We have read of the sieges of Numantia and of Haarlem, of Scotland's struggle for liberty under Wallace and Bruce, and of the virtual extinction of the men of Paraguay in the war against Brazil and Argentina; but history records no resistance on the part of a considerable population inhabiting an extensive region, under an organized government, worthy to compare in resolution, endurance and self-sacrifice, with that of the Southern Confederacy to the forces of the Union. When the war closed the South was prostrate. When the Governor of Alabama was asked to join in raising a force to attack the rear of Sherman he answered, no doubt truthfully, that only cripples, old men and children remained of the male population of the State. In their desperation the Southern leaders even thought of enlisting negroes, thus adding a grotesque epilogue to the mighty national tragedy. Of course even the most ignorant negro could not have been expected to fight for his own enslavement. I saw Richmond about a month before the surrender. It was like a city of the dead. Two weeks later I was in New York. It teemed with life and bustle and energy. The blots on the Confederacy were the cruel persecution of Union men living in the South, who were, in many instances, dragged from their families and put to death as traitors, and the maltreatment of Union prisoners. The North tolerated Southern sympathizers, when not actually engaged in plotting against the government, and treated Southern prisoners with all the kindness possible. It has been said for the South that while Union prisoners were starving, the Confederate troops in the field were almost starving too. This is a dishonest subterfuge. The Southern troops were starving not because ordinary food was not plentiful in the Confederacy, but because of lack of transportation to carry the food from the interior to the front, while the Union prisoners perished from hunger in the midst of abundance. Again, even assuming the plea of scarcity to be true, that would not palliate the numerous murders of helpless prisoners by volleys fired into the stockades at the pleasure of the guards.[1] There was a vindictiveness in these crimes which no plea can extenuate. [1] As one of the survivors of the massacre of November 25, 1864, at Salisbury, North Carolina, I know whereof I speak. * * *