vast country untouched by the track of the invader, from which to draw supplies and men. A wonderful merchant marine transported from across the seas, everything that the wealth and ingenuity of man could devise for the equipment, comfort and supply of its armies, and the luxury of its people at home.

THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER IN BATTLE.

The exaltation which came to the Confederate with the first passionate rushing of arms, and the delirium which followed the victory at Manassas, gave way to a higher consecration to duty during the fall and winter months, as there came to his ears notes of the gigan

tic preparations of the invader, sounding everywhere along our borders.

An enormous flotilla and powerful army were gathering in the West, to repossess the upper Mississippi and the Tennessee. Another army and fleet were organizing for descent on the coast of North Carolina. Still another powerful army and fleet were being collected to assault New Orleans. Nearly 200,000 men, superbly equipped and disciplined, lay around Washington, ready to spring upon Richmond when the roads hardened, while auxiliary armies threatened it from over the mountains and up the Valley. Other forces and fleets were in readiness to move on Savannah and Charleston, while all the energy of the powerful North reinforced its armies in Missouri and Arkansas to aid in the descent on Mississippi. The Confederacy was to be cut in twain, and its capital and chief cities wrestled from it, by a simultaneous concentration of numbers and blows from every quarter. The giant Goliath not more despised the shepherd boy David, with his sling and stone from the brook, than did the North the meagre forces which the South could gather to oppose it.

Early in the spring, the clouds burst Donelson was stormed, Nashville and Columbus were evacuated, Sydney Johnston was driven from Kentucky, and Tennessee Island No. 10 was surrendered, Roanoke and Newberne were captured, New Orleans was lost. An army had started for the heart of Mississippi, Vicksburg was attacked, Charleston and Savannah were threatened. The great army of the Potomac forced its way in sight of the spires of Richmond. When the year ended, three invading armies had been routed in the Valley. The splendid army which essayed to capture Richmond, beaten in a week of battles before that city, fled down the Peninsula, only to meet defeat again, when united with another army on the Rappahannock; and these two armies reinforced, fought a drawn battle in Maryland, and returning to Virginia again met a crowning and disastrous repulse at Fredericksburg. The victor at Donelson had nearly lost his army at Shiloh. The invaders of Mississippi had been compelled to withdraw, and the assailants of Vicksburg had been beaten off. The victorious Federals in North Carolina had been withdrawn to be engulfed in the vortex of defeat in Virginia. A triumphant Confederate army marched through Tennessee and Kentucky, gathering and retiring with the richest spoils of war, drove back its assailants in Kentucky, and as the old year faded into the new, delivered a stunning and bloody blow at Murfreesboro.

Minor operations on this extended theatre had generally redounded to the glory of the Confederate arms, and New Orleans only escaped their reconquering grasp that year, because the navy which held it could not be attacked by land. The world stood amazed and awed

at these mighty results.

Even the posterity of the Confederate soldier does not realize his work to this day. It is said "the voice of the stranger is like to that of posterity," and from the stranger in strange lands came wonder and admiration. The most powerful organ of public opinion in Europe declared:

"The people of the Confederate States have made themselves famous. If the renown of brilliant courage, stern devotion to a cause, and military achievements almost without parallel, can compensate for the toil and privations of the hour, then the countrymen of Lee and Jackson may be consoled amid their sufferings. From all parts of Europe, from enemies as well as friends, comes the tribute of admiration. When the history of this war is written, the admiration will doubtless become deeper and stronger; for the veil which covered the South will be drawn away, and disclose a picture of patriotism, of self-sacrifice, of wise and firm administration, which we can now see only indistinctly; and the details of the extraordinary national effort which has led to the repulse, and almost to the destruction of an invading force of more than half a million of men, will then be known to the world."

The time allotted me will not allow more than a glance at the subsequent campaigns. During the awful struggle for the possession of the opposing capitals during the next two years, the Confederates' cup of glory ran full. In one of these years he fought a tremendous battle in the heart of the North for Washington, and did not allow his powerful enemy to come within five days' march of Richmond, and in the other year lit his bivouac fires in sight of Washington, while he defended his capital and another city twenty miles away, in ten months' of bloody and successful battle, until the fateful Sunday when the thin line, worn by attrition and starvation, was broken through at last.

He answered defeat at Vicksburg and Gettysburg with victory at Chickamauga, and pushing back the victor of Gettysburg to Centreville, and defying him at Mine Run; and strove with ill-fated and shining valor to regain at Franklin what had been lost at Atlanta. In the long struggle from Dalton to Atlanta, he illustrated the stubborn valor of his race. Ragged, starved, outnumbered, barefooted,