Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians, with Illustrations and Speeches

by Unknown

Disparity of resources. Oh! my brethren of the loyal North, do not taunt us with our poverty, when your own writer, Thomas Prentice Kettell, tells the world that the South gave $2,770,000,000 of her wealth to swell Northern profits. If that money were given back to us, we could get up a "big boom" sure enough, and become a veritable New South. As it was, we were poor in military resources in 1861. We were without mines, without factories, foundries, machine-shops, rolling-mills—without mechanical appliances of every kind. We rushed into war, not only without ships of war and trade, but without a single mill to make powder in the whole Confederacy, and without even a single machine to make percussion caps. We had been dependent upon the North for everything, even for the paper upon which the Ordinances of Secession were written, and for the ink and pens used in the writing. There never was a people on earth so destitute of all means of making war material and of supplying comforts and conveniences for those in camps and for those at home. From first to last, we had to depend largely upon the spoils taken from the enemy with Stonewall Jackson as Quartermaster and Commissary-General. From first to last, ours was the worst fed, worst clothed and worst equipped army in the world, deficient in medical stores, in ordnance stores, in wagons, tents, shoes—even in artillery and rifles. Theirs was the best organized, the best equipped and the most pampered army in the world, with abundant commissariat, medical supplies, transportation, ordnance stores, etc.

A young rebel lieutenant who had been accustomed at home to a dram before each meal, and at frequent intervals between these three periods, was asked when the war would be over. "I am no military man," groaned he. "I know nothing of military affairs; but one thing I do know, and that is that the Confederacy has started the biggest temperance movement the world ever saw."

You all know how readily the Irish of the two armies affiliated when they came together as captors and prisoners. At the second battle of Manassas I was amused at a conversation between some Federal Irishmen and their countrymen in my division, who were in charge of them. One of the Irish prisoners complained to one of my Irishmen that he had not had anything to eat in twenty-four hours. My man replied: "And are you after complaining of such a trifle as that? Why, Pat, me boy, in the Southern Confederacy we have one male (meal) a week and three fights a day."

Confederate Navy. I wished to say a few words in regard to the Confederate navy, and I regret that I am so ignorant on this subject. I had the honor to know a few, and a few only, of our naval heroes, but these were all grand men. Among them were Semmes, the Chevalier Bayard of the ocean; J. I. Waddell (of an illustrious North Carolina lineage), almost the peer of Semmes as a successful cruiser: M. F. Maury, the greatest benefactor to the merchant and naval marine the world has ever known; the brave W. F. Lynch, the Christian scholar and explorer; the gallant Pegram, Hunter, Alexander. I was proud before the Civil War of the fame of Tattnall, Ingraham, and Hollins, and was glad that they cast in their lot with their own people. I always regretted that I never saw your own Franklin Buchanan, the hardest fighter on our side, as Farragut, of Tennessee, was on their side. These two Southerners rose to the highest rank in their respective navies. But in that of which I know so little I do not wish, in my ignorance, to make distinctions. I have introduced the subject merely to express a long-felt opinion, viz.: that it required a higher and nobler patriotism for our sailors to leave the navy than for our soldiers to leave the army, for very obvious reasons: 1st, the flag to the sailor not only told him in foreign lands of his country, but it spoke of his far-off home, with all its endearments. It was hard for him to give up the old flag with all these sacred associations. 2d. Our army officers gave up generally subordinate positions to command regiments, brigades, divisions, and armies. The naval officers gave up fine positions on great ships of war to serve in little tubs of vessels, of which they must have been ashamed. 3d. The true sailor is a sailor and not a land-lubber. He never gets off his sea-legs on shore. Our patriotic naval officers knew certainly that the failure of our cause would drive them from the sea and compel them to seek business on land, in which they would feel as awkward as Commodore Trunnion on the fox-hunt. All honor to the noble men who put country above self and self-interest. The Old South had thousands of unselfish men, but I put these in the foremost of them all.

Indebtedness of the nation to the Old South. The statesmen of the Old South were all broad-gauge men. They had fully the instincts of the Japhetic race for land-grabbing and they were eager to fulfill the prophecy in regard to the enlargement of Japhet's borders. We find, accordingly, that every inch of territory that has been added to the area belonging to the original thirteen States has been added under Southern Presidents, and all has been acquired save Alaska, during the "Era of the domination of the slave-power." When Jefferson came to the executive chair the whole Union comprised about 830,789 square miles. By wise policy and diplomacy, he won, without one drop of blood, for the paltry sum of fifteen million dollars, that vast territory out of which have been carved nine great States and six large Territories, embracing in all 1,282,005, or 415,216 square miles more than the United States possessed before his administration. That is, he doubled the area of the United States, and had this respectable slice left over. Mr. Blaine, in his recent speech at St. Louis, said in reference to this grand achievement: "In the annals of American greatness, Jefferson deserves to be ranked as the second Washington."

Monroe found a troublesome neighbor in Florida, and by the payment of five million dollars, with a few hangings by Andrew Jackson thrown in, he made loyal citizens of the United States out of the Spaniards and mongrel breeds in that territory, and enlarged the area of the Union by 58,680 square miles. Next came the annexation of Texas, under Tyler, and the Mexican war, under Polk, which added to the Union two huge States and four huge Territories, and 855,410 square miles.

These were notoriously Southern measures, advocated by Southern statemen, and carried out by Southern Presidents, in spite of the opposition of the South-hating philanthropists. This policy enlarged our territory 2,196,095 square miles, nearly treble its area, extended the power of the government from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and gained the richest mineral, farming, and grazing grounds on the globe. With prophetic vision, Southern statesmen had seen that our country must extend to the Pacific, and from its ports carry on a trade with the populous nations of the East. Think of it, but for the Old South, a Spanish province would bound the United States on the South, and the Mississippi river, under the control of France, would bound it on the west. Compare, ye English-speaking Americans, the United States which Jefferson found with the United States which Polk left, and then you will form some conceptions of the indebtedness of the nation to the Old South.

Next came the purchase of Alaska, and the gain of 577,000 square miles of territory. By a singular providence, this acquisition was advocated by the South-hating philanthropists, and consummated by a Southern President. Southern men favored it, not that they expected to gain anything thereby, but the land-grabbing instinct was strong in them, and they knew that the wives of their neighbors in the loyal North would need furs and sealskin sacques. Thus we see, that, under Southern Presidents, the area of the United States has increased from 830,789 square miles to 3,603,884 square miles; that is, it is now four times as big as it was. There is not a man of intelligence in the Union who does not know that this vast increase has been due to Mr. Jefferson and the Old South.

Oh! men of the loyal North, in view of what the Old South has done in quadrupling the national domain, with all of the inestimable advantages, thereof, let us cry quits and stop talking about Jeff Davis and the sour-apple tree, and talk rather of Jefferson, Monroe, Tyler, and Johnson. Probably, too, a few words might be whispered in commendation of the Old South for its Japhetic proclivities, for its gift of Washington, and a long line of statesmen and warriors, and for its donation out of its poverty, up to this date, of more than three billions of dollars to swell the wealth of the North.

Results of the War. I would place first of these the general diffusion of love for the Constitution of the United States. Time was when the then South-hating philanthropists denounced it as "a covenant with death and league with hell," gotten up by the slave-power in the interests of slavery. But in 1861 the philanthropists experienced a change of heart, and ever since have talked of the Constitution as that "sacred instrument," that "bulwark of freedom," that "palladium of liberty!" I am glad of their conversion, suspiciously sudden though it was, and I hope that they will never fall from grace. As a stalwart Presbyterian, I believe in the perseverance of the saints.