question is not really what numbers there will be to resist the invasion, but what the sum of the obstacles the invader must overcome to attain his object. So delusive is any estimate based on numbers, when applied to a war of this character, that it may be doubted whether the superior population of the North be not really a source of weakness instead of strength.

In ordinary warfare the combat is a duel between the two armies, which the inhabitants of the country behold as spectators; if both armies be inefficient, they fight on equal terms. But here the invading force has two enemies, the opposing army and the people. There is the foe in front, others are on the flanks, there are more in the rear. The efficiency of an army so placed is exposed to the severest test; for every march is in the nature of a flank march, and every important movement is a change of front in presence of the enemy. And when the country to be invaded is ill supplied with roads or forage, without stores that may be seized, and of enormous extent, the difficulties of the transport and commissariat services become so intense, that an invading army, when fairly advanced into the country and fully exposed to these influences, must find itself employed in the pursuit of its own destruction, unless thoroughly efficient.

Hence the question is by no means confined to the number of recruits the population of the North could supply, but is rather the extent of the really

To

efficient force it can bring into the field. deserve that character an army requires officers, cavalry, guns, and munitions of war in due proportion. The scale on which these existed in the United States was that of 16,000 men. Upon such a nucleus to build up within a year an efficient army of 100,000 men would be a remarkable achievement. The great armies of Europe have been the growth, not of months, but of centuries. There is no American art of war different from our own; the same rules apply, and if it be considered what difficulty we experienced in the Crimean war, in placing 50,000 men suddenly in the field, notwithstanding our greater population, resources, and experience, it will be seen that a strenuous effort will be required, to convert within a few months a force of 16,000, disorganized by the loss of its best officers, into an efficient army of 100,000 men.

Apart from those local forces that cannot decisively influence the result, this would appear to be the maximum number the principal army will reach. If so, a population of ten millions will readily supply recruits for that number. The truth is, the North possesses a numerical power beyond its military strength, and this excess is mere superfluity. An army is a complex machine, in which the efficiency of the whole depends on the efficiency of each separate part; like a watch that is valueless unless every wheel and pinion be in order. With one set of movements, one watch can be

made with fifty sets, fifty; but if there be fifty sets of wheels and pinions, and only two springs, there cannot be made fifty watches, but only two. So in the North the supply of one element of strength is disproportionate to the rest. For the immediate purpose of aggressive warfare that superabundance has no value.

But an important consequence results from it. We have seen that the national standard of value in all things, is now magnitude. The people of the North will take as their guide, not the army list, but the census; and aim at a force proportionate, not to military strength, but to the number of heads. The Government, swept along by the popular current, must needs adopt this principle. The result must be an enormously expensive and inefficient force; in other words, a union of two elements, inefficiency and cost, either of them fatal to success. The present rate of expenditure in the North is an enemy more dangerous than any foe in the field. It will decide the contest before it might otherwise terminate; and the more closely we look into the subject, the greater the doubt will become, whether the very excess of the North in numbers will not really prove a source of disaster.

In forming a judgment of the results to be expected, it will be essential to keep in view, the different degree of efficiency required in an army, called upon to invade a country, from that which will suffice to defend it. This was strikingly

exemplified in the war of 1814. The whole of the aggressive operations of the American forces resulted in disastrous failure, yet they defended Baltimore and New Orleans with complete success. It appears the popular impression in the North, that because any man can discharge a gun over a wall, therefore he can be a soldier. But the invader must march right up to that wall, and climb it under the fire of its defenders, and this requires a very special training. In that war of 1814, undisciplined men were well able to stand behind bales of cotton, and shoot down those advancing in the open; but at Bladensburg, an army of the same materials, with the President at its head, was defeated by a force but a third of its numbers, not from any want of individual courage, but because untrained in the degree required for engagements in the open field. Those who wish to form a correct judgment of the elements in this question, will do well to consider that the advantage of the defenders of New Orleans is with the South, whilst the undertaking of the North is to fight a series of battles under the conditions of that of Bladensburg.

Financial power preponderates greatly in favour of the North, but here the inquiry frequently seems to take a wrong direction. The true question is not which may be richer or command the greater credit, but simply. whether the South possess financial means that will suffice for effective defence. This none can doubt, for whether as

regards the luxuriance of its crops the lucrative commerce it has enjoyed for many years-or the resources contained within the country-few are to be found possessing more largely the elements of wealth. If this were not so, history affords ample evidence that the absence of wealth has proved no barrier to the defence of an invaded country. The very scene of the conflict has already illustrated this, for seldom did greater poverty exist, either in resources or credit, than in these States when they successfully defended themselves in the revolutionary war. All but incredible is the extremity that accompanied the whole of that contest, when not only had coin disappeared, but the notes issued by Congress had fallen in value to as low a point as the eightieth part of their nominal amount-nay, at times were so valueless, that Washington was occasionally obliged to resort to forced requisitions, to feed his troops. In spite of all this the war continued, and ended in successful defence. Wealth or credit is indeed essential, to the power that equips great forces for expeditions and aggressive war; but that neither is absolutely necessary for the defence of a country, there can be no clearer proof than these States have already afforded.

The effects of the war will tell financially with far greater severity upon the Northern than the Southern This will be obvious on comparing their industrial condition. In the South are two classes, the poor white whose circumstances

power.