poses by regular and honorable hostilities. It was, in short, the diabolical attempt of an infatuated ruler, unworthy of authority, in a fit of disappointed malice, to inflict the w horrors known to human nature upon eight millions of who had wisely rejected his authority.

The emancipation" proclamation not only the South and nerved her to greater exertions it fortunately gave occasion to the world for observation and closer study of the peculi Confederacy. The sympathies of Europe party in America were depressed by th its exhibitions of ferocity, and by the the war had made of the nature an slavery in the South.

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Since the commencement of the war the North had had almost exclusive access to the ear of the world, and had poured into it whatever of slander or of misrepresentation human ingenuity could suggest. This circumstance, which was at first thought to be a great disadvantage to us, had not only proved a harmless annoyance, but had resulted in invaluable benefit. It had secured sympathy for us; it had excited the inquiries of the intelligent, who, after all, give the law to public opinion; and it had naturally tempted the North to such lying and bravado as to disgust the world.

At the beginning of the war the North had assured the world that the people of the South were a sensual and barbarous people, demoralized by their institution of slavery, and depraved by self-will and licentiousness below the capacity for administrative government. The best reply to these slanders, was our conduct in this war. Even the little that was known

in Europe of the patriotic devotion, the dignity and cultivated humanity of the people of the South, as shown in the war, had been sufficient to win unbounded encomiums for them. We had not only withstood for nearly two years a power which had put thirteen hundred thousand men in the field; but we had

personal property and their valuable domestic slave servants. The furniture was left untouched in the houses. These houses were owned by the Barnwells, the Rhetts, the Cuthberts, the Phillipses, and other distinguished families of North Carolina. The elegant furniture, the libraries, the works of art, had nearly all disappeared. They had been sent North from time to time by Yankee officers, and many of these officers of high rank. The elegant dwelling-houses had been converted into barracks, negro quarters, hospitals, and storehouses. The best houses had been put in complete order, and were occupied by the officers of the department and the abolitionist missionaries from Boston and elsewhere. The efforts of these missionaries to teach the negroes their letters and habits of cleanliness met with no success. Beaufort was full of negroes, well clothed, at government expense, fat, saucy, and lazy. The town looked dirty and disorderly, and had the appearance of a second-class Mexican village. Some of the missionaries had been elevated to the position of planters, and occupied the estates of the old Carolinians. The labor on these estates was performed by contraband negroes. These abolition lords assumed all the hauteur and dignity of the Southern planter. The only difference to the black laborer was that he had the name of freeman; his labor was as unrelenting as ever. Massachusetts missionaries and Massachusetts speculators enjoyed the larger share of government patronage here. The department of Hunter ap‐ peared to be experimenting in attempts to elevate a negro to equality with the white man. Military operations were secondary considerations.

shown that we were a people able in public affairs, resolute, brave, and prudent.

Another characteristic Yankee misrepresentation, made to the world about this time on the subject of the war, was, that it was to be concluded at an early day by the force of destitution and suffering in the South. The delusion of conquering the "rebels" by famine easily caught the vulgar ear. The North made it a point to exaggerate and garble every thing it could find in Southern newspapers, of the ragged condition of our armies, the high prices of the necessaries of life, and the hardships of the war. The Yankees were pleasantly entertained with stories of our suffering. Their pictorials were adorned with caricatures of "secesh" in skeleton soldiers and gaunt cavalrymen with spurs strapped to their naked heels. Their perfumed fops and dainty ladies had the fashion of tittering at the rags of our prisoners. They had an overwhelming sense of the ludicrous in the idea of Southern women cutting up the carpets in their houses to serve for blankets and garments for the soldiers.

The fact was that our sufferings were great; but their mute eloquence, which the enemy misinterpreted as a prospect of craven submission, was truly the sign of self-devotion. Whatever was suffered in physical destitution was not to be regretted. It practised our people in self-denial; it purified their spirit; it brought out troops of virtues; it ennobled our women with offices of charity; it gave us new bonds of sympathy and love, and it trained us in those qualities which make a nation great and truly independent.

In the whirl of passing events, many strange things were daily happening around us that at a remoter period of history will read like romance. The directions of our industry were changed. Planters raised corn and potatoes, fattened hogs and cultivated garden vegetables, while cotton was by universal consent neglected. Our newspapers were of all sizes and colors, sometimes containing four pages, sometimes two, and not a few were printed on, common brown wrapping paper. Politics were dead. A political enemy was a curiosity only read of in the records of the past. Our amusements had been revolutionized. Outside of Richmond, a theatre was remembered only as an institution of by-gone times. Most of our