Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/236

 232 impression made on the European men touching the attitude of the Southern people:

"The people of the Confederate States have made themselves famous. If the renown of brilliant courage, stern devotion to a cause, and military achievements, almost without parallel, can compensate men for toil and privations, then the countrymen of Lee and Jackson may be consoled amid their sufferings." Again we read:

"The details of that extraordinary national effort which has led to the repulsion and almost to the destruction of an invading force of more than half a million men will then become known to the world."

Such were a few of the compliments which the Confederate soldier wrung from the press of Europe. They could be multiplied if the scope of this paper permitted. Only soldiers brave in battle and generous in victory could have provoked such praise from people who regarded them from the first with suspicion and prejudice.

The conduct of the war and the bravery and chivalry of the Southern soldier soon impressed the thoughtful men of the North as well as those of the Old World.

Rev. Dr. Bellows, of New York, at a Unitarian convention held in the midst of the war, said in part:

"How far race and climate, independent or servile institutions, may have produced the Southern chivalric spirit and manner I will not here consider, but one may as well deny the small feet and hands of that people as deny a certain inherited habit of command; a contempt of life in defense of honor or class; a talent for political life, and an easy control of inferiors." After declaring that this Southern spirit was not external and flashing heroism, but real, and had made itself felt in Congress, in the social life at Washington, and in England and France, this gifted divine said:

"This spirit shows itself in the war; in the orders and proclamation of the generals; in the messages of the rebel Congress, and the essential good breeding and humanity, contrary to a diligently encouraged public impression, with which it not seldom divides its medical stores, and gives our sick and