CHAPTER XXVI

PROGRESS OF THE CIVIL WAR

Difference between life in the North and in the South.-During the war, life and business went on more nearly as usual in the North than in the South. The three and one-half million slaves in the South tilled the soil, attended to the animals, and made it possible for nearly the entire fighting strength of the Confederacy between the ages of seventeen and fifty to be on the battle line. The larger population in the North and the necessity for more white people to stay at home to provide the army with food and supplies explains why many families there had no member at the front. In the South most of the white families were in mourning as the war progressed.

The North could sell its surplus crops in Europe and buy both necessities and luxuries. The South had to go without many things needed in everyday life. Drug stores could not fill prescriptions unless persons had their own bottles. Common medicines, such as quinine, sometimes could not be secured. Once a plumed hearse, followed by mourners, was allowed to pass the Union lines at Memphis. The guards had no suspicion that the coffin was filled with needed medicines. An almanac for 1863 could not be printed in Charleston for lack of paper.

Women and the war. The southern women often managed the negroes and the plantations because, as General Grant said, "the Confederate army has robbed the cradle and the grave." The South had few factories, and the Union blockade shut out the common household necessities. The women made homespun for the southern soldiers. Even bandages for the wounded had to be made of homespun. The southern army could not have kept the field so long if it had not been for the ceaseless work of the women and their able management of affairs at home.

The women in the North, also, had to help make clothing for their soldiers. In a small Illinois town, a letter was read in a church one winter morning, saying that some of the soldiers from that state had no stockings. The next day the women

knitted 275 pairs and sent them to the front. The improved sewing machine now came into common use in the North and enabled women to make garments faster than ever before. Besides, the North poured so many soldiers into the South that the wives and children of farmers were often left to till and harvest the crops. An Iowa missionary wrote: "I saw more women than

men working in the fields. They seem to

have said to their husbands, in the language of a favorite song:

In both the North and the South women raised money for the wounded and gave their services as nurses. Neither side could have carried on the war so successfully without the unselfish help of women.

Influence of railroads on the war. The greater proportion of miles of usable railroad in the North also helped to make life more endurable there than in the South. It was much easier in

the North to bring necessities and luxuries where they were needed. The Compromise of 1850 was really a truce in the interest of the North, for it put off the war for eleven years and gave the North a chance to extend its railroads. Chicago was not reached by rail from the East until 1853; the Mississippi, not until 1854; and the Missouri, not until 1858. When Lincoln was elected in 1860, the country had 30,000 miles of railroad, more than three times as much as it had ten years before. If it had not been for the railroads, much of the West would have had no market for its grain and meat unless it remained friendly with the South and sent its produce down the Mississippi River, as in former days. If the crops had rotted without a market, it would have been difficult to convince the West that a long war was reasonable. The extension of the east-and-west railroads enabled the people of the North to have common interests. The West was therefore willing to help the East win the war.

The South had fewer railroads, and these were soon in poor condition because nearly all the material for repairs was made in the North. An Englishman said that travel over some of the southern railroads was almost as dangerous as fighting the enemy. Parts of the South frequently suffered from hunger when there was plenty of food in other places. A Union army in Mississippi ate so many chickens, ducks, and turkeys that it became tired of them and wanted bacon.

How money was raised to carry on the war.-The North had to raise nearly three and a half billion dollars to pay for the four years of the war. The Congress of the United States tried four ways of obtaining this money. It (1) raised the duty on imported articles, (2) levied a tax on incomes of $600 and over, (3) issued paper money, and (4) sold bonds. The paper money was called "greenbacks" because the back of the bills was printed in green ink. A greenback was simply a note, or a promise to pay, given by the government in order to borrow money without interest. So much paper money was issued that a dollar of it became worth less than fifty cents in gold. This inflation more than doubled the

price of things. The United States also issued interest-bearing bonds. These were promises to pay back borrowed money with interest. At first it was not easy to sell the bonds, and they did not bring their full face value. The Secretary of the Treasury threatened, if he could get money in no other way, to print so many greenbacks that a breakfast would cost a thousand dollars. Jay Cooke, a patriotic young Philadelphia banker, helped the government dispose of its bonds. He printed millions of posters, circulars, and advertisements, calling attention to the attractiveness of the bonds, and he was successful in selling them. In all the previous history of the world, no people had ever subscribed to so large a government loan as the Union required during the Civil War.

A demand for many bonds was created by establishing a system of national banks. These banks were permitted to issue bank notes to an amount nearly equal to the amount of bonds purchased. At the same time state bank notes were taxed and so driven out of use.

The Confederacy also issued paper money and sold as many bonds as possible to banks and private citizens. French bankers bought $15,000,000 of Confederate bonds, payable in cotton at twelve cents a pound. The Confederacy did not tax the people at first, for fear of making the war unpopular, but it turned out vast amounts of paper money, and the separate states did likewise.

This inflation of the currency was bad for the character of the people, both North and South, for it set them to speculating; that is, trying to get money without earning it. They bought foodstuffs, wool, and other necessary things, intending to sell them at a higher price. This speculation did not produce a bushel of wheat or a pound of wool. At Richmond, Virginia, a newspaper said: "Everybody is swindling everybody else.' Flour in the South finally cost $1000 a barrel, and firewood $5 a stick. This southern paper money reminds us of the continental currency (p. 191), for it was "not worth a continental" when the

war ended. Even the bonds of the Confederacy had no value when it was conquered. The United States later redeemed its greenbacks in gold and paid off its bonds, but the poor suffered much from the inflated paper money, although some profiteers made large fortunes. It was not until after the war that the word "millionaire" came into common use.

United States Sanitary Commission.-There were, meanwhile, men and women who were mindful of the example of Florence Nightingale (p. 366), and who could think of things more important than speculation. Such people started the United States Sanitary Commission, to care for the wounded and the sick in the war. There was then no Red Cross, but delegates from this Commission had the honor of convincing an International Conference at Gene'va, Switzerland (1864), that an international Red Cross was necessary. The outcome was the Treaty of Geneva, known as the Red Cross Treaty.

The Sanitary Commission had its own nurses, doctors, medical supplies, and wagons. At the battle of Antietam (1862), ten thousand wounded soldiers were lying in the woods and fields, "without any adequate supply of surgeons, and with not a tenth part of needed medical stores, which were locked up in the block of the railway between Baltimore and the battlefield." It was then shown how superior a privately managed organization could be in caring for the wounded. Four days passed before the government supplies reached the battlefield, but the Sanitary Commission had foreseen the need of supplies near that place, and four-horse teams, drawing wagons loaded with the proper stores, had been driven to the vicinity of the conflict. People shuddered to think what the wounded would have suffered if they had been compelled to lie there helpless for four days until government relief came.

Before the battle of Antietam, it had seemed as if the Sanitary Commission must disband for want of funds. Two days after the battle, the first large subscription of $100,000 came by telegraph from San Francisco. After the other great battles, money