Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/513

 Address Delivered by Governor Z. B. Vance. 507

And I regret exceedingly that many of the facts and figures I shall give you are reproduced from memory, though I am quite sufe they will approximate exactitude. My familiarity with all the affairs of the State during the last three years of the war was such as to enable me to state facts with reasonable certainty. The principal records of the State, covering that period, in the Executive department, were seized and carried to Washington by the Federal authorities in 1865, where they yet remain. And, though efforts have been made to that end, the officials would neither return the original nor permit copies to be made for the use of the State. No doubt such a course was designed to serve some great and wise State policy, though exactly what it was, beyond the pleasure of irritating and disoblij^ing our people, I have never been able to see. But so it is ; we are utterly without official records in North Carolina concerning the most eventful period in our annals of two hundred and ninety years.

It may be said that there were only eleven States wholly commit- ted to the late war — Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Geor- gia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri were only partially engaged, the great majority of their people remaining with the Union. Of these eleven, North Carolina occupied the following po^-ition at the beginning of the war: In extent of territory she was the seventh; in total population she was (hejifth; in white population the third — Virginia and Tennessee only exceeding her ; in wealth she was the seventh; in the value of all farm products the fourth; in the production of cotton the ninth; in the production of corn the fourth; of wheat, rye and oats the third, and in the number of horses and cattle the fourth. In manufactures of all kinds she was the third; in the production of iron and material of war, about fourth, and in root crops, fisheries and naval stores, the first of the eleven.

Such, in brief were her capacities and resources for sustaining a war as compared with her associates. Her material condition was in all respects good. Average wealth was considerable, and prosperity and comfort abounded. Her credit was excellent and her State schemes of internal improvement were advancing cautiously and prudently. The cultivation of cotton was advancing northward and that of tobacco was coming South; manufactures were growing and industry diversifying — the surest road to wealth — and everything indeed was moving on a solid basis. Politically, whilst our people were loyal to Southern institutions, they were eminently conservative and attached to the Union of the States. In considering what North