The Indianapolis journal., 1890-12-14
BLOOD.BOUGHT PROSPERITY
An Ex-Confederate General Talks of the
Good Resultsof the Great War.
But for the Collapse Of the Rebellion the South
Would Yet Be Wrapped in Ignorance and
Conceit-The Status Of the Negro.

Special Correspondence OF the Sunday Journal
NEW YORK, Dec. Any dear sir. We
really owe the North debt of gratitude for
the late war;"
The speaker was Gen. John l.. Black. of
South Carolina. a man of hugo frame that
bears half dozen scars from federal bull
lets. of bushy iron-gray hair and beard. and
keen eyes, deeply set beneath heavily
fringed, overhanging brows- General Black
was West Pointer, living on his South
Carolina plantation at the breaking out of
the war. He is relative Of the celebrated
Blacks of Pennsylvania. and his father was
born in Lancaster. He is now largely in
terested in the development of The mineral
resources Of his State. aud divides his busl-
ness time betw cen the iron field near Blacks
burg. s. c., and New York and Boston.
Blacksburc IS already styled ''theiron city,"
and ore is now being shipped from there to
Boston, New York, Pittsburg. Chicago and
other large manufacturing cities in such
quantities and of such quality as 10 cbal-
Jenge the attention OF producer and con-
sumer everywhere.
"But for the war we should have been
still buried In our own ignorance and self
conceit,o be continued, ''and our spien-
did resources would probably have re-
II,
OF course. as Southerner, an owner of
slaves and confederate soldier who had
cast bis fortunes with his native State and
rode into the battle of Gettysburg to lay
didn't always think as l now do" he
laughingiy added. but time brings many
changes. and the changes time has wrought
In the South have been for her betterment
| IT an am the the SON of a Pennsyiyania iron mas
ter who built the hrst blast furnace OF any
size in my section as far back as 1871. and
the first mill that ever rolled iron south or
the Potomac, In 1882, aud these old plants
can De seen there to-day. As well known
as the existence of this mineral bolt was
years ago, 10 is but recently that capital has
sought investment there and begun the
creation of facilities for the successful
working of the mines and getting the ore
TO market. We can now feed furnace
with Bessemer ore and limestone at n cost
OF less than 50 per ton lof 0utput per ton OF
2.26s poundsl, and coke can be bad at such
rates as would put the cost of Bessemsr
pig at likely under $40. certainly under Sl2
per ton. while we can produce iron to cSn-
pete with any section OF the Union, quality
"Yon think the results of the war stimu-
lated industries Of this nature in the
southfD
eyes. sir. The war was terrible thing
as war always is. 1t brought mourning
and desolation to many . hearthstone
North and south, and 70 Us IL brought ruin
and misery. But while this 10 true it is
also true that the final result OF the strife
was TO make Us one great people. IL not
only doubled the resources of the North.
but it created resources In the south which
never existed even in the imagination, and
extended those We naturally bad 70 o
point of which wa had never dreamed. As
an ex-slave-hoider who would have died TO
retain that institution / say now IN q
commercial sense alone that the abolition
of slavery was the greatest benefit the
South ever received. This only as re-
suIt, not as respects the right or wrong OF