mayhap show the "bomb-proof brigadiers" and others that his failure to hold the Bowling Green-Cumberland line with 22,000 against 100,000 was not due to cowardice.

The whole thing is preposterous. All the prominent Southern generals exposed themselves too frequently. Joe Johnston and Beauregard did it at Manassas. Jackson did it habitually. Ewell frequently rushed to the very front of battle. Stuart's black plume was always in front, just as Henry of Navarre's white plume beckoned his men ever onward. In the Wilderness, General Lee's horse was seized by the Texans, who said, "If you will go back, General, we will go forward." It was a bad though noble habit of the Southern leaders. In the early days of the war, the sentiment of the troops rather demanded it. A sad experience taught them better. The loss of Sidney Johnston and Stonewall Jackson was the price paid for their experience.

This custom of the Southern generals, even Grant could not understand. He says in his Personal Memoirs that the Southern troops at Shiloh could not have felt confident of victory, as they permitted Johnston to ride along the front of battle. What chains could have bound that man after he smelt the powder?

Johnston was first buried in New Orleans. After the war, his remains were removed to Austin, Texas. Among his pall-bearers were Beauregard, Bragg, Buckner, Hood, Longstreet, and "Dick Taylor." All but one of these have "crossed over the river" and are resting "under the shade of the trees" with the dread Stonewall.

G

CHAPTER IX

THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR

I

A Prostrate Nation

ENERAL LEE, as already stated, surrendered April

9, 1865. On April 26, followed the surrender of General Joheph E. Johnston in North Carolina; in May, that of General Richard Taylor in Mississippi, and that of General E. Kirby Smith west of the Mississippi river. By the last of June, there was not a Confederate soldier in arms against the United States government. Never did an army lay down its arms in better faith, or with more sincere acceptance of the terms offered by the conqueror. How these terms were kept by some of the conquerors, history will tell in flaming letters, calling to her aid essay, fiction and drama, and the eloquence of tongues yet unborn. General Grant acted honorably and kindly. Mr. Lincoln seems to have nursed no mean grudge against the fallen foe; but, if General Lee could have foreseen the events of the years from 1865 to 1876, he would have hidden his ragged remnant in the Appalachian mountains, and two new generations of Southern youth would have kept the contest to the present moment. But for the personal

up

influence of General Grant, General Robert E. Lee would have been prosecuted for treason. President Davis, VicePresident Stephens, Governor Brown, of Georgia, Governor Clark, of Mississippi, General Howell Cobb, Senator Hill, of Georgia, and other prominent men were arrested and put in prison. The greatest sufferer was President Davis. His treatment by some government officials at Fortress Monroe reads like a chapler from the Spanish Inquisition or from a history of the Indians. Mrs. Davis's account of that treatment and of the disrespect shown her by one or two prominent officials at Fort Monroe, challenges the credulity of mankind. Mr. Davis was never brought to trial. The United States Government knew that an impartial jury might well fail to find him guilty of treason against the government, and that eminent lawyers were ready to argue his case before the world. The failure to try Mr. Davis was a great constitutional victory for the South, and posterity will so regard it. The North could not have proved that he had committed treason against the government.

The cost of the war is almost beyond calculation. Besides slaves worth about two thousand million dollars, the South lost values of every kind, footing up at least two thousand million more. There was practically no money in circulation, her banks had gone to ruin, her credit was totally gone, all basis of credit was destroyed, her stocks and bonds were utterly worthless, provisions almost exhausted, bankruptcy was universal. The whole land lay in utter paralysis and ruin.