Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Various

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Agricultural and manufacturing inventions were springing up, full grown, out of the teeming brain of the Yankees, and were fast altering the face of the world. New combinations of natural forces were appearing as the agents of the human will, and were multiplying the physical capacity of man in a ratio that seemed to know no bounds. Commercial enterprise kept pace with these magnificent creations, and never failed, with liberal and enlightened spirit, to avail itself of all the resources which industry produced or genius invented. Our tonnage surpassed that of the greatest nations; the skill of our shipbuilders was unsurpassed; and the courage, industry, and perseverance of our seamen were renowned all over the world. On every ocean and in every important harbor of the earth were daily visible the emblems of our national power and the evidences of our individual prosperity. But in one fatal moment, from a cause which was inherent in our moral and political condition, all this prodigious activity of thought and work was brought to a complete stand. Such a shock was never before experienced, because such a social and material momentum had never before been acquired by any nation, and then been arrested by so gigantic a calamity. It was as if the earth had been suddenly stopped on its axis, and all things on its surface had felt the destructive impulse of the centrifugal force.

      War itself is, unhappily, no uncommon condition of mankind. Wars on a gigantic scale have often heretofore raged among the great nations, or even between sundered parts of the same people. It is not the magnitude of the present contest which constitutes its greatest peculiarity. It is rather the magnitude and importance of the interests it involves and the relations it sunders, which give it the tremendous significance it bears in the eyes of the world. Never has any war found the contending parties engaged in works of such world-wide and absorbing interest, as those which occupied both sections of our people at the commencement of this rebellion. No two people, connected by so many ties, enjoying such unlimited freedom of intercourse, so mutually dependent each upon the other, and occupying a country so utterly incapable of natural divisions, have ever been known to struggle with each other in so sanguinary a conflict. All the circumstances of the case have been unexampled in history. Accordingly the influence of the contest upon affairs on this continent, and indeed upon human affairs generally, has been great and disastrous in proportion to the magnitude of the peaceful works which have been suspended by it, and to the closeness of those brotherly relations which have heretofore existed between the contending parties, now violently broken, and perhaps forever destroyed.

      Almost the entire industry and commerce of the United States have been diverted into new and unaccustomed channels. The most active and enterprising people in the world, in the midst of their varied occupations, suddenly find all the accustomed channels of business blocked up and the stream of their productions flowing back upon them in a disastrous flood, and stagnating in their workshops and storehouses. They are compelled to find new issues for their enterprise and to make a complete change in their habits and works. It is not merely in the cessation of all intercourse between the two vast sections, North and South, that this mighty transformation has taken place; but an equal alteration has been suddenly effected in the character of the business and the nature of the occupations which the people have heretofore pursued in the loyal States of the Union. Great branches of business, employing millions of capital, have been utterly annihilated or indefinitely suspended. Vast amounts of capital have been sunk and utterly lost in the deep gulf of separation which temporarily divides the States; or if they are ever to be recovered, it will be only after the storm shall have completely subsided, when some portions of the wrecks, which have been scattered in the fearful commotion, may be thrown safely on to the shores of reunion. It was anticipated, especially by the rebels themselves, that these incalculable losses, these tremendous shocks and sudden changes, would utterly overwhelm the North with ruin and tear her to pieces with faction and disorder. But this anticipation of accumulated disasters, in which the wish was father to the thought, has not been realized to any appreciable extent. The pecuniary losses have been in a great measure compensated by the immense demands of the war; and when faction has attempted to raise its head, it has been compelled to retire before the patriotic rebuke of the people. And although the vast expenditures of the war give present relief; by drawing largely on the resources of the future, yet the strength we acquire is none the less real or less effectual in overthrowing the rebellion.

      But this sudden and grand emergency, with all its appalling concomitants of lives sacrificed, property destroyed, commercial disaster, and social derangement, has given a rare opportunity for the testing of our national character, and of our ability to meet and overcome the most tremendous difficulties and dangers. Perhaps the versatility of American genius and its ready adaptation to the new circumstances, are even more wonderful than any other exhibition made by our people in this great national crisis. There has never been any good reason to doubt the capacity of any portion of American citizens for warlike occupations, nor their possession of the moral qualities necessary to make them good soldiers. The long period of peace which has blessed our country, with the industrial, educational, and moral improvement produced by it, has rendered war justly distasteful to the Free States of the Union. They were slow to recognize the necessity for it; and nothing but the most solemn convictions of duty would have aroused them to the stern and unanimous determination with which they have entered on the present struggle. Swift would have been our degeneration, if the spirit of our fathers had already died out among us. But our history of less than a century since the Revolutionary war has fully maintained the self-reliant character of Americans and demonstrated their military abilities; and if the commercial and manufacturing populations of particular sections were supposed to have become somewhat enervated by long exemption from the labors and perils of war, it was certain that our large agricultural regions and especially our frontier settlements were peopled with men inured to toil and familiar with danger, constituting the best material for armies to be found in any country. Nor was it in fact true that any considerable portion of our people, even those drawn from the stores and workshops of the cities, had become so far deteriorated in vigor of body, or demoralized in spirit, as to be unfit for military service. The Southern leaders looked with scorn upon our volunteer army only until they encountered it in battle. They were then compelled to alter their preconceived opinions of the Yankee character, and to change their contempt, real or pretended, into respect, if not admiration. Even when superior numbers or better strategy enabled them to beat us, they have seldom failed to bear honorable testimony to the unflinching courage and endurance of our troops. Nor do we need the admissions of the enemy to establish this character for us; our own triumphs, on many glorious fields, are the best evidences of our ability in war, and of themselves sufficiently attest the valor and energy of our noble volunteers. In this aspect of the matter, we must not forget the peculiar character and constitution of our vast army. It is indeed worthy to be called the wonder of the world. It is virtually a voluntary association of the people for the purpose of putting down a gigantic rebellion and saving their own government from destruction. This is a social phenomenon never before known in history on a scale approaching the magnitude of our combinations – a phenomenon which could only take place in a popular government, where the unrestricted freedom of individual action promotes the virtues of personal independence, self-respect, and manly courage. Even the Southern people, fighting on their own soil, in a war which, though actually commenced by them, they now affect to consider wholly defensive – even they, with all their boasted unanimity, and with the fierce passions engendered by slavery, have been compelled to maintain their armies by a conscription of the most unexampled severity; while the loyal States, fighting solely for union and nationality – interests of the most general nature, and offering little of mere personal inducement – have so far escaped that necessity, and are now just preparing to resort to it. After all, it must be acknowledged by every just and generous mind, whether that of friend or foe, that there is a substratum of noble sentiment and manly impulses at the foundation of the Yankee character. The vast movements of the Northern people plainly show it. Their contributions for the support of soldiers' families and for the relief of the wounded and disabled, are upon a gigantic scale. They raise immense sums for the payment of bounties to volunteers, and thus, in every way, the burdens of the war are voluntarily assumed by the people, and to some extent distributed among them, so that every one may participate in the patriotic work. Nor is this large-hearted liberality confined solely to our own country. The sufferers in other lands, who have felt the disastrous effects of our great civil war, have not been forgotten. In the midst of a life-and-death struggle among ourselves, we have found time and means to assist

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