Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/10

 4 Southern Historical Society Papers.

render of the British under Cornwallis at Yorktown and the indepen- dence of the United States. The latter culminated at Appomattox and ended in the loss of our cause and the failure of the Confederate States. In the first, the invaders found the men of the country present to resist if not repel, and were repaid in some degree at least for their vandalism. In the latter, the men the descendants of those who rose upon the British were far away fighting in Virginia; while their families were burned out of their houses by the enemy who had penetrated their rear having failed to overcome them in front.

Colonel Chesney, the able English military critic, comparing these two invasions of this section, is inclined to attribute Sherman's success in the late war to the Federal navy rather than to any greater skill or better conduct on Sherman's part jfchan that of Lord Cornwallis. He thinks that it was the French fleet under Count de Grasse which compelled Cornwallis' surrender, and that had it not been for the command of the ocean by the Federal navy, which gave Sherman communication at Wilmington, the result to him might have been different. He says*: "Such a free communication as the Federal fleets had along the coast of the revolted States during the Civil war was equally needed in Cornwallis' case without it, Sherman's over- land march from Savannah made eighty years afterwards might have had little better issue than that of Cornwallis through the same dis- trict. With such aid the modern commander ' established his fame, as the elder for lack of it came nigh to ruin his.' '

But, however interesting the consideration of this subject would be, it is not that to which I would invite your attention this morning. I would talk to you to-day rather of the character and conduct of the people of this section in these two wars, than linger to think what might have been had we been able to get those vessels afloat for which we spent so much money in England and France. I will not stop now to discuss professional theories of the grand tactics by which Sherman's march ended in victory and Cornwallis' in defeat. My theme to-day is a homelier one.

The Rev. Dr. Foote in his sketches of North Carolina claiming that to that State belongs the imperishable honor of being the first in declaring that independence which is the pride and glory of every .American, and giving an account of the declaration for indepen- dence by the people of Mecklenburg county, the first public declara-


 * Military Biography of Cornwallis. Chesney, p. 296.