This fratricidal war had more men engaged in it, more horses, more ships, more mules, and more money than any war the world had yet ever known. As to numbers, Xerxes is allowed to have had the greatest army hitherto known, his force numbering one million of men when he crossed the Hellespont to conquer Greece. But when the North disbanded its armies at the termination of the war, in 1865, they had 1,250,000 men of all kinds under arms or on the roll. The South had 800,000 men. We do not compare their navies of that day, of course, with the peerless navy of Her Majesty. By their fight of ironclads at Hampton Roads, Virginia, in 1864, however, they revolutionized the naval architecture of the world. When the war was at its height I visited the armies. Gold had been bounding upwards week by week as the protracted struggle went on. Its daily rise whetted the edge of our appetites, keen to the main chance of money-making. I was then just a young man fresh from college, but I felt that a truly “golden” opportunity was passing by us. Day after day we read of the advance of the Federal army, and of its repulse by the Confederates (more especially in Virginia) and then again of its successes, and likewise the talk of Louis Napoleon being about to recognize the belligerency of the South. We who were that day upon the scene, as it were, even if not in the actual conflict, felt the blows as they were struck with all the terrible force of war’s ravages, and honestly did not know how to make up our minds as to the final success of either side. I resolved to see for myself the contending armies, and then judge as well as I could from a ramble among both parties as to the ultimate result. Well, about June 18th, 1864, having secured my father’s consent, I set out to inspect for myself. Down to New York I made my way, and looked about the great metropolis of America to find some signs of the depression of war upon the North; but I saw nothing to lead me to suppose for an instant that the drain upon the country was at all severe. In those days there was no Coney Island as we now know it. Indeed, I recollect going down there upon the sand dunes and finding only a board shanty of a restaurant where they served baked clams. And these were only forty cents per plate in those days of inflations. That price was no kind of bar to me, with plenty of British and American gold in my pockets, for even then, before the premium had got to bounding up, my greenbacks only cost me about thirty-eight cents on the dollar. So, you see, even baked clams and the best hotels in New York of that day were at my command for a very small outlay. At Philadelphia I encountered no sign of war, but the great city on the Schuylkill was booming on its way. Baltimore seemed just a little off, and many of the people appeared to be rather sulky. Still, there were no signs of reverses or oppressions, and so far war had not, to outward appearances, seriously hurt the North.