of the free States lay directly east of them. The binding influence of the river was much diminished when another adequate substitute, which might answer all purposes for a long time, was provided. It seemed as if the South must suffer most; yet she lay on the Gulf and the ocean, and supplied most of the world's cotton. The political difficulty was increased by the superiority of the free and more populous North in filling vacant territory with settlers in a short time. A final struggle in Kansas tested this point, turned in favor of that section, and hastened the determination of the South to separate. This conclusion was a sad interruption to a great career. Both sections had worked out beginnings and were ready to reap what they had sown when called away from labor by the tocsin of war.

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The means that had contributed in such a high degree to the wonderful development of the Valley, that had seemed to join the sections indissolubly, became the most efficient aids to rival armies. The telegraph, which had so expedited business, now conveyed military orders from, and information to, every important point. The work of months, by telegraph, river and rail, could be compressed into days. Armies concentrated by railroad in an incredibly short time, and their movements could usually be followed by long trains containing their baggage and supplies for support and defence or for aggression. The steamboat was equally useful, for, if it could not go everywhere, it could reach numerous important points, be made a floating battery besides, and become a powerful engine of war.

Both railroads and steamboats added to the magnitude and destructiveness of the conflict. Larger armies could be gathered, fed and rapidly moved from point to point; destructive engines of war of great weight could be quickly moved. But, inasmuch as the South stood chiefly on the defensive, these agencies were more harmful to her. Her coasts and rivers could be attacked by powerful shipping, and railroads took

EFFECT OF RIVERS AND RAILROADS ON THE WAR. 373

vast armies far into her borders, while the greater freedom and productive activity of her antagonist reaped vast advantage from the railway system that conducted the business of the North without hindrance, and kept up supplies of men and stores for the attack. But for these, possibly, she might have succeeded in breaking away, permanently, from the bonds that had been so useful and dear but now were so hateful.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE CONFLICT AND ITS LESSONS.

The civil war was caused by a conflict of labor systems. The disapproval of the southern system in the free States was based on moral and economic grounds and on its inconsistency with the theories of democratic equality, on which American institutions were held to be founded. The resistance in the South was founded on the great difference between the white and colored races, which, in the belief of the southern people, · met the moral and democratic objections; on the relations which their labor system sustained to all their industrial and financial interests and to their social organization; and on their absolute right to undisturbed control of a local institution which had been recognized in the formation of the Republic.

The conflict broke out on the question of the extension of that system. The South required its enlargement to maintain political equilibrium; the North refused to consent. The exact legal status of the question was violently disputed; the forces behind such questions permitted no common understanding and the South determined on separation. The free States were in possession of the Federal Government and refused to permit it. The sword alone could decide the question. The North considered it impossible to abandon either the fundamental principle of democratic liberty or the Union on which general prosperity depended. The South saw all its interests and its own personal liberties involved. Such was the Gordian knot of difficulty to be cut by war.

After the presidential election of November, 1860, South Carolina commenced preparations for leaving the Union. In February, the new confederacy was provisionally organized

THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CONFLICT.

375 at Montgomery, Ala., which then included only the more Southern states from Texas to the Carolinas. Virginia, Tennessee and Arkansas were slower in their action, but decided in May to join their fortunes to the Confederate States. West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri were divided in opinion. The bombardment of Fort Sumter, a Federal fortress in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, in April, 1861, opened the military conflict and "let loose the dogs of

war."

From that time preparation was diligently made on each side, though nearly ten months elapsed before anything more than preliminary trials of strength occurred. The severest engagements were skirmishing compared to the serious work that followed. Indeed, it was not to be expected that citizens should become skillful in war without an introductory training and discipline. The battle of Bull Run, the campaign in West Virginia, the many fights in Missouri, and the few that preceded the advance of the Federal army under Grant on Forts Henry and Donelson in Kentucky, were all of that character. They were the first essays of citizens in arms who were learning to be soldiers. There was too much seriousness and resolution behind these, sometimes awkward and uncertain, essays in war not to make them extremely useful lessons. There was good material for soldiers on each side.

The active and decisive parts of the great conflict took place in the Valley, because its result depended on the possession of that fountain of resources. If the central artery of the Valley could be held by the South and its lower Valley defended, the armies in Virginia would not be able to decide the issue. In this view the taking of Vicksburg was a much more important event than the battle of Gettysburg, which sent Lee back to Virginia, for it opened the whole length of the great river to Federal use; and the battle of Chickamauga, with the subsequent series of battles ending with the capture of Atlanta and the dispersion of the great

Southern army in the Valley, had more effect on the result than the campaign in the Wilderness which drove General Lee from the Rapidan to Petersburg. Whatever the comparative size of the armies or the force and skill employed, it was necessary for the winning side to hold the Valley. It furnished the strength and resources indispensable to a continuance of the conflict by the South.

While the North was gathering and training its vast armies, the South hastened to occupy the frontiers of its wide field. A confused conflict raged from Kansas to the Potomac through the border States. The Confederate forces occupied West Virginia, though not in sufficient strength to hold the line of the Ohio. Kentucky endeavored to remain neutral, but many of her citizens organized both for the North and the South. Federal forces gathered along the Ohio, while the Confederate armies occupied posts on the Mississippi River in the State, and their lines extended across the lower part of the State from Columbus to the mountains, the three points of advance from Tennessee being along the Mississippi, from Nashville, and from East Tennessee through the mountains. The active work began in West Virginia, which, by the middle of July, was fairly in the hands of the Federal troops. A widespread conflict continued all the summer in Missouri, noless than sixty battles and skirmishes having occurred up to the close of the year. The general result, though not very sharply defined, was in favor of the Federal forces. There was less confusion and more of careful preparation in Kentucky, where the two armies did not hasten so much toward a trial of strength. This was regarded as the key of the situation, and a careful plan of Federal operations was not mature before midwinter.

The first project of invasion in the Valley, entertained by the Federal authorities, was that of sending an expedition on gunboats down the Mississippi to capture and hold commanding positions on its banks, make them the basis of future expe