Well might it be said by an English writer that "the men in the North could, for a moderate sum, engage substitutes to vicariously die for them, while they sipped their wines at the clubs in safety."
Percentage Killed and Wounded in Late Wars.
| Allies in the Crimea | 3.2 per cent |
| Austrians in 1866 | 2.6 per cent |
| Germans in the Franco-German war | 3.1 per cent |
| Federals in the Confederate war | 4.7 per cent |
| Confederates in the Confederate war | 9.0 per cent |
Slave Owners in the Confederate Army.
This question, as far as I am informed, has not been analyzed to separate it from the concrete mass of men that composed the Confederate army. This is desirable to establish what influence they had in deciding the Southern States to secede from the Union, and the solution of it should give the number of slave owners in the army.
The white population of these States was, in 1860, about 8,300,000. There were 346,000 whites who owned slaves. These figures represent and include men of all ages, widows, and minors: also young married women who owned the servant usually given them.
Now divide 8,300,000 by 346,000, and we have 8,300,000/346,000==24, which shows that only one person in twenty-four was a slaveholder, and we know not what number in this twenty-four were women, orphans, and old men. If allowance be made for the old men, women, and minors, there would not be over four able-bodied men to the one hundred; hence in a company of one hundred soldiers four would be slave owners. In a regiment of one thousand there would be forty, in ten thousand there would be four hundred, and in the whole Confederate army of six hundred thousand there would be only twenty-four thousand who represented slavery. The remainder (600,000-24,000) would be 576,000 who were not slave owners! This number, however, might be reduced by young men heirs apparent of slaves.
Henceforth, then, let it be known that the Confederate army was not an army of slave owners. To the people of the South it was well known that the slaves were fast becoming the property of the owners of large estates, and on many sugar and cotton plantations there were from one to two hundred negroes employed. The tendency was to consolidate labor, as it was more profitable. Therefore it was that the Confederate army was mainly composed of men as free from interests in slavery as were the men living in sight of Bunker Hill. These men were contending for an object far more dear to them than any arising from slavery. They had seen the accumulated funds of the United States treasury expended in making harbors for towns on the great Northern lakes yearly, and in digging deep-water channels for Eastern cities, and appropriations for little creeks called rivers; while the harbors of the Southern cities were neglected. Then, again, the tariff almost invariably discriminated against the South, even to the extent of nullification, almost thirty years anterior to the war; then the fugitive slave act was nullified by Northern State laws; "underground railroad" was a term used to express how negro slaves were conveyed under cover of the night to the North when enticed from their owners. They openly published that the Constitution was a "compact made with the devil;" and the hatred of the North and the West was so widespread that by a sectional party vote they elected a President antagonistic to the South. These are but a few of the acts that caused secession; and yet he who believes that secession was entertained by more than a mere majority of the people South is mistaken. Genuine love and an abiding fidelity to the Constitution were ever found in the South. Her cause for complaint also was that the people of the North and West, actuated by hatred of the people South, proclaimed that the higher law of conscience was superior to the Constitution!