One Million one hundred thousand men!
This was the number of men that the
Allied Powers marched upon
France, in 1815, when
Napoleon had returned from
Elba and resumed the imperial purple.
This is the number of men that
Seward and
Lincoln are preparing to precipitate upon the
Confederate States to ‘"crush out"’ a little rebellion, which, in April, 1861,
Greeley gave the
Yankee army until the 4th of July of that year to wind up, by swinging
Jeff Davis and his coadjutors from the ‘"battlements of
Richmond;"’ giving therein the first intimation that
Richmond had any battlements, and closing with the elegant and characteristic expression.
‘"We spit upon a longer period,"’ It dizzies the eyes and makes the head swim to read the figures that express this enormous array.
The very sight of them is enough to convince any man of the stupendous wickedness of pretending to regard a war of such gigantic proportions as ‘"a rebellion"’ and to treat it as such.--No war of modern times — not even that in which all
Europe, with a population of 200,000,000, was engaged — ever brought forth a mightier armament.
To command and to supply this almost innumerable host are employed 40
major-generals, 200 brigadiers, 240
assistant adjutant-generals, 250 assistant quartermasters, 1,432 surgeons, 2,000
assistant surgeons, 930 chaplains, 500 additional paymasters, 1,000 colonels, 1,000
lieutenant colonels, 1,280 majors, 10,280 captains, 520 aids de-camp, 100 adjutants, 1,000 regimental quartermasters, 1,000 regimental commissaries, 10,280
first lieutenants, 10,280
second lieutenants, 840 supernumerary second lieutenants, 1,000
sergeant-majors 1,000 quartermaster sergeants, 1,000 commissary-sergeants 70 saddler-sergeants, 70 chief trumpeters, 70 chief farriers or blacksmiths, 1,070 regimental hospital stewards, 10,280 first sergeants, 1,680 company quartermaster-sergeants, 43,640 sergeants, 85,600 corporals, 18,830 musicians, 1,580 farriers or blacksmiths, 840 saddlers, 1,680 artificers, 10,280 wagoners, 1,680 teamsters, 873,200 privates — a total of 39,992 commissioned officers, and 1,092,402 rank and file!
This huge mob is supplied by a population not exceeding 20,000,000 of souls, and I kept up at an expense which cannot fall short of $1,000,000,000
per annum, by a Government that has no resources but its credit, and no shadow of bare to support that credit but the direct taxation of its subjects.
All the national insanities of which we ever read — the expedition of
Xerxes, the Crusades, the invasion of
Russia — were absolute wisdom in comparison to this.
We are preparing swiftly, and steadily, to meet the invasion threatened by this huge multitude. --Our men are not so numerous, but they are braver; they have never boasted so loudly, but they have achieved infinitely more.
They have never met the
Yankees, where the proportion was not more than three to one, that they have not beaten them.
They have already had in the field 770,000 men, and they have made no progress.
The addition of a few hundred thousand more will not make a difference in results.
We feel as well assured that this host will be beaten back before the next winter, or that it will expend its strength in vain endeavors to subjugate us, as we are of our own existence.
And there comes the reflux of the tide, overwhelming everything as it rushes back.
Then comes the season of dismay and baffled rage, of crimination and recrimination.
Then will the
Yankee nation rise up as one man and demand an account of the hundreds of thousands who have been led to slaughter, or deaths to which that on the battle- field is pleasure in comparison.
Then will one long howl go up from the whole pack of Northern curs, and then will our opportunity come.
What ever reverses we may meet with, this consummation is absolutely certain.
Reverses to us will be but temporary inconveniences: to the
Yankees they will be irretrievable ruin.
