JOSEPH E. BROWN.
Passing by the particular events of the war between the States, it may not be unprofitable to inquire what was the difference in the developments of the two civilizations that followed the formation and establishment of the Constitution; the North by itself, free, and the South with her peculiar institutions. By their fruits ye must judge them.
There were seventeen Presidents anterior to President Grant, out of which number eleven were Southern born, and six the product of free soil, if we include John Adams. In jurisprudence, the South gave us a Marshall; in the forum they need no mention, as statesmen they have but few peers; among diplomats, John Laurens, of South Carolina, a member of Washington's staff, special Minister to France, stands preëminent; in the darkest hour of our struggle, at the court of Louis XIV., he saved the colonies and turned the tide of war in our favor.
In the field we have Washington, Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Forrest. For an honest opinion of Gen. Lee and his soldiers, see Theodore Roosevelt's life of T. H. Benton: there he stands peerless. Those who desire to learn more about Col. John Laurens may read the December number of McClure's Magazine (1899).
Such are some of the fruits of a civilization that has passed away.
When I survey the past, and from it make prophecy of the future, I am as candid in saying I rejoice that slavery is no more as I am in condemning the brutal manner in which it was abolished; and nevertheless I am as sincere in my love of my whole country as I am imbued with dislike to that class of people who out of hatred precipitated that war on the Southern people out of envy because they imagined that the planters were a more favored people than they themselves were.
A Roman consul was never accorded a triumph for a victory in civil war, nor were the spoils of war his. But after this civil war, as it is termed, ended, the emblems of victory have waved in triumph in our faces, and are carefully preserved instead of being hidden away, and the universal looting has enriched the soldiers' homes with the spoils of war. Senator Charles Sumner wanted the captured flags returned.
War is not barbarous, nor is it "hell;" it is just what parties choose to make it. When confined to the enlisted troops it is seldom cruel. Hell is an expression adopted to silence argument on the cruel manner in which the United States government prosecuted the war: when this subject is mentioned we are silenced by the declaration, O well, "war is hell any way."
To cover up his own iniquities, Gen. Sherman said: "War is hell."
During the war with Mexico I was with Gen. Taylor from Corpus Christi to Buena Vista, and during that period heard of but one case of robbery, and that was at Papagallos, on the march to Monterey. There a soldier stole a chicken. Seeing a crowd of officers in the street, I rode up to ascertain the cause.