Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/222

 216 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Just such were the relations between Lee and Jackson. How com- mon it was to hear that Jackson only executed Lee's orders and was entitled to the credit of no genius, and, on the other hand, that Lee could achieve nothing without Jackson. But all this did not affect either of thenj. How promptly Lee wrote when he heard of Jack- son's wound in the hour of his victory : " I cannot express my regret at the occurrence. Could I have directed events, I should have chosen for the good of the country to have been disabled instead of you. I congratulate you upon the victory, which is due to your skill and energy." And when this note was read to Jackson, how beautiful his reply : " General Lee is very kind, but he should give the glory to God." *

Mr. Cox, in his Historical Memoirs of Three Decades, observes that it does not detract from the chivalric courage of the Confederate soldier, however humble his station or high his rank, that he suc- cumbed before the vast mechanical power of the North. The South, he says, was not distinguished for invention or mechanical genius. It was only in a few localities that she had the facilities to construct what was indispensable to war. Her mechanical instrumentalities were few and far between, for the South was a country of planters. He does not exactly express it so, but his idea is that the war was one of machinery against chivalry, in which the knight-errant was bound to be run over by the locomotive, if not overthrown by the windmill. He says if the South has lost her cause, it was because she had never gained that skill in invention which has no parallel in the world, and which had its home in the North, and principally in the New England States.f But while this is no doubt in a great measure true, he does not realize and give credit to the South for the inven- tive genius she discovered, the ingenuity she exhibited, and the patient toil with which even in the midst of the pressure of war she developed her mechanical and material resources.

There is no doubt that the South suffered vasdy more from the want of material than of men, though she fought against more than double her numbers in the field. Had we been able to arm the vol- unteers who offered their services in 1861 the result of the war might have been very different. Mr. Davis has been blamed for not having raised at once an army of 500,000, which he could just as easily have mustered as 10,000. But an army without arms is little better than

t Three Decades, Federal Legislation— S. S. Cox, page 215.
 * Life of General T. J.Jackson — Dabney, pages 702, 710.