Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

[131] quite sufficient explanation. It is that there was really but little statesmanship in America, and that much which passed current under that name was nothing more than the educated and ingenious demagogueism, which reflects vividly the opinions of the masses, and acts out the fancies of the hour. It does seem indeed almost incredible that public men at Washington and at Montgomery could have observed the crisis, without considering the resources and the temper of each section; for each of these elements in the contest showed plainly enough that it was to be one of immense extent and indefinite duration.

It will be interesting here to make a brief statement of the resources of the United States about the time of the war, and to show how they were divided between the two belligerents.

The census of the United States, of 1860, showed a population of more than thirty-one millions. A web of railroads, the wonder of the world, stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Missouri River; and the most important of these had been constructed within the last thirty years, for in 1830 there was but one railway connecting the great Lakes with tide-water. The total extent of these railroads was more than thirty thousand miles. Their tonnage per annum was estimated at thirty-six million tons, valued at about four thousand millions of dollars. Such was the huge internal commerce of the United States. Their manufactures formed an enormous fund of wealth; they represented an annual product of two thousand millions of dollars. In the census of 1860, we have, as the total assessed value of real estate and personal property in the thirty-four States and Territories the monstrous sum of sixteen thousand millions of dollars.

But of population, of internal improvements, of manufactures, and of all artificial wealth the North held much the larger share. She had a population of twenty-three millions against eight millions in the South. The North had manufacturing establishments for all the requirements of peace and war. She had the advantages of an unrestrained commerce with foreign nations. She had all the ports of the world open to her ships; she had furnaces, foundries, and workshops; her manufacturing resources compared with those of the South were as five hundred to one; the great marts of Europe were open to her for supplies of arms and stores; there was nothing of material resource, nothing of the apparatus of conquest that was not within her reach; and she had the whole world wherein to find mercenary soldiers and a market for recruits.

Yet one fact is to be admitted here, which may strike many readers with surprise, and which furnishes a subject of curious reflection, with reference to what we shall hereafter see of the management of their resources by the Confederates. This remarkable fact is that about the beginning of the war the South was richer than the North in all the necessaries of life. It is sufficient to compile certain results from the