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poses by regular and honorable hostilities. It was, in short, the diabolical attempt of an infatuated ruler, unworthy of authority, in a fit of disappointed malice, to inflict the worst horrors known to human nature upon eight millions of people who had wisely rejected his authority.

The "emancipation" proclamation not only strengthened the South and nerved her to greater exertious in the war, but it fortunately gave occasion to the world for a more interested observation and closer study of the peculiar institution of the Confederacy. The sympathies of Europe with the anti-slavery party in America were depressed by the conduct of that party, its exhibitions of ferocity, and by the new manifestations which the war had made of the nature and moral condition of negro slavery in the South.

Indeed, the war had shown the system of slavery in the South to the world in some new and striking aspects, and had removed much of that cloud of prejudice, defamation, falso hood, romance, and perverse sentimentalism through which our peculiar institution had been formerly known to Europe. I had given a better vindication of our system of slavery than all the books that could be written in a generation. It had shown that slavery was an element of strength with us; that it had assisted us in our struggle; that no servile insurrections had taken place in the South, in spite of the allurements of our enemy; that the slave had tilled the soil while his master had fought; that in large districts unprotected by our troops, and with a white population consisting almost exclusively of women and children, the slave had continued at his work quiet, cheerful, and faithful; and that, as a conservative element in our social system, the institution of slavery had withstood the shocks of war, and been a faithful ally of our arms, although instigated to revolution by every art of the enemy, and prompted to the work of assassination and pillage by the most brutal examples of the Yankee soldiery.*

Since the commencement of the war the North had had almost exclusive access to the ear of the world, and had poured into it whatever of slander or of misrepresentation human ingenuity could suggest. This circumstance, which was at first thonght to be a great disadvantage to us, had not only proved a harmless annoyance, but had resulted in invaluable benefit. It had secured sympathy for us; it had excited the inquiries of the intelligent, who, after all, give the law to public opinion; and it had naturally tempted the North to such lying and bravado as to disgust the world.

At the beginning of the war the North had assured the world that the people of the South were a sensual and barbarous people, demoralized by their institution of slavery, and depraved by self-will and licentiousness below the capacity for administrative government. The best reply to these slanders, was our conduct in this war. Even the little that was known in Europe of the patriotic devotion, the dignity and cultivated humanity of the people of the South, as shown in the war, had been sufficient to win unbounded encomiums for them. We had not only withstood for nearly two years a power which had put thirteen hundred thousand men in the field; but we had

shown that we were a people able in public affairs, resolute, brave, and prudent.

Another characteristic Yankee misrepresentation, made to the world about this time on the subject of the war, was, that it was to be concluded at an early day by the force of destitution and suffering in the South. The delusion of conquering the "rebels" by famine easily caught the vulgar ear. The North made it a point to exaggerate and garble every thing it could find in Southern newspapers, of the ragged condition of our armies, the high prices of the necessaries of life, and the hardships of the war. The Yankees were pleasantly entertained with stories of our suffering. Their pictorials were adorned with caricatures of "secesh" in skeleton soldiers and gaunt cavalrymen with spurs strapped to their naked heels. Their perfumed fops and dainty ladies had the fashion of tittering at the rags of our prisoners. They had an overwhelming sense of the ludicrous in the idea of Southern women cutting up the carpets in their houses to serve for blankets and garments for the soldiers.

The fact was that our sufferings were great; but their mute eloquence, which the enemy misinterpreted as a prospect of craven submission, was truly the sign of self-devotion. Whatever was suffered in physical destitution was not to be regret ted. It practised our people in self-denial; it purified their spirit; it brought out troops of virtues; it ennobled our wo men with offices of charity; it gave us new bonds of sympathy and love, and it trained us in those qualities which make a nation great and truly independent.

In the whirl of passing events, many strange things were daily happening around us that at a remoter period of history will read like romance. The directions of our industry were changed. Planters raised corn and potatoes, fattened hogs and cultivated garden vegetables, while cotton was by universal consent neglected. Our newspapers were of all sizes and colors, sometimes containing four pages, sometimes two, and not a few were printed on common brown wrapping paper. Politics were dead. A political enemy was a curiosity only read of in the records of the past. Our amusements had been revolutionized. Outside of Richmond, a theatre was remem. bered only as an institution of by-gone times. Most of our people did their own playing and their own singing; and the ladies spent the mornings in sewing coarse shirts or pantaloong for the soldiers to wear, and sung in public at night to gain money for the soldiers' equipments.

The footprints of the enemy, in Virginia especially, had marked lines of desolation such as history seldom records. Starting from Fortress Monroe and running westward to Winchester, scarcely a house within fifty miles of the Potomac but bore evidence of Yankee greed and spoliation. In nearly every county the court-house in which the assizes for each county used to be held, was rudely demolished, doors and windows torn down; while within, upon the white walls in every phase of handwriting, were recorded the autographs of the vandals, whose handiwork surrounded the beholder.

While the people of the South suffered, the resources of the country were developed by harsh necessity; and about the period where our narrative reaches, we are called upon to notice that happy change in the administration of our government, in which short-sighted expectations of peace were replaced by the policy of provision and an amassment of stores for a war of indefinite duration. Measures were adopted to afford adequate supplies of ordnance, arms, and munitions for the army. Of small-arms the supply was more adequate to the regiments of the army than at any other time. They had increased from importation and capture not less than eighty thousand. Establishments for making ordnance were founded in different parts of the South; a nitre corps was organized for service; and former dread of deficiency of the munitions of war no longer existed. The manufacturing resources of the country, especially in iron, were liberally patronized by the government, by large advances and liberal contracts; but in this the public service met great embarrassment from the temptations con stantly offered to contractors to prefer the superior profits which they could command by supplying the general market. The quartermaster's department was under the direction of Gen. Myers, of South Carolina, whose contributions to the cause of the South, in the zeal and ability which he brought into his important office, must take a high rank in all the histories of the war. He contended against the great obstacles of the blockade, the difficulties of railroad transportation, and the

constant losses in the enemy's ravages of the country, and performed wonders under the most unfavorable circumstances. Woollens and leather were imported from Europe through trains of difficulties, the most devoted exertions were made to replenish the scant supplies of blankets and shoes in the army, and by using to the utmost our internal resources, by the establishment of factories and the organization of workshops; and by greater economy in the use of our supplies, the sufferings of our soldiers were alleviated and their zeal refreshed for the campaign.