The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 60, October, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 60, October, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
When this crisis arrives, and it must be approaching, how can the
Southern army retain in its ranks either the poor white, the foreigner,
or the Northern clerk, whose sympathies have never been with the
Confederacy?
It may be said, that the Confederacy can continue the war by wealth
accumulated in former years. But that wealth vested in land, slaves, or
railways, now unproductive, or in banks whose funds have been advanced
to planters still under protest. This wealth will not suffice to
prosecute the war. Thus far it has been sustained by funds on hand, the
seizure of national forts, arms, and arsenals, by the appropriation of
debts due to Northern merchants, by supplies from Kentucky, Tennessee,
and Missouri, and by the issue of paper already greatly depreciated.
With these resources it has conducted a losing warfare while we were
creating an army and a navy, and during this contest has lost three of
the most important border States, nearly half of a fourth, several of
its chief seaports, nearly all its shipping, and the navigation of the
Mississippi.
But it may be urged, Has not McClellan retired from his intrenchments
before Richmond? Have we not fought with varying results successive
battles around Manassas? Are not our troops retiring to their old lines
before Washington? Have not the enemy again broken into Kentucky? and do
they not menace the banks of the Potomac and the Ohio? Let us concede
all this. Let us admit that our new levies are for the moment
inert,--that we are now marshalling, arming, and drilling our raw
recruits; let us concede that the giant of the North has not yet put
forth his energies,--that, although roused from his torpor, one of his
arms is still benumbed, and that his lithe and active opponent is for
the moment pommelling him on every side, and has a momentary advantage;
let us admit that our go-ahead nation is indignant at the idea of one
step backward in this great contest: still it is safe to predict that
within sixty days our new army of superior men will be ready to take the
field and advance upon the foe in overwhelming force,--that soon our
iron fleet will be ready to batter down the fortresses of Charleston,
Savannah, Mobile, Vicksburg, and Galveston, the last strongholds of the
enemy. And when his army of conscripts shall have wasted away, after
their last flurry and struggle, where is he to recruit or procure a new
army for resistance or offence? The South is now taking the field with
all its strength; but when that strength is broken, what power will
remain to confront the forces of the Union?
The South has driven to the war its whole white population able to bear
arms, and when that force is exhausted, at least two-thirds of the adult
males of the North and the whole black population will still remain to
sustain the Government, and births and emigration will soon fill the
vacuum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account