Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Poetry and Incidents., Volume 1.
Frank Moore, Ed.

Fighting resources of the North.--The extreme Southern editors seem to be as thoroughly ignorant of the spirit that animates the whole North, as if they had never been acquainted with the people of the United States at all. For instance, see what the Mobile Advertiser says of the fighting materiel at the disposition of our Government:--

Paradoxical as it may seem, a chief element of the strength of the North is its poverty. It is levying for its war upon us, for our subjugation, (save the mark!) a pauper soldiery. We have reports that corporations make appropriations for the support of the families of volunteers. We need not mistake this for patriotic liberality. It is any thing but that. It is the coercion of necessity. The armies that are marching against us are composed of mercenary pauper soldiery. We all know the stagnation of industrial and mechanical pursuits which has ensued at the North; how thousands of operatives and mechanics are begging bread,--are, with their families, supported by public charities. To this class, so numerous in the cities which are offering the most imposing contingents, the call for volunteers was a God-send, indeed, for it gave them a chance to get bread at the public cost which could not be earned by individual exertion, and was bitter in the eating if the dole of public or private charity.

So, on the call for volunteers, these poverty-stricken and starving creatures rush where rations may be obtained, and the men with families are encouraged to enlist by the promise that their responsibilities will be cared for. Men of the South rush to arms spurred by patriotic zeal, not compelled by the pangs of starvation, like these mongrel hordes of all nationalities of the operative class of the Northern cities. Our sons of the soil, patriots by birthright, grasp their weapons, leaving their homes of plenty, spring impetuously to arms, ask but one favor — that they may be placed face to face with the foe. Our volunteer soldiery is not the soldiery of necessity-men worth their hundreds of thousands carry the musket in the ranks. Plenty reigns in our dwellings, and is gladly abandoned for the privations of the camp. Such is the materiel with which we meet a mercenary pauper soldiery. Who would doubt the [59] issue when it is man to man? The creatures of one side, sordid and indifferent, fight for so much per diem as the alternative of starvation. The men on the other side fight for rights and liberties, filled with ardor by the noblest impulses. Let these foes meet in pitched battle, and the sons of the South will triumph were the enemy five to one.--N. Y. Express, April 29.