scale, these might be best used, nor what their effect would be. For the first time in history, a steam navy was employ ed for a blockade. The question had to be settled whether, in such a service, a steam-ship could be kept at sea for months. It had to be provisioned, supplied with coal, its boilers and machinery kept in repair, its armament and crew maintained in efficiency. Yet so perfectly was this done that the greatest blockade ever undertaken was ef fectually enforced. In England, among those who were competent judges of the difficulties, it was declared that this was the most wonderful fact of the war. An unbroken succession of ships kept guard winter and summer; and so well were they provisioned, that during the four years scurvy in their crews was almost unknown. The English blockade-runners, long, low in the water, narrow, and painted of a dull neutral color, found how difficult it was to escape their vigilance. The military reports show how quickly the use of the new appliances of war was learned, and how effectively they were employed. We have seen (vol. iii., p. 77) that Stanton caused to be transported Hooker's command, 23,000 strong, with its artillery and trains, baggage and animals, from the Rapidan in Virginia to Stevenson in Alabama, a distance of 1192 miles, in seven days. The reports of Major General Meigs, the quartermaster general, contain other similar illustrations. Thus, in the summer of 1864, more than 14,000 mechanics and laborers were employed at Nashville in providing material for Sherman's campaign. There were in store at that post twenty-four millions of rations, and forage to the amount of one hundred and sixty-eight millions of pounds of oats, corn, hay. These stores, and vast numbers of troops, and all the sick and wounded, were transported over a single-track railroad, consisting of two slender rods of iron three hundred miles long, crossing wide rivers, winding through mountain gorges, plunging

But it quickly learned the use of the new appliances.

under hills, and every where exposed to an enterprising enemy bent on destroying them. An army of 90,000 men, with more than 40,000 animals, was supported on the end of this tremulous line, and that not only while advancing, but, what is more difficult, while laying siege for many weeks to a strongly fortified town. Well may that able engineer say, in no other country have railroads been brought to perform so important a part in the operations of war; and with just pride may he speak of those bridges which, though they had to bear the heaviest military trains, "rose like an exhalation from the ground." The Etowah Bridge, 625 feet long and 75 feet high, was built in six days; the Chattahoochee Bridge, 740 feet long and 90 feet high, was built in four and a half days.

If this was done in one portion of the vast theatre of war, how astonishing are the facts presented when we consider the whole. More than once I have alluded to the extraordinary ability of the Secretary of War, and certainly not without reason, when we remember what were his duties, and how well they were discharged. A million of men were clothed, fed, armed; transportation secured for them over a surface many hundreds of thousands of square miles; telegraphs were established and kept in order; immense wagon trains supplied. If the trains of the Army of the Potomac alone had been put on a single road toward Richmond, the head of the column would have reached that city before the rear was out of sight of Washing

ton.

As the war went on, inventive genius, sustained by the national wealth, effected singular improvements. The wretched muskets with which

Improvements in

those appliances

during the war. the troops at first had been armed were replaced by rifles of the most admirable construction. The manufacture of artillery, both for the land and sea service, developed very rapidly. It is a great step from the cannon used at the outset of the war to the 15-inch guns with

which the monitors were eventually armed, and the Par rotts, which threw shells from Morris Island into Charleston--which demolished Forts Pulaski and Sumter. It is a great step from the wooden ship of war to the sea-going monitor with iron turrets fifteen inches thick. The means of offense kept pace with the means of defense. There never was a more energetic bombardment than that of Fort Fisher under Porter,

We may appreciate the advances that had been made. in a knowledge of the art of war if we recall the experi ence of the Army of the Potomac before the Peninsular campaign. How, in that magnificent autumn, it waited for the weather to improve, for the dust to settle, for the roads to dry, for the leaves to fall, for the frost to come, and, when it did come, for the ground to thaw, and for fine weather again. Let us contrast this with what Stanton tells us in one of his Reports, and we shall no longer wonder at the disasters of the outset of the conflict, or the victories of its close: "The 23d Army Corps (Schofield), after fighting at Nashville in the midst of ice and snow, in December, 1864, was, on the conclusion of the campaign in the West, transferred, 15,000 strong, from the Valley of the Tennessee to the banks of the Potomac, moving by river and rail down the Tennessee, up the Ohio, across the snowcovered Alleghanies, a distance of 1400 miles, and in the short space of eleven days was encamped on the banks of the Potomac, then blocked up with the ice of a most severe winter. Vessels were collected to meet this corps; the obstacles interposed by the ice were overcome; and early in February the troops composing it were fighting before Wilmington, on the coast of North Carolina."

In the opinion of the Adjutant General of the Confeder ate Army, published since the close of hostiliof the Confederate ties, and corroborating the statement of the Secretary of the Southern Historical Society,

Strength and losses

forces.

CHAP. XCV.] CONFEDERATE STATEMENTS OF THEIR STRENGTH. 651 the available Confederate force capable of active service in the field did not, during the entire war, exceed 600,000 men. Of this number not more than 400,000 were enrolled at any one time, and the Confederate States never had in the field more than 200,000 men capable of bearing

arms.

Responsibility of

leaders,

He believes that one third of all the men actively engaged on the Confederate side were either killed outright upon the field, or died of disease and wounds; another third were captured, and held for an indefinite period in Northern prisons; and of the remaining third, at least one half were lost to the service by discharges and desertion. At the close of the war the available force of the Confeder ate States numbered scarcely 100,000 effective men, and this number he declares was all that was opposed to one million of Federal troops. Such are the Confederate estimates. If these statements are to be accepted, the conduct of those who directed the war in behalf of the Confeder the Confederate acy is without justification. So long as it was believed that the secession movement might be ventured upon without provoking hostilities, its promoters may present an excuse, but not so after the great disparity of the contending forces became a demonstrated fact. There is a point beyond which no commander has a right to risk his men-the point at which it has become clear that it is physically impossible for them to attain his object. Already the South is justly asking, Who is it that shall bear the responsibility for what has happened? who is it that has ruined us? It is no answer to this question to say that "the resolution, unsurpassed bravery, and skill with which the Confederate leaders conducted this contest is shown by the fact that, out of 600,000 men in the field, about 500,000 were lost to the service;" it is of no use to boast that the South maintained her ground for a time against a force ten times as strong as her own. She can not accept a compliment to her animal courage at the expense of her common sense.

the clergy, and the press.

Incompetence of the

istration.

Who was it that ruined the South? Incompetent political leaders, an unfaithful clergy, a profligate press. What but ruin could be the result, when the political leaders were deceiving their constituents as to the intentions, the temper, the power of the adversary they were provoking; when the clergy were jus tifying, as an ordinance of God, the darkest crime of the age; when the press was goading the people to the perpetration of civil war, and, that accomplished, persistently misrepresenting its events from the beginning to the end. Incompetent political leaders! No one can study the acts of the Richmond administration withConfederate admin- out being struck with the shortcomings of Davis as a ruler. It was impossible that, under such guidance, there could be success. The people gave him whatever he asked for without deduction or delay their men, their wealth, all that they had were his. Yet, no matter in what direction we look, whether in the military, the diplomatic, the legislative, the financial, we recognize nothing but failure. Not a trace of genius in any of these departments is to be seen. The war was alternately carried on with brute energy and vacillation, with explosions of passion and tricks of intrigue, but never with deliberate skill. The best officers in the army were put down to make way for favorites; the deep-seated convictions and earnest entreaties of an agonized people were set at naught. The means lavishly given to secure independence were squandered, not used. There is scarcely one of the public addresses of Davis which does not surprise us with its indiscretion, its intemperance, or shock us with its ferocious vulgarity. Long before the close of the war it became obvious to the ablest men in the Confederacy, to those who were in a position to judge correctly of the state of affairs, that success, under such leadership, was impossible. How could it be otherwise? History, as yet, offers no exception to the declaration of Taci