In the North one man out of two bore arms at some period of the war; and one man out of three served three years. In the south nine men out of ten bore arms, and Resources eight out of ten served three years. The total enlistments in the North counted 2,900,000; in the South, 1,400,000. The three-year average for the North was 1,557,000; for the South, 1,082,000.. With far less effort than the South, the North kept a half more men in the field. But this does not take account of the slaves who served as teamsters, laborers on fortifications, cooks, and servants, in Southern armies, doing work that had to be performed by enlisted men on the other side.1 The Southern forces, too, were able to concentrate more rapidly, because they moved on the inside lines and knew the roads better. Perhaps, too, they were handled with greater skill. The North, after costly experimenting, found some excellent commanders, Hancock, Hooker, Sherman, Sheridan, Grant; but the South had ready a larger proportion of its noblest sons with the best West Point training and with military experience. Indeed the South was better suited, by its whole spirit to develop military genius; and all America to-day glories in the splendid chivalry and magnificent generalship of a score of Confederate leaders, among whom-only a little brighter than the rest - shine the names of "Stonewall ” Jackson, Gordon, Longstreet, the two Johnstons, “Jeb Stuart, and Lee. On the whole, until the final year, the armies in actual conflict did not often vary greatly in numbers. Then, indeed, the exhausted South could no longer make good her losses in battle- though her stern recruiting system did "rob the cradle and the grave." Her ranks shrank daily, while the Northern armies grew larger than ever. At the opening of that last terrible year of slaughter, from May 5 to June 12 (1864), or from the Wilderness to Petersburg, Grant hurled his 120,000 veterans almost 1 On the plantations, too, under the management of women, slaves raised the food crops for the South. Wonderful to say, there was no hint of a slave-rising during the war, and, until 1863, very little increase of runaways. was given Jackson at Bull Run, where his brigade withstood what at first seemed an overwhelming Union onset. Like Cromwell's Ironsides, Jackson was wont to kneel in prayer before a charge. He was called Lee's right hand. daily at Lee's 70,000, suffering a loss of 60,000 to Lee's 14,000. New recruits were always ready to step into the gaps in the Union regiments; while the Confederate ranks could only close up grimly. In the remaining campaigns, the Union forces usually outnumbered their opponents at least two to one. To add to the disparity, Grant sternly refused to exchange prisoners. Prisoners Military prisons are always a sore subject. There is usually a tendency, in a long conflict, for their administration, on both sides, to fall to men less competent and less chivalrous than those who seek service at the front. Even in the early years of the war, there had been terrible misery in the prisons at the South — where medicines and supplies were wanting even for the Confederate soldiers. With less excuse, there had been cruel suffering also in Northern prison camps. Toward the close, when the South was unable to feed her soldiers at the front, or to spare adequate forces for guards, conditions became horrible in the Southern prisons, especially after Grant's refusal to exchange prisoners packed the already crowded Libby and Andersonville with Union soldiers. On this whole topic the student will do well to consult Rhodes' exhaustive and impartial treatment (History, V, 483–515), and especially to note his conclusion: "All things considered, the statistics [of deaths] show no reason why the North should reproach the South." In 1863 there was a falling off of enlistment in the North, and Congress authorized a "draft," a conscription by lot from able-bodied males between the ages of twenty The Draft and forty. In enforcing this law, some officials seem to have discriminated against Democratic districts; and violent anti-draft riots broke out in several Eastern cities. These were put down sternly by the military; but not till New York had been three days in the hands of a murderous "nigger-hunting" mob, and only after a sacrifice of a thousand lives. Altogether the draft furnished less than forty thousand troops. Its real work lay in influencing State legislatures to stimulate enlistment by generous bounties. Such moneys furnished support for dependent mothers and for children, and so enabled many a man to volunteer who otherwise must have worked at home. But it remains absolutely true, as Lowell said, that "the bounty which drew our best soldiers to the ranks was an idea." For the South, this was even more true, mistaken though the idea was; but even the South had recourse to conscription, extending it to boys of seventeen and men of fifty. In most districts, however, volunteer enlistment had left small gleanings for this desperate law. The Buchanan administration had left the treasury empty, a debt mounting, and credit dubious; but Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, was supported War finance loyally by Congress in a course of vigorous war finance. Year by year, bonds were sold at home or abroad in amounts which at any earlier time would have seemed fabulous. A direct tax of $20,000,000 was apportioned among the States. An income tax of 3 per cent on all incomes over $800 was imposed; and in 1864 this was raised to 4 per cent (but on the largest surpluses the rates rose only to 10 per cent!). Internal excises and stamp duties of the most varied and searching description reached almost all callings, products, and business transactions. Session by session Congress devised higher and higher "war-tariffs," rising to rates before unheard of, to remain without change twenty years after the war was over. And a series of "Legal Tender Acts" provided half a billion of dollars of paper money, based only on the faith of the government and amounting to a "forced loan." "Green These "greenbacks" mentioned no specific date for redemption, nor did the law provide any specific security, and of course the value fluctuated with success or failure in the field. Depreciation set in at once. Gold backs" was hoarded or sent abroad in trade; and on one dark day in 1864 it sold at 285, while most of the time after 1862 a dollar of paper was really worth only from fifty to seventy cents. Prices rose, for this reason and for other causes connected with the war, to some 90 per cent above the old level. Wages rose, too; but more slowly, and only two thirds as much, - so that the laboring classes bore the great part of the cost of the war. Workingmen endured much suffering, even while "business" was exceedingly "prosperous. Toward the close of the war, taxation was bringing in half a billion a year; but in 1863 the expenditure had risen to two Taxes and and a half millions a day or two times the daily bonds income. Business could not well stand more taxes; nor could more paper money be issued safely. The extra amount must be borrowed by selling new bonds. But how could the government induce capitalists to buy them in sufficient amounts? Chase solved this problem in part by the National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864 — the basis also of a system of banks and bank currency which, whatever its later faults, was far better than America had before known. Any association of five or more persons, with a capital of at least $100,000, was authorized (1) to organize a National bank, (2) purchase National bonds to the amount of one third the capital, (3) deposit the bonds in the National Treasury, and (4) issue "National bank notes' on that security. A supplementary Act placed a tax of 10 per cent on notes issued by State banks. Hundreds of State banks then reorganized as National banks, and their new demand for bonds met the needs of the Treasury. Capital is notoriously timid, and business notoriously selfish. There were not wanting the customary shames of army contractors who swelled their fortunes by furnishing shoddy clothing, paper-soled shoes, and rotten food to the troops; while other more adventurous pirates of finance made fabulous profits by illicit or treasonable trade with the South. But on the whole the moneyed men showed a noble patriotism. Andrew D. White tells a typical story (Autobiography, I, 89) of the roughly expressed idealism of a multimillionaire still a rare phenomenon in the sixties a man who had |