Two Wars: An Autobiography of General Samuel G. French

Henceforth, then, let it be known that the Confederate army was not an army of slave owners. To the people of the South it was well known that the slaves were fast becoming the property of the owners of large estates, and on many sugar and cotton plantations there were from one to two hundred negroes employed. The tendency was to consolidate labor, as it was more profitable. Therefore it was that the Confederate army was mainly composed of men as free from interests in slavery as were the men living in sight of Bunker Hill. These men were contending for an object far more dear to them than any arising from slavery. They had seen the accumulated funds of the United States treasury expended in making harbors for towns on the great Northern lakes yearly, and in digging deep-water channels for Eastern cities, and appropriations for little creeks called rivers; while the harbors of the Southern cities were neglected. Then, again, the tariff almost invariably discriminated against the South, even to the extent of nullification, almost thirty years anterior to the war; then the fugitive slave act was nullified by Northern State laws; "underground railroad" was a term used to express how negro slaves were conveyed under cover of the night to the North when enticed from their owners. They openly published that the Constitution was a "compact made with the devil;" and the hatred of the North and the West was so widespread that by a sectional party vote they elected a President antagonistic to the South. These are but a few of the acts that caused secession; and yet he who believes that secession was entertained by more than a mere majority of the people South is mistaken. Genuine love and an abiding fidelity to the Constitution were ever found in the South. Her cause for complaint also was that the people of the North and West, actuated by hatred of the people South, proclaimed that the higher law of conscience was superior to the Constitution!

Events came on apace. The Southern people were homogeneous, "to the manner born." Save only in the commercial cities were there any foreigners and but few Northerners. North Carolina did not have quite one per cent foreign; the West had about thirty-five per cent. (Census Report.)

When coercion of the South was proclaimed, it was the homogeneousness of her people that solidified both parties at once to a common defense of their homes, and these five hundred and seventy-six thousand soldiers, without interest in slavery, for four years fought for the right of their people to govern themselves in their own way. Their deeds are now a matter of history that will, by them, be recorded, contrary to the past rule, that the conquerors always write history.

Appomattox terminated the war only – it was not a court to adjudicate the right of secession – but its sequence established the fact that secession was not treason nor rebellion, and that it yet exists, restrained only by the question of expediency. Wherefore the Union will be maintained mainly by avoiding sectional and class legislation, and remembering always that in the halls of legislation the minority have some rights, and in the minority the truth will generally be found.

The charge, then, that the slaveholders, so few in number, forced secession, or that the five hundred and seventy-six thousand nonslaveholders who really constituted the Confederate army were battling to maintain slavery, is a popular error.

The cry at the North that the South was fighting to maintain slavery was proclaimed (as I have elsewhere said) to prejudice the Emperor Napoleon III. and the English Cabinet against forming an alliance with the Confederate States; but the power of public opinion and the press were such that they were obliged to remain neutral; for this constrained neutrality England was rewarded by being forced, when the war ended, to pay the United States the sum of fifteen million dollars – the Geneva award– for the ships destroyed by Admiral Raphael Semmes, Confederate States Navy; and France was rewarded by obliging Napoleon to withdraw his troops from Mexico, and leave poor Maximilian to his fate – a warning for weak men thirsting for empire.

Prison Deaths and Prisoners

The number of Confederate prisoners in Northern prisons was 220,000, and the number of Federal prisoners in prisons South was 270,000.

See the report of Secretary Stanton, made July 9, 1866; also the report of Surgeon General Barnes, United States Army.

Some of the Brigade Losses in Particular Engagements.

There are thirteen more brigades with losses, varying in numbers, before the percentage is reduced to forty per cent.

Percentage of Loss in Some Regiments in Single Battles.

And so on. There are over fifty regiments in the Confederate army before forty per cent is reached. How many there are in the Federal army I do not know. (From "The Confederate Soldier in the Civil War," and other sources.)

The Authority to Tax

is the greatest power a people can give a government, yet it is a necessary measure, but often dangerous; it can be used to impoverish a people, or enrich a comparatively few individuals, or to rob one section of a vast country to build up another. It has caused more distress than droughts or floods; it has caused more insurrections, revolutions, and wars than all other acts of man intrusted with authority. There are many modes of taxation, but the most insidious one is the quiet robbery by a tariff.

This might be demonstrated by the United States pension laws. The pensioners (and I am a Mexican war pensioner) receive as a free gift from the treasury the sum of about one hundred and fifty million dollars annually. It goes to enrich the people of the States where they reside.

If there be no pensioners living in any one State, that State contributes to support the pensioners, but receives nothing in return: so, if all the pensioners were to become citizens of any one State, that State would receive in pension money one hundred and fifty million dollars yearly, or in fifteen years the enormous sum of two billion two hundred and fifty million dollars derived by taxation of the people in the other States, less the sum that one State paid and returned to it.

Now, if all the pensioners, from any cause, should migrate to Ohio, or North Carolina, would the other forty-four States be taxed for (say) the benefit of the people of the State of North Carolina in the sum of two billion two hundred and fifty million dollars during the next fifteen years? No, never.

The presumption is that the Southern States pay, under the revenue laws, one-third of the revenue collected. If so, then the South pays the pensioners about fifty million dollars annually, and receives in return only the small sum paid the few pensioners residing within the Southern States; and thus one section of the country is taxed, under the revenue tariff laws, to enrich the other, Q. E. D.

Cost of the War.

Naval Power of the United States

The following enumeration of the vessels in the United States service will convey some idea of the power of the North:

Seven hundred vessels were employed in blockading our coast and guarding our rivers.

During the year 1862-63 there were 533 steamers, barges, and coal boats belonging to the United States on the Mississippi river and its tributaries; and at the same time the United States Quartermaster's Department chartered 1,750 steamers and vessels to aid Gen. Grant in his operations against Vicksburg. In short, there were 2,283 vessels, exclusive of iron-clad mortar boats, operating to capture Vicksburg. The actual siege commenced May 18, and ended July 4, 1863, embracing a period of forty-seven days.

Names, Rank, and Positions of Officers on My Staff

• Abercrombie, Wiley, Lieutenant, Aid-de-Camp.

• Anderson, Archer, Major, Aid-de-Camp.

• Archer, C., Lieutenant, Ord. Officer.

• Baker, J. A., Captain, Aid-de-Camp.

• Baldwin, John M., Captain, Acting Ord. Officer.

• Cain, W. H., Captain, Commissary.

• Danner, Albert, Captain, Quartermaster.

• Daves, Graham, Major, A. A. General.

• Drane, N. M., Captain, Quartermaster.

• Freeman, E. T., Lieutenant, A. A. I. General.

• Haile, Calhoun, Lieutenant, Aid-de-Camp.

• Harrison, William B., Major, Chief Surgeon.

• Morey, John B., Major, Chief Quartermaster.

• Myers, C. D., Lieutenant, Aid-de-Camp.

• Overton, M., Captain, Ord. Officer.

• Reynolds, F. A., Captain, A. A. General.

• Robertson, N. H., Lieutenant, Artillery.

• Rogers, H. J., Captain, Engineer.

• Sanders, D. W., Major, Adj. General.

• Shingleur, James A., Lieutenant, Maj. and A. A. G.

• Shumaker, S. M., Major, Chief Artillery.

• Storrs, George S., Lieutenant, Maj. and Chief Art.

• Venet, John B., Captain, Engineer.

• Yerger, James R., Lieutenant, Aid-de-Camp.

• Thomas, Grigsby E., Sergeant, Ordnance.