Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/402

 At Chickamauga the Federal commander-in-chief gave up all as lost, and abandoned the field early in the afternoon. General Thomas, of Virginia, in the Yankee service, planted his corps on a hill, and there stood, like a rock in the ocean, resisting all assaults until nightfall, when he retired to Chattanooga. His stubbornness on the battle-field, and his persistent holding of the town after defeat, saved East Tennessee to the Union and gave a death-blow to the Confederacy.

Andy Johnson refused to give up Nashville, as Buell directed, when Bragg advanced into Kentucky. The abandonment of Nashville then would have given the whole State over to the Confederacy. These two men—Thomas and Johnson—dug the grave of the Confederacy.

Farragut, of Tennessee, rose to the highest rank in the Federal navy, for his triumphs over his native land. The naval forces at Hatteras were under command of Goldsborough, of Maryland. It is a singular fact that the Southern men in the Federal service were remarkably successful, while the Northern men in our service, though brave and true, brought disaster to our arms. Lovel lost us New Orleans, Pemberton lost us Vicksburg, and Gardner lost us Port Hudson. Through the failure of these three officers the command of the Mississippi was lost, the Confederacy was cut in twain, and the conquest of the South became only a question of time.

Had the South been united, our independence could easily have been established, but unfortunately, the South furnished, probably, as many native troops to the Federal army, as did the vast and populous North. Missouri gave 108,773 soldiers to that army, Kentucky 92,000, Maryland 49,730. Every Southern State contributed in greater or less degree, and in all there were 400,000 native-born Southerners in the Yankee service. In this enumeration, I do not include the 250,000 negro troops, who fought nobly then, as they vote nobly now, and without whom E. M. Stanton, the Yankee Secretary of War, said that "the life of the nation" could not have been saved. Without enlarging farther upon this subject, I have sufficiently established the claim of the Southern people to excellence in the field. They have succeeded in one of the two departments, in which they have sought prominence. Let us look at the other. Have they succeeded in the department of politics?

From Washington's inauguration to Grant's, the Republic had