In order to understand and appreciate the progress made by the South during the last ten years it is necessary to know something of its condition prior to the war and immediately after that disastrous struggle. “The New South,” a term which is so popular everywhere except in the South, is supposed to represent a country of different ideas and different business methods from those which prevailed in the old ante-bellum days. The origin of the term has been a subject of much discussion, but the writer has rarely seen it ascribed to what he believes to have been the first use of it. During the war the harbor and town of Port Royal, S. C., were in the possession of the Northern forces, and while they were stationed there a paper called “The New South” was established by Mr. Adam Badeau, who was afterwards General Grant’s secretary. This was probably the first time that the term was applied to the Southern States. Its use now, as intended to convey the meaning that the progress of the South of late years is something entirely new and foreign to this section, something which has been brought about by an infusion of outside energy and money is wholly unjust to the South of the past and present. It needs but little investigation to show that prior to the war the South was fully abreast of the times in all business interests, and that the wonderful industrial growth which it has made since 1880 has been mainly due to Southern men and Southern money. The South heartily welcomes the investment of outside capital and the immigration of all good people, regardless of their political predilections, but it insists that it shall receive from the world the measure of credit to which it is entitled for the accomplishments of its own people. In the rehabilitation of the South after the war Southern men led the way. Out of the darkness that enveloped this section until 1876 they blazed the path to prosperity. They built cotton mills and iron furnaces and demonstrated the profitableness of these enterprises. Southern men founded and built up Birmingham, which first opened the eyes of the world to the marvellous mineral resources of that section, and to Southern men is due the wonderful progress of Atlanta, one of the busiest and most thriving cities in the United States. When the people of the South had done this then Northern capitalists, seeing the opportunities for money-making, turned their attention to that favored land.