Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 31.djvu/350

 342 Southern Historical Society Papers.

FIRST. The first and most serious claim made by North Carolina is that she furnished more troops to the Confederacy than any other Southern State.

This claim has been made and published far and wide, and, as far as we know, no attempt has been made to controvert it. k gener- ally assumes the form of a boast, but sometimes is made the basis of a complaint. We saw, not long since, in a North Carolina paper (the Charlotte Observer of May 17, 1903), a statement from the pen of a distinguished writer of that State, in which he complained that partiality had been shown to Virginia, and consequent injustice done to North Carolina, during the war, in the appointment of the gen- eral officers of the army, especially, he said, since Virginia had only furnished about seventy-six thousand (76,000) troops to the Confed- eracy, to North Carolina's one hundred and twenty-six thousand (126,000), or fifty thousand more than Virginia.

So far as the question of partiality is concerned, since President Davis, who made all these appointments, was not a Virginian, there was no reason why he should have been partial to Virginians unless their merits warranted it. And, in our opinion, no good reason is given by this writer for any such alleged misconduct on his part. We believe Mr. Davis was not only a true patriot, but a great and good man, and that it would have been almost impossible to have found anyone who could or would have discharged the delicate and difficult duties of his office more satisfactorily to all than he did.

But what concerns us far more is the claim made by this writer that North Carolina, with a smaller population than Virginia, fur- nished fifty thousand more troops to the Confederacy. This claim necessarily implies that North Carolina was more loyal to the Con- federate cause than Virginia, or, in other words, discharged her duty in this, the greatest crisis in the history of these States, better than Virginia.

Let us examine the record on this point first, then, and see if this claim is sustained by it.

In Series IV, Vol. Ill, at page 95, of what are termed The War of the Rebellion Official Records, will be found a carefully prepared official report to the " Bureau of Conscription " of the Confederate War Department, giving in much detail the number and character of the troops furnished by the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, up to January 25, 1864. This report shows that the " total number of men " sent