mining, manufacture, commerce, art, science, and literature, found
but two fields open in which they could distinguish themselves--war
and politics--and into these they entered boldly and successfully
and became leading statesmen and renowned warriors. So the
surroundings of the Old South determined the destiny of its sons,
just as the surroundings of the North determined that of its sons.
Exceptional cases occurred at the South where fame was won outside
of politics. Thus, Audubon, of Louisiana, was the first as he is the
most distinguished, of American ornithologists. Washington Allston,
of South Carolina, ranks among the foremost of American painters.
M. F. Maury, of Virginia, has done more for navigation than any one
of this century, and he received more medals, diplomas, and honors
as a man of science from European nations than any other American.
John Gill, of New Bern, N. C., is the true inventor of the revolver
which has revolutionized the tactics of the world. Dr. Clemens, of
Salisbury, N. C., is the true inventor of the telegraph, which has
made almost instantaneous the intercourse between the most distant
nations of the earth. McCormick, of Virginia, was the first to put
the reaper into the field, which has done so much to develop the
vast grain fields of the West. Stevens, of South Carolina, was
the first to use iron as a protection against artillery, and thus
the whole system of naval warfare has been changed. Dr. Reed, of
Tuscaloosa, Ala., is the inventor of rifled cannon, which have made
useless fortifications of stone and brick. Richard Jordan Gatling,
of Hertford county, N. C., is the inventor of the terrible gun that
bears his name. The Georgians claim that their countryman, Rev. F.
R. Goulding, is the inventor of the sewing machine. General Gabriel
J. Rains, by the construction of a peculiar friction primer, made
the use of torpedoes successful in the Southern waters during the
civil war, and demonstrated that weak maritime nations could be
protected against the most powerful. The Le Contes, of Georgia, are
to-day among our foremost men of science. Dr. J. Marion Sims, of
South Carolina, had more reputation abroad than any other American
physician. In literature, we have had such men as Marshall, Kennedy,
Gayarre, Wirt, Gilmore Simms, Hawks, Legaré, Hayne, Ryan, Timrod,
the Elliotts, of South Carolina, Ticknor, Lanier, Thornwell,
Archibald Alexander and his sons, Addison and James W., A. T.
Bledsoe, Mrs. Welby, Mrs. Terhune. Brooke, of Virginia, solved the
problem of deep-sea sounding, which had so long baffled men of
science. But the other day, General John Newton, of Virginia, was at
the head of the Engineering Department of the United States. Stephen
V. Benet, of Florida, is now head of the United States Ordnance
Department, and Dr. Robert Murray, of Maryland, is Surgeon-General.
Most of the Southern inventions were lost to those whose genius
devised them, because the Old South had no foundries and
machine-shops in which they could be made, and no great centers
of trade by which they could be put upon the market. With rare
magnanimity, Southern Congressmen had voted for protective tariffs,
fishing bounties and coast-trade regulations, which did so much
to build up the big cities and great commerce of the North and to
fill its coffers to overflowing. Even Mr. Calhoun had voted to
protect "infant industries," believing that the infants would in
the course of time learn to crawl and walk, and do without pap. But
that time has not yet come. Thomas Prentice Kettell, a Northern
man, estimates that in these three ways the Old South contributed
from 1789 to 1861 $2,770,000,000 of her wealth to Northern profits.
Our statesmen knew, surely, that their own section would never
get one dollar in return from this enormous expenditure. But they
were patriotic enough to be willing to make the nation rich and
prosperous, even at the expense, for a season, of their own beloved
South. My Countrymen! that Old South was a generous Old South. The
world scoffs at such generosity and says, "it don't pay." The Old
South believed with the wise man that "A good name is to be chosen
rather than great riches, and loving favor than gold and silver."
But the world does not think with Solomon and the Old South, and
chooses great riches rather than the good name, and gives its
loving favor to the holders of the gold and silver. But while the
Old South had some success in literature, art, and science, the
character of its people ought to be judged mainly by what they
accomplished in two departments to which their efforts were mostly
restricted--politics and war. Did the Old South give to the country
wise statesmen and brave warriors? This will be the subject of the
present investigation.
Mr. Bancroft says: "American Independence, like the great rivers of
the country, had many sources, but the head-spring which colored all
the stream was the Navigation Act." The whole of New England was in
a blaze of fury because of it. The effect of it upon their commerce
and shipping interest was most disastrous, and they believed that
ruin impended over them. The Old South was equally excited, though
it had no carrying trade and was in nowise affected by the act. But
an agricultural people, living much by themselves, develop large
individuality, and are always liberty-loving. Hence, though in many
respects the gainers by intercourse with England, the sons of the
Old South stoutly resisted all encroachments upon their freedom by
the Mother Country--a term of endearment they still loved to use.
The Old South denounced the Navigation Act, which did not hurt its
interests at all, just as severely as it did the Stamp and Revenue
Acts. All were blows at the inalienable rights of freemen, and all
were alike opposed. Christopher Gadsden, of South Carolina, in a
speech delivered in Charleston in 1766, advocated the independence
of the colonies, and he was the first American to proclaim that
thought. The first American Congress met in Philadelphia on the
7th of October, 1774. Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, was elected
President of that body. On the 20th of May, 1775, the Scotch-Irish
of Mecklenburg county, N. C., absolved all allegiance to the crown
of Great Britain, and set up a government of its own. On the 12th of
April, 1776, the Provincial Congress of North Carolina took the lead
of all the States in passing resolutions of independence. On the 7th
of June that year, Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, moved: "These
United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent
States." It was upon this motion in the Continental Congress that
the separation from Great Britain took place. It was a Virginian who
wrote the Declaration of Independence. It was a Virginian who led
the rebel armies to victory and to freedom. It was a Southerner,
Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, whose draft of the Constitution
was mainly adopted.
Thus, independence was declared upon the motion of one Southerner;
its principles were set forth in the declaration written by another
Southerner. A third led the armies of the rebel colonies to victory,
while a fourth framed the Constitution, which, though denounced at
one time by the South-haters as "a covenant with death and a league
with hell," has lived for a hundred years, and is likely to live for
many hundreds more.
You of this newly-discovered region need not be ashamed of your
ancestors and blush that they lived in the Old Bourbon South. That
Bourbon régime lasted for eighty years, the grandest and noblest of
American history. Eleven of seventeen Presidents were of Southern
birth. Fifty-seven of the eighty were spent under the administration
of Southern-born Presidents. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe,
and Jackson, each served eight years, in all forty years--just
one-half the life of the nation. Of the six Northern Presidents,
John Quincy Adams was elected by the House of Representatives and
not by the people and contrary to the wishes of the people. Nor was
Mr. Fillmore elected to the Presidency, but on the death of General
Taylor succeeded to the office and served out the unexpired term.
So during the existence of the Old South, John Adams, Van Buren,
Pierce, and Buchanan were the only Northern Presidents elected by
the people. A remarkable thing is, that all the Southern Presidents
were re-elected by the people except Mr. Polk, and he did not seek a
renomination. This fact speaks volumes for the capacity of Southern
men for the administration of affairs. Another curious fact is that
every Northern President had associated with him as Vice-President
a man from the Old South. Thus, the first Adams had Jefferson,
the second Adams had Calhoun, Van Buren had R. M. Johnson, Pierce
had W. R. King, and Buchanan had Breckinridge. On the other hand
Jackson served one term as President with a Southern man, Calhoun,
as Vice-President; Harrison and his associate were both born in
Virginia; Lincoln and Johnson were both born in the South.
This period of eighty years has been called by the North: "The Era
of the Domination of the Slave-power." Without raising an objection
to the discourteous phraseology, I would simply say that it is an
admission that the South had marvelous success in its desire for
political supremacy--one of the two objects of its ambition. Before
passing to our second question: "Did the Old South produce brave
and successful warriors?" I will allude to a few characteristic
incidents, which do not bear materially upon either of the two
questions under consideration.
"In the year 1765, on the passage of the Stamp Act, Colonel John
Ashe, Speaker of the House of Commons of North Carolina, informed
Governor Tryon that the law would be resisted to every extent. On
the arrival of the British sloop-of-war _Diligence_ in the Cape Fear
river he and Colonel Waddell, at the head of a body of the citizens
of New Hanover and Brunswick counties marched down together, and
frightened the captain of the sloop so that he did not attempt to
land the stamped paper. Then they seized the boat of the sloop,
and carried it with flags flying to Wilmington, and the whole town
was illuminated that night. On the next day they marched to the
Governor's house and demanded that Tryon should desist from all
attempts to execute the Stamp Act, and forced him to deliver up
Houston, the stampmaster for North Carolina. Having seized upon
him, they carried him to the market-house, and there made him take
an oath never to attempt to execute the duties of his office as
stampmaster.
"It was nearly ten years after that the Boston tea-party assembled,
when a number of citizens, disguised as Indians, went on board
a ship and threw overboard the tea imported in her. This was
done in the night by men in disguise, and was directed against a
defenseless ship. But the North Carolina movement, ten years earlier
in point of time, occurred in open day, and was made against the
Governor himself, ensconced in his palace, and by men who scorned
disguise."--_Senator T. L. Clingman._
Every schoolboy knows of the Boston tea-party of 1773; how many of
my intelligent audience know of the Wilmington party of 1765? Yea,
verily, the Old South has sorely needed historians of its own.
Virginia gave seven Presidents and many illustrious statesmen and
warriors to the nation. She gave Patrick Henry, the war-trumpet
of the Revolution, Washington, its sword, and Jefferson, its
mouth-piece. When independence and white-winged peace came to the
colonies, she gave to the Union that vast Northwest Territory,
out of which have been carved the great States of Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. [New York, Massachusetts, and
Connecticut also ceded their claim to this territory.]
Oh, but generosity does not pay. Possibly the "mother of States and
statesmen" thought so when the soldiers of these five great States
swarmed over her soil, and grand old Virginia became District No. 1.
I'll now take up the second question: "Did the Old South furnish
brave soldiers?" The commander-in-chief in the rebellion against
Great Britain was the Southern-born Washington, of whom Byron
lamented that the earth had no more seed to produce another like
unto him, and of whom Wellington said "He was the grandest, the
sublimest, and yet withal the plainest and simplest character in
the world's history." That the Old South did its duty in this war,
I will try to show, notwithstanding imperfect records and deceptive
pension rolls. The Old South went nobly to the assistance of their
Northern brethren, who were first attacked, and nearly all the
battle-fields of the North were drenched with Southern blood.
In the retreat from Long Island, Smallwood's Maryland regiment
distinguished itself above all the continental troops, losing two
hundred and fifty-nine in killed and wounded. The Virginians made up
a large portion of the army of Washington at Trenton and Princeton,
where the wails of despair of the American people were changed into
shouts of victory. Two future Presidents of the United States of
Southern birth were in those battles, one of whom was wounded. The
only general officer there slain was in command of Virginia troops.
Southern blood flowed freely at Brandywine and Germantown, and in
the latter battle a North Carolina general was slain, whose troops
suffered greatly. It was General George Rogers Clark, of Virginia,
who, with a Virginia brigade, chastised the Indians that committed
the massacre in the valley of Wyoming. He made a Stonewall Jackson
march to the rear, penetrated to the upper Mississippi, captured the
Governor of Detroit, and took large booty in his raid. At Monmouth
and Saratoga, Southern blood was commingled with the Northern in the
battles of freedom. In the battle of Saratoga, Morgan's Virginia
Riflemen greatly distinguished themselves and slew General Fraser,
the inspiring spirit of the British army. The guerilla troops, under
Sumter, Marion, Moultrie, Pickens, Clarke, and others, drove the
British, step by step, back to Charleston, where they were cooped up
till the end came.
It is my deliberate opinion that no battles of the Revolution will
compare in brilliancy with the defense of Moultrie, the defeat of
Ferguson at King's Mountain, and the defeat of Tarleton at Cowpens,
all fought by Southern troops on Southern soil. In the last fight
the victory was won when almost lost by the cavalry charge of
William Washington, and the free use of the bayonet by that peerless
soldier, your own John Eager Howard. The old "tar-heel" State, on
the 16th of May, 1771, in the Battle of Alamance, poured out the
first blood of the Revolution in resistance to British tyranny.
The battle of Guilford Court House, fought on her soil solely by
Southern troops, gave Cornwallis his first check in his career of
victory, and led eventually to his capture. The first victory of the
Revolution was won at Moore's Creek Bridge, in North Carolina, by
Caswell and Lillington, in which one thousand Scotch loyalists were
captured. Who knows of that battle? Oh, modest tar-heel State, in
the slang of the newly-discovered country, "modesty does not pay!"
Nevertheless, true courage and true modesty walk hand in hand. One
word as to the misleading rolls of the Revolution. I was born in
the Scotch-Irish settlement of Carolina, which furnished troops to
Sumter, Pickens, Davie, Davidson, Shelby, and others. These men
were never regularly enrolled; they gathered together for battle,
and went back to their plows when the fight was over. There were
no Tories in that regiment; it was thoroughly Whig. But I never
heard of more than one pensioner in all that country. These men
scorned the bounty of the Government for simply doing their duty.
No official records ever bore the names of those gallant partisans,
whose daring deeds are known only to the Omniscient. There were no
horn-blowers and quill-drivers among them.
If we come to the war of 1812, all will concede that Jackson, of
North Carolina, and Harrison, of Virginia, gained the most laurels,
as shown by the elevation of both of them to the Presidency. All,
too, readily concede that the brilliant land fights of that war were
in defense of New Orleans, Mobile, Craney Island, and Baltimore, all
fought by Southern troops on Southern soil.
Although the war was waged in the interest of the maritime rights
of the North, it soon became unpopular in New England, because it
seriously damaged trade and commerce. The Hartford Convention shows
how deep was the defection in that region. The doctrine of secession
was taught there half a century before the South took it up.[2]
Hence, in this war, the Old South furnished more than her proportion
of troops. Southern troops flocked North, and in the battles in
Canada a large number of general officers were from the Old South;
Harrison, Scott, Wilkinson, Izard, Winder, Hampton, Gaines, Towson,
Brooke, Drayton, and others. Kentucky sent more men for the invasion
of Canada than did any other State.
[2] In Barnes' _History of the United States_ the author tells us
(page 167) of the ravaging of the Southern coast in the war of
1812 by the noted Admiral Cockburn. He says: "Along the Virginia
and Carolina coast, he (Cockburn) burned bridges, farm-houses, and
villages; robbed the inhabitants of their crops, stock, and slaves;
plundered churches of their communion services and murdered the
sick in their beds." And then the author explains why the Southern
coast was devastated and the New England coast was not disturbed.
This explanation is in a foot-note, which reads as follows: "New
England was spared because of a belief that the Northern States were
unfriendly to the war and would yet return to their allegiance to
Great Britain."
This is the statement of a Northern writer, and not the fabrication
of an enemy. How did the belief start among the British people
that New England wished to return to its allegiance to the "mother
country?"
All honor to the United States sailors of the North who had
no sympathy with the Hartford Convention, and nobly did their
duty--Perry, Bainbridge, Stewart, Lawrence, Porter, Preble, and
others. The "Don't give up the ship" of the dying Lawrence is a
precious legacy to the whole American people.
But the unmaritime South claims among the naval heroes of that
period Decatur, of Maryland; Macdonough, of Delaware; Jacob Jones,
of same State; the two Shubricks of South Carolina; Jesse D.
Elliott, of Maryland; Blakely, of North Carolina, and others. A very
large proportion of the naval heroes of the war of 1812 came from
Maryland.
In the Mexican war the commanders-in-chief on both lines were born
in Virginia, one of whom became President for his exploits, and the
other an unsuccessful candidate for the Presidency. This war was
unpopular in the North, and hence the South furnished troops to
carry it on out of all proportion to her population. The Old South,
out of a total population of 9,521,437, gave 48,649 volunteers,
and gave also the rifle regiment, recruited within her borders,
making in all 50,000 soldiers. The North, out of a population of
13,676,439, gave but 24,698 volunteers. All New England gave 1,057
volunteers. (I use the American Almanac for these figures and the
census report of 1850.)
It will be admitted, without question, that Butler's South Carolina
and Davis' Mississippi gained more reputation than the other
volunteer regiments. I think it will be equally admitted that
Quitman's Southern division of volunteers had the confidence of
General Scott, next to his two divisions of regulars. Scott's chief
engineers on that wonderful march from Vera Cruz to the City of
Mexico were Swift, of North Carolina, and R. E. Lee, of Virginia.
His chief of ordnance was Huger, of South Carolina.
The most brilliant exploit of that war was the attack of Tattnall,
of Georgia, in a little gunboat, upon the castle of San Juan D'Ulloa
and the land batteries at Vera Cruz. If there was anything more
daring in that war, so full of great deeds, my eyes were not so
fortunate as to behold it.
The bold, bluff tar of that day had a gentle, loving heart, full of
kindly sympathy with his own race and lineage, as shown by rowing
through shot and shell to offer such assistance as international law
permitted to the British Admiral suffering under the murderous fire
of the Peiho forts in China. "Blood is thicker than water" was the
grand sentiment of the grand sailor, as he hurried to the rescue of
the sufferers of his own blood and race. These things don't pay;
nevertheless, it would be a cold, miserable, selfish world without
them.
Maryland had no reason to suppose that her sons had degenerated from
the days of Otho Williams, John Eager Howard, and William Smallwood
when the Mexican war brought out such men as Ringgold, the first
organizer of horse-artillery; Ridgeley, his dashing successor; and
Charley May, the hero of the cavalry charge upon the Mexican battery.
Coming down to the Civil War, the President on the Union side was
a Southern-born man, his successor was born in North Carolina,
and the commanding general, who first organized his troops, was a
Virginian. His great War Secretary, the Carnot of that day, was born
in Edgecombe county, North Carolina, though he would never admit it.
The Union generals who struck us the heaviest blows, next to those
of Grant and Sherman, were from our own soil. From West Point there
came forth forty-five graduates of Southern birth, who became
Federal generals. I have their names, from George H. Thomas and
George Sykes to David Hunter and John Pope, with the States of their
nativity, viz.: George H. Thomas, Va.; George Sykes, Del.; E. O. C.
Ord, Md.; R. C. Buchanan, Md.; E. R. S. Canby, Ky.; Jesse L. Reno,
Va.; John Newton, Va.; R. W. Johnson, Ky.; J. J. Reynolds, Ky.;
J. M. Brannan, D. C.; John Buford, Ky.; Thomas J. Wood, Ky.; John
W. Davidson, Va.; John C. Tidball, Va.; Alvan C. Gillenn, Tenn.;
William R. Terrill, Va.; A. T. A. Torbert, Del.; Samuel L. Carroll,
D. C.; N. B. Buford, Ky.; Alfred Pleasonton, D. C.; I. M. Mitchell,
Ky.; George W. Getty, D. C.; William Hayes, Va.; A. B. Dyer, Va.;
John J. Abercrombie, Tenn.; Robert Anderson, Ky.; Robert Williams,
Va.; Henry E. Maynadier, Va.; Kenner Garrard, Ky.; H. C. Bankhead,
Md.; H. C. Gibson, Md.; John C. McFerran, Ky.; B. S. Alexander, Ky.;
E. B. Alexander, Ky.; Washington Seawell, Va.; P. St. G. Cooke,
Va.; G. R. Paul, Mo.; W. H. Emory, Md.; R. H. K. Whitely, Md.; W.
H. French, Md.; H. D. Wallen, Mo.; J. L. Donaldson, Md.; Fred. T.
Dent, Mo.; David Hunter, Va.; John Pope, Ky. Most of these were good
officers, and some of them were superb. I could name six or eight of
them who did the very best they could for their native land by going
on the Federal side. In addition to these forty-five West Point
Southerners in the Federal army, some of the high officers of that
army were born in the South, but not educated at West Point; Joseph
R. Hawley (now Senator from Connecticut); John C. Frémont, the three
Crittendens, and Frank Blair.
If we come to the United States Navy we find abundant proof of
Southern prowess. Farragut, of Tennessee, was considered the hardest
fighter and most successful commander, as shown by his elevation to
the highest rank, that of Admiral--a rank specially created in order
to honor him. Winslow, of North Carolina, was made a Rear-Admiral
for sinking the Alabama. Goldsborough, of Maryland, was made a
Rear-Admiral for the capture of Hatteras. Many other names of
gallant Southerners will readily occur to you who are more familiar
with the United States Navy than I am.
I will refer to but five points more in connection with the Civil
War:
_Disparity of numbers._ The population of the eleven States that
seceded was, in 1860, 8,710,098, of whom 3,520,840 were slaves.
That of the other States and Territories was 22,733,223, giving an
excess over the whole seceded population of 14,023,125, and over
the white population, of 17,543,965; the excess of population being
nearly double the whole population of the States in revolt, and
more than three times the white population of those States. These
are tremendous odds, my countrymen, and the Old South need not be
ashamed of her sons who contended for four years against them.
But as the job of "suppressing the unnatural rebellion" still
dragged its slow length along, 54,137 sympathetic Union men in the
Rebel States joined the Federal army, and 186,017 "brothers in
black" were in some way induced to enter the service. Secretary
Stanton assured the world that the "colored troops fought nobly,"
and that without them "the life of the nation could not have been
saved." There is another interesting aspect of the numerical
statistics. The seceded States are supposed to have had, from first
to last, seven hundred thousand men in the field, and you must
admit that this is a very large number out of a population of five
millions. The other belligerent had in the field from the first to
last, 2,859,132, or more than four times the Confederate forces.
Where did these immense hosts come from? The Southern States on the
border, slave-holding States, furnished in all 301,062, and thus the
entire South gave to the Union army 541,216 fighting men. From what
quarter of the globe did the remaining two million three hundred
thousand come?