Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/341

Rh even more in face of disaster and untoward conditions than when surrounded by wealth and increasing prosperity; that they could create conditions to build up prosperity. When all the capital of the country was being used in building up the West, it was caused to seek the South (after a time) in its own interest, by a prosperity brought about in spite of unfavorable surroundings, and by the Herculean effort of her own impoverished people.

It is now proposed to show briefly that the white people of the South have always been abreast with their brethren of the North and West, and displayed as much push and business capacity as men of any other section of the country. Different conditions faced them, but with these different conditions they created wealth equally with other sections. Let us draw the record of the census of 1850 and 1860 to examine the facts. In this decade, the South only had one-fourth of the white population of the whole country, and counting slaves, her population was one-third of the entire population. Yet the census shows that in railroading, which is a good index of a country's progress, the South built in the ten years 7,562 miles, an increase of 400 per cent, while New England and the Middle States built 4,712 miles, an increase of 100 per cent. In 1850, the two Northern sections exceeded the South in miles by 2,463; in 1860, the South had caught up and was 387 miles ahead, thus showing how she was gaining in wealth then. The South increased her mileage 319 per cent, while the whole country increased only 234 per cent during the ten years. She also had a mile of railroad to as many people as the North had proportionally. She expended in the ten years, $220,000,000 in building new railroads, mostly her own capital.

In diversified manufacturing enterprises, she was making rapid strides; for example, she made 24 per cent increase in manufacturing flour and meal. She made more than one-third increase in the amount of manufac-