Southern Genius. 281
Southern Genius.
HOW WAR DEVELOPED IT IN AN INDUSTRIAL AND MILITARY WAY.
[An address delivered by General M. C. Butler, United States Senator from South Carolina, before the Association of the Army of Northern Virginia at its annual meeting held October i8th, 1888, in the Hall of the House of Delegates, Richmond, Virginia.]
The meeting was called to order at 8:15 o'clock P. M. by the President of the Association, General William B. Taliaferro, who in graceful terms introduced the orator of the evening.
My Comrades of the Army of Northern Virginia,
Ladies and Gentlemen :
In the remarks I submit to your Association to-night I shall at- tempt no abstract consideration of policies or principles, no philoso- phic discussion of the course and current of events, or of the effect and influence of results on the great and stirring times of our gene- ration. The occasion would scarcely justify it, and such a line of thought would be aside from the purpose I have in view, which is to present some of the proofs of the powers of our Southerners in great emergencies.
I shall do this in plain narrative form, and without effort at rhetoric or declamation. I trust I shall not entirely exhaust your patience and forbearance in delivering this address hastily prepared amid engrossing official duties, and that you will make due allowances for its crudities and imperfections.
The late war between the States destroyed a good many fallacies and delusions theretofore prevailing in regard to the qualities of the Southern people. Their capacity for the conduct of affairs, their genius for the organization and operation of large armies and fleets, their inventive talent for meeting and overcoming unexpected and great difficulties and providing for impending exigencies, and their energy and practicability had always been denied by their Northern cousins, and were not known to themselves.
It will be remembered that when, in the spring of 1861, the first levies of three months' troops of seventy-five thousand men were provided at Washington to put down the so-called rebellion, it was currently asserted at the North that no longer enlistments would be
