Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/443

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The Old South. 437

Southern prowess. Farragut, of Tennessee, was considered the hardest fighter and most successful commander, as shown by his elevation to the highest rank that of Admiral a rank specially created in order to honor him. Winslow, of North Carolina, was made a Rear -Admiral for sinking the Alabama. Goldsborough, of Maryland, was made a Rear-Admiral for the capture of Hatteras. Many other names of gallant Southerners will readily occur to you who are more familiar with the United States Navy than I am.

I will refer to but five points more in connection with the Civil War:

ist. Disparity of Numbers, The population of the eleven States that seceded was, in 1860, 8,710,098, of whom 3,520,840 were slaves. That of the other States and Territories was 22,733,223, giving an excess over the whole seceded population of 14,023, 125, and over the white population of 17,543,965; the excess of population being nearly double the whole population of the States in revolt, and more than three times the white population of those States. These be tremen- dous odds, my countrymen, and the Old South need not be ashamed of her sons who contended for four years against them.

But as the job of " suppressing the unnatural rebellion" still dragged its slow length along, 54,137 sympathetic Union men- in the Rebel States joined the Federal army, and 186,017 "brothers in black " were in some way induced to enter the same service. Secre- tary Stanton assured the world that "the colored troops fought nobly," and that without them " the life of the nation could not have been saved." There is another interesting aspect of the numerical statistics. The seceded States are supposed to have had, from first to last, 700,000 men in the field, and you must admit that this is a very large number out of a population of five millions.* The other belligerent had in the field, from first to last, 2,859,132, or more than

  • Macaulay, in his essay on Frederick the Great, says: "The proportion

which the soldiers in Prussia bore to the population seems hardly credible. Of the males in the vigor of life, a seventh part were probably under arms." Doubtless, Macaulay would have thought it not at all credible that the South put into the field, not one-seventh of the males in the vigor of life, but one- seventh of the entire white population, including men, women, and chil- dren. General Grant expressed tersely the draft made upon the male whites of the South, when he said: "The Confederacy robbed the cradle and the grave to recruit its armies."

It is plain that 700,000 soldiers is a high estimate for the Confederate forces from first to last.