The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1878-06-07
NORTH AND SOUTH.
Gen. Grant on Their Relative Fower and
Resources During the War,

From an interview in the New York Herald
We never overwhelmed the South
and / am only sOIry we could not
have done so and ended the war and
it's miseries. What we won from the
South we won by hard fighting, and
the odds, when there were odds, were
never decisive. We had to fight the
Southern States. They were a unit
and we were divided. Every able
bodied male in the South from four
teen to sixty was in the army, or was
supposed to he there. We had to de-
pend upon the volunteers and the con-
scripti0n. The South had 1000, 600 OF
negroes. These negroes kept the
farms, protected the families, sup~
ported the armies, and were really a
reserve force, a most important re-
serve force i'll a fighting nation. Those
1000, 600 Ofne9rOes did work that
white men would have been compclI-
ed to do. Yet they 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 harvest grow
ing while the white men were in the
war. Men, womC n and children went
into the fields. The South was really
an organized army. During the war
in the South all progress, all industry
came to halt, and nothing was al
lowed to interfere with the war. Even
now the South suffers from war stag~
nation, froml war paralySi'. In the
North industry was never more brisk;
all the arts of peace were cherished;
society moved on; inventions were dis
covered: the genius of the country
! 4,,gl
an army and a blOckading fleet. We
never tagged in our industry. We
kept our place as a manufacturing
commercial power. Cities like Chica-
90, New York, San Francisco grew
and grew, while Savannah, New Or
leans and Charleston languished. We
not only supported our part in the
war, bat all that was required for
peace. In spite of all the drain upon
the resources of the North we were
more prosperous, more powerful, more
respected and feared by the nations
than when the war broke out. Re-
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 eve
Nv Northern State there was a strong
party against the war; voting to par
alyZe our forces; ready for any conces~
sion or surrender. This party was
strong in every State-strOng enough
to carry States like Indiana, Penn
sylvania and New York during the
war. Nothing but MOrtOn's courage
saved it from making Indiana Rebel
State like kentucky. This was the
party that voted the war was a failure
ut the time Sherman was setting out
on his march to the sea, at the very
time when that General and his great
army were about to cover our arms
with imperiShable renOwn. GOu can
imagine the effect such resolution
must have had upon the enthusiasm
of an army, for it was mistake to
imagine that such things did not affect
an army. They did affect it, as l
know well. During our war there
was scarcely a wind that came from
the North, from our own homes, that
did not laden with calumny and dis
arrangement. The Southern Generals
were models of chivalry and vOIOr-
our Generals were vcnal, incompetent,
coarse. | am speaking now of our
own people, of writers and speakers
who were loyal and to a certain eX-
tent Republican. Everything that
our armies did was wrOng-cOuldh have
been done so much better. Every
thing that our opponents dId was per-
feet. Lee was a demi-EOd, jackson
was Il demi-gOd, while our Generals
were brutal butchers.