Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/16

 10 Southern Historical Society Papers.

of the Revolution into sectional classes ? I shall not recite the his- toric chivalry of the South in the slightest disparagement of North- ern courage. Rather would I be silent and await the coming of the years of dispassionate consideration if I believed any people of the Union felt that applause of the South dispraised any part of Repub- lic. May I not briefly reveal the recorded acts of Southern patriots and make that record another reason why we are one people ? I will trust the answer to the great heart of Americans everywhere.

Passing the Indian troubles which antedated the Revolution, and beginning with the call to arms to win American Independence, what was the part borne by the Southern States in that Revolutionary struggle? I will answer that it is the glory of North Carolina to have shed the first blood for colonial liberty at Alamance in 1771, and having given her sons to the common cause, she fought on to the finish. Maryland furnished twenty thousand men, South Caro- lina thirty-one thousand, Georgia nearly as many, and Virginia fifty- six thousand. South Carolina doubled New Hampshire, South Carolina and Georgia outnumbered New York, Virginia sent six- teen thousand more men than Pennsylvania. Massachusetts did the noblest of all the Northern States, yet South Carolina sent thirty- seven out of forty-two of its arms-bearing men, and Massachusetts thirty-two out of forty-two. From official report it is gleaned that the States in the Northern division sent one hundred men for every two hundred and twenty-seven arms-bearing population, and the South sent one hundred out of every two hundred and nine. In the account of suffering by invasion, it appears that Norfolk was burned, Charleston and Savannah captured, and the Southern States invaded with British armies for years, while Washington drove Howe from Boston in March, 1776, and from that date all Massachusetts was free from the presence of the enemy to the end of the war. The next test of the military fealty of the people was by the war of 1812. That was the second war for Independence caused by English arro- gance, and was urged by the South against the protest of the East. In that contest, which was mainly naval, there were notable victories won under Northern leaders, but the greatest injury to British ship- ping was done by privateers, chiefly sent from Baltimore, which captured nearly three hundred ships and many thousand prisoners. Wingfield Scott made himself and his regiments famous at Chip- pewa and Lundy's Lane, while Andrew Jackson whipped Packen- ham at New Orleans with men from Louisiana, Mississippi, Ken- tucky and Tennessee. Next the Mexican war, preceded by the