Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/218

204 were seldom beaten through pusillanimity, never through the treachery of their leaders." Such was the general situation of the Southern Confederacy preceding the forcible attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter. The government was fully organized, the disposition was peaceful, the military and naval forces inadequate, the leadership superb, and the people ardently devoted to the cause of separate independence; but the new government was to be forced to stand by its ability to maintain itself against military power, or fall by the insufficiency of its own military support.

The preparedness of the United States for the war which they were about to make was materially greater than that of the Confederacy. The population of the United States in 1861, exclusive of the seceded States, was over twenty millions, nearly all white, almost four times the white population of the South. The States comprising the Union at that time were situated north of the Ohio and extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. The Southern line of this vast territory lay along the northern and western borders of the Confederacy, giving advantages for invasion at many points. The States east of the Mississippi river were populous, thrifty and aggressive. In general resources for making successful war, the States of the northern section of the Union exceeded the South in a proportion much greater than their fourfold excess of population.

The general trade, domestic and foreign, of the entire United States, including the South, had steadily increased during the preceding decade, until twenty-five foreign countries were seeking business here with over 11,000 vessels, while the Southern trade alone amounted to an estimated sum of $400,000,000 annually in product of the soil exchanged for Northern manufactured goods. The imports of 1860-61 were $335,000,000 and the exports, $248,000,000. The total debt of the government was but $69,000,000.