It is undoubtedly true that an occasional cargo escapes the blockade, that a few boat-loads of supplies are ferried by treason at the midnight hour across the Chesapeake, and sold at extravagant prices; but what does this amount to? What a contrast this trade presents to the millions of tons which used to reach the South from the Free States and Europe before it was crushed by the rebellion! And what a contrast does it present to-day to the commerce of the North,—to the barks and propellers which float down the Lakes deeply laden with grain,—to the weekly exports of New York, (twelve millions for the last three weeks,)—to its vast income from duties,—to the ships of the North visiting every ocean, earning more freight than for years past, although deprived of the carrying-trade of the South, and contending successfully with the marine of Great Britain for the supremacy on the ocean! How signal has thus far been the failure of the Southern prophecies made before the outbreak!
New York, we were told, was dependent on Southern commerce, and was to be ruined by the war; there were to be riots in the streets, and its palaces were to fall in ruins: but the riots and the ruins are to be found only in Southern latitudes.
The manufacturers of Massachusetts were to be broken down: but the woollen trade and the shoe-trade have received a new impetus,—are highly prosperous; and the cotton-spinners, with more than a year's supply of cotton, have by the rise of prices enjoyed a profit unprecedented. Having used their cotton with moderation, they have at the close of each six months seen their stocks of raw material and goods, by the rise of prices, undiminished in value, and blessed like the widow's cruse of oil. Nearly all have paid large dividends, many have earned dividends for the year to come, and are now sending their male operatives to the war, and their females to their rural homes, where they expect to perform some of the duties of brothers who have volunteered for the war. The ruin predicted falls not upon the spinner, but upon the authors of Secession.
Let us glance for a moment at the present condition of the South. General Butler found at New Orleans proof of its exhaustion in the prices of food,—with corn, for instance, at three dollars per bushel, flour twenty to thirty dollars per barrel, and hay at one hundred dollars per ton.
If we pass on to Mobile, we hear of similar prices, and learn that not a carpet can be found on the floor of any resident: they have all been cut into blankets for the army. White curtains and drapery have been converted into shirts; for cotton cloth cannot be had for a dollar a yard.
As we come on toward the North, we find the shops of Savannah nearly empty, with shoes and boots quoted at thirty dollars per pair. At such rates, what must it cost to put an army in condition to move?
At Charleston, the stores which two years since were overflowing with merchandise, and the daily recipients, of entire cargoes, are utterly empty; and when we reach Richmond, we see sugar quoted at three-fourths of a dollar, coffee at two dollars, and tea at sixteen dollars per pound, broadcloth at fifty dollars per yard, while whiskey, worth at Cincinnati twenty cents per gallon, commands at Richmond six dollars.
Such is the condition of affairs, while the South still has access to Virginia and East Tennessee, and after it has received a year's supply of Northern productions for which no payment has been made.
Having thus pictured the physical resources of the enemy, let us inquire what is the force which he can bring into the field, and his means of maintaining it.
There is conclusive evidence that at no period during the war has the Confederacy had more than three hundred and fifty thousand effective men in the field, and it has no power to carry that number beyond four hundred thousand. The population of the Union, by the census of 1860, was thirty-two millions. At the usual rate of increase it now amounts to thirty-four millions; of these, four millions are blacks, and of the residue, twenty-six millions are in the loyal districts, and but four millions in the Confederacy, if we exclude New Orleans and those portions of Virginia and Tennessee which have been subdued by the Federal arms.