The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1878-05-30
THURSDAY MORNING, MAY 80.

armies being foreign question If more than
three per cent. were aliens Yet | have no
doubt many well Informed authors will tell
you there were only three per cent Americans.
This is the way public opinion was made dur
ing the war, and this is the way history is
made now. We never overwhelmed the south,
and am only sorry we could not have done SO,
and ended the war and its miseries. What we
won rom the south we won by hard lighting,
and the odds, when there were odds, were never
decisive We bad to fight the southern states.
Ihey were unit and we were divided. Every
able bodied male in the south from fourteen to
sixty was in the army or was supposed to be
there. We had to depend upon volunteers and
the conscriptlon. The south had 100000 of
negroes, These negroes kept the farms, pro-
tected the families, supported the armies and
were really reserve force, most important
reserve force in fighting nation. Those 4,0O0,-
600 of negroes did a work that white men
would have been compelled to do. Yet thew
are never counted in any summary of the
forces Of the south They are forgotten as if
they had never existed, and yet they kept the
acres green and the harvests growing while the
white men were in the war. Men, women and
cnildren went into the fields. The south was
really an orgaDizsd army. During the war 10
the south all progress, all industry came to
halt and nothing was allowed to interfere with
the war. Even now the south suffers from war
stsguaton, from war paralysis. Iu the north
industries were never more brisk; all the arts of
peace were cherished; society moved on; inven-
tons were discovered; the genius of the country
was as Keen as ever. We supported an army
and blockading fleet. We never tagged 10 our
industry. We kept our place as manufacture
INC and commercial power. Cities like Chicago
New York, San Francisco, grew and grew,
while Savannah, and New Orleans and Charles
ton languished. We not only sustained our
part in the war, but all that was required for
peace. In spite of all the drain upon the re-
sources OF the north we were more prosperous,
more powerful, more respected and feared by
a N han l.
member, as have said, that we had by no
means united north, while the south was
unit We had to send troops to suppress riots
IN New York; we had enemies in our midst.
In every northern state there was strong par
" against the war, always rejoicing over dis
aster, always voting TO parayze our forces;
ready Tor any concession or surrender. This
party was strong in every state-strong enough
to carry states like Indiana, Pennsylvania and
New York during the war. Nothing but Nor
TONS courage saved it from making Indiana
rebel state like Kentucky. This was the party
that voted the war a failure at the time
Sherman was setting out on his march to the
sea, at the very time when that great general
arms with imperishable renown. You can i'm
agine the effect such . resolution must have
had upon the enthusiasm of an army, for it is
mistake to imagine that such things did not
affect the army. They did affect it as we'll
know. During our war there was scarcely a
wind that came from the north, from our own
homes, that did not come laden with calumny
and disparagement. TIE southern generals
were models of chivalry and valor-our
generals were venal, incompetent, coarse,
am speaking now of our own PEG.
pie Of writer's and speakers who were loyal and
to a certain extent Republican. Everything
that our armies did was wrong, could have
been doRe SO much better Everything that
our opponents did was perfect. Lee was demi-
god, jackson was demigod, while our gen.
erals were brutal butchers. So it was in Eu-
rope, With a few exceptions here and there
the public opinion of the world was against
the North. and our own friends at home weuld
otten grow nervous and fault finding with the
army. You cannot read a file of Journals in
England of that time that did not contain
some horrid calumny about men in the army
and copied from our own journals. If we won
battle like Shiloh, for instance-ope of the
most useful victories of the war; one of the
most important in its results-our own papers
set to work to belittle the victory and give the
enemy as much advantage as possible These
were essential elements in war like ours
the war OF free people. l do not recite these
things to complain especially have nothing
TO complain about. The more foes we con-
quered the more important was our victory.
Having conquered it is not for us to say any
thing unkind or In disparagment of our enc
mies. That is not my purpose. 1 merely men,
ton these points in general way, as points
which cur historians overlook and which show
that the North and South were not as UNEQUAL
in force as aleged-that the South had advan-
tages which we Dever possessed-and that, ii
we nad larger population than the South to
oraw from, there were probably as many living
under our protection whose hearts were with
the rebellion as there were in the confederacy
ITSELF
-Four correspondent thanked the general for
the opportunity of conversing with him on
tnose interesting subjects more than ever of
interest now in historical point of view. and
thus the interview came to an end,