Might be of interest:
Confederate Military History, Vol. 12
THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR
BY LIEUT.-GEN. STEPHEN D. LEE
[extensive excerpt due to not being related to Spanish-American War]
SUPPLEMENTARY.
The preceding part of this article was completed in 1897. Since that time the great Republic, in the year 1898, has made wonderful strides in history making. It has engaged in a most successful war with Spain, to put an end to the bad government of Spanish rule in Cuba. The people of the United States, on the score of humanity, forced the legislative and executive departments to put an end to the apparently endless bad government and inhumanity, emphasizing the rule of Spain of her colonies in the Western continent. The destruction of the warship Maine, in the harbor of Havana by being blown up; the victory of Admiral Dewey at Manila; the destruction of Admiral Cervera's fleet by Commodores Sampson and Schley off Santiago de Cuba, and the capture of Santiago de Cuba by the American army under General Shafter, have been rapidly recurring events, which have thrilled the heart of every patriotic American with pride. These naval and military events, which may be classed almost alone for their brilliancy, when we consider the little loss of life incurred, and the results following in acquisition of territory to the United States, make an historical era hitherto unsurpassed in the history of our country.
One of the most remarkable results of this war has been the display of national patriotism and unity among the citizens of this great country--North, South, East and West. All sectional lines have apparently been blotted out forever; all bad blood, if any still lingered either North or South, as a result of the great civil strife from 1861 to 1865, has disappeared and no longer exists. The President of the United States, upon the declaration of war by Congress, called for 200,000 volunteer troops to defend the honor of the flag, and to carry out the wishes of Congress in making war against Spain. These troops were apportioned among the several States in the Union in accordance with their population, and the call met with a prompt response from the citizenship of every State. In no part of the republic was the response more patriotic, more earnest, or more enthusiastic than in the ex-Confederate States which had been engaged in the war against the Union. About one-third of the volunteers called for by the President were furnished by the Southern States. The officers and enlisted men of these volunteer organizations were composed of ex-Confeder-ate soldiers, their sons and their grandsons. Their conduct in the service of the United States was equally as honorable, as patriotic, and as enthusiastic as that of the troops from any other section of the Union. In camp, and while being hardened to service, they endured hardships and sacrifices with a spirit that showed they were worthy descendants of the men who, from 1861 to 1865, gave such evidence of manhood and heroism, in combating against superior numbers and resources.
In the preceding pages of this article, it was stated, that at the close of the war in 1865, the people of the South yielded to the inevitable with honesty and integrity of purpose; that in June, 1865, a little over two months after the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee's army in Virginia, there was not an armed Confederate soldier to be found anywhere; that the people of the South were ready, and showed their willingness to accept any results which the Federal government deemed necessary to impose upon them; that they gave most hearty support to the policies of Presidents Lincoln and Johnson, in inaugurating and putting into effect what was termed the "presidential reconstruction;" that they endured with great patience and calm judgment, the dark days of congressional reconstruction, and while protesting against what seemed to them undue harshness in the legislation of Congress, they bode their time, till the corrupt negro governments established during the reconstruction period, virtually fell of their own weight and impracticability; that so soon as the white people of the South again came into possession of their State governments, their prosperity began to dawn; that they devoted their time and energies to the preservation of that local self-government, rescued from ignorance and corruption, but not considered finally established; that they began to repeal all bad laws, and to work for the restoration of their waste places resulting from four years of dreadful war and twelve years of bad negro government, and that during all this period the people of the South conscientiously tried to perform their full duty as citizens of the United States. Their delicate surroundings under the peculiar circumstances, did not admit of undue demonstration of national feeling, but whenever an opportunity was offered them, they gave unmistakable signs of that love of country and true patriotism which was their heritage from revolutionary forefathers.
President Cleveland was the first great official who trusted the people of the South frankly, and gave typical Southerners cabinet positions, appointing them also on the supreme bench and as embassadors to foreign courts and to other federal appointments. His administration evoked intense satisfaction among the citizens of the South, as it enabled them to show the sincerity of their avowed good feeling toward the restored Union. The death of General Grant, in 1885, who had always been generous to the Confederates in war; the dedication of Chickamauga park, and of the Confederate monument in the city of Chicago to the Confederate dead, brought forth displays of patriotism toward the general government on the part of the people of the South. Her senators and representatives in Congress, during the great riot in Chicago, also brought to the surface their patriotic love of the Union.
But it remained for the year 1898 and the war between Spain and the United States to cause this national feeling, this love of country, to burst into a flame that left no doubt as to the national patriotism of the people of the ex-Confederate States.
The writer of this article--an ex-Confederate soldier--although he was always loyal to the Stars and Stripes from the moment he laid down his arms as a soldier of the Confederacy and took the oath of allegiance to the restored Union; although he had conscientiously performed his duty as a citizen under that oath of allegiance, and although he was ready at any time to defend the Stars and Stripes had it become necessary, as a duty--still, when he heard of the great victory of Admiral Dewey at Manila, his heart leaped with joy and pride because he was a citizen of the United States. There was no longer a doubt as to his possessing real and true love for his reunited country. While he would not positively say that this was the feeling of every ex-Confederate soldier, he believes that this patriotic emotion which found expression from his own heart, found also a response in the heart of almost every ex-Confederate.
The tour of the President of the United States, Mr. McKinley, through the South, and his speeches of patriotism and good-will everywhere, evoked unbounded enthusiasm and patriotism in every portion of the South. Although he is the representative of the great Republican party, the party toward which the people of the South felt unkindly, because of the ordeal of reconstruction, still, in their display of patriotism they have forgotten everything in the past that stood in the way of a complete obliteration of sectional lines and bad blood.
It should be a source of intense satisfaction to the people of the South, and also of the North, that there can no longer be any doubt of the unity of the people of the United States. It is certainly a most remarkable event in history, that the people of this country should be so reunited after the terrible civil war through which this country passed thirty-five years ago, and that, too, while so many of the participants of that mighty and heroic struggle are still living. From this time henceforth, no unpleasant accusations should be made in references to that great struggle. When the President of the United States, representing a great party known as the war party in the civil war, and speaking publicly in a Southern city could express the sentiment that the North should assist the South in caring for the graves of the Confederate soldiers, and the expression of that sentiment, touching every Southern heart, drew forth patriotic response which showed the Southern love for a common country, surely we are again a reunited people, and Southern loyalty can no longer be questioned.
It is also a source of great pride to the people of the South, that, although her volunteer soldiers did not have an opportunity to display their gallantry on the field of battle, yet among the heroes of the short war with Spain none are more conspicuous than Southern men who had an opportunity to manifest their soldierly qualities. The President of the United States, in making his appointments in the volunteer army organization for the war, gave some appointments to Southern men who had been ex-Confederate soldiers. This action on his part gave much satisfaction to the people of the South, and it is with pride that they can point to these soldiers and sailors as having well performed the duties devolving upon them wherever opportunity permitted.
Gen. Joseph Wheeler, who had been a lieutenant-general in the Confederate army, was appointed a major-general in the volunteer army of the United States. His enthusiasm, his patriotism, his good generalship, his good common sense in every emergency, stamped him as one of the noted heroes of the war, and his popularity at the North is not surpassed even in his own native South. His coolness at Santiago at the moment when everything looked dark, possibly was the turning point to success on that field. He remembered that in the mighty struggle of 1861-65, when two American armies met in deadly conflict, generally both sides were paralyzed for a time; and after he carried the San Juan hills near Santiago, when for a time things looked blue, he recalled how it was in the great civil war, and said, "If we are so badly hurt, you may rest assured that the Spaniards are worse hurt, and we must hold our lines and not yield an inch." His services in the field were not surpassed by his good sense and administrative talent in caring for the sick soldiers of the Union at Montauk Point.
We are proud of Fitzhugh Lee, another appointment as major-general of President McKinley. Amid all the fault finding (whether true or false), regarding the administrative direction in the care of our troops, he alone has not been criticised on account of the care and management of the soldiers under his charge. He was ever ready to obey the orders of the President, and go to Cuba or wherever, as a soldier, he could have been sent. He, too, has won the admiration of the people of the United States everywhere.
Maj.-Gen. M. C. Butler was, like Lee and Wheeler, a distinguished Confederate soldier who performed his part well, not only in camp with the soldiers intrusted to his care, but as a statesman and a member of the evacuation commission at Havana. These three ex-Confeder-ate generals have enjoyed the confidence of the President possibly as much as any other of the numerous appointments made in the volunteer army by him. Among the brigadier-generals of volunteers appointed from the South, were W. C. Oates of Alabama, H. K. Douglas of Maryland, T. L. Rosser of Virginia, and W. W. Gordon of Georgia, all noted Confederate officers who won distinction in the Confederate army.
Lieut. Richmond Pearson Hobson, of the navy (an Alabamian), is probably the hero of the war, by virtue of sinking the Merrimac in the channel leading to the harbor of Santiago de Cuba amid the shot and shell of Spanish heavy guns. Lieut. A. S. Rowan, of the United States army (a Virginian), is another Southern hero in the short war; while North Carolina has added to the above Worth Bagley and South Carolina Lieut. Victor Blue. There were many other heroes who deserve mention. The officers of the army and navy of the United States have never failed to do their whole duty wherever duty called them, but in this brief war with Spain, so far as individuals are concerned, the Southerners mentioned, have received enthusiastic appreciation from the whole people of the United States.
It should not be thought strange that the people of the South would burn with patriotic ardor against a foreign foe. While giving full credit to the South for her patriotism in the recent war with Spain, it is with pride that she can point to her past history in every instance where national honor and national statesmanship were needed to defend the flag of the Union, or be aggressive for its advancement. Leaving out her record of the great civil war, she points back to the spirit of the Southern colonial people, as broad and liberal, active in the general defense against the Indians and in the French wars. The first battle of the revolutionary war was fought on Southern soil, and the signal for resistance came from the South. The most critical and pressing struggle of the revolutionary war was carried on in the South and in the face of continual disaster. The devastations of that war were nearly all on her soil. A Southern colony furnished most of the soldiers in the army of the American revolution, and a Southern State finds a place in her soil for the bones of more revolutionary soldiers than any other State. A Southern State was the first to organize an independent State government. The union of the thirteen revolting colonies, under the articles of confederation, was only made possible by the self-sacrifice of Virginia, who, to allay the fears of the smaller commonwealths, gave up her large northwestern territory to common ownership. The federal convention that gave us that greatest of all documents ever drawn by the hand of man, was presided over by a Southern member. And finally, when the ship of state was launched, with singular unanimity a Southern hand was called to the helm. With the exception of Alaska, no acquisition of territory had been made except through the effort of Southern statesmen, and generally in opposition to those of the North. It was Jefferson, who, by the purchase of Louisiana, extended the domain of the United States to the Rocky mountains, notwithstanding the violent threats of secession which came from the Northeast. Oregon, Florida, California and Texas--purchases and annexations --extended her domain to the Pacific, when Southern men occupied the presidential chair. In every war the national honor has been practically upheld by the South. In the cause of the national government in 1812, New England responded with the Hartford convention, looking to the dismemberment of the Union. Impartial history will show that our "Southern ancestors were not drones in the hives and mere participants in the blessings which other sections have conferred," but on all occasions they did their duty like manly men and were leaders in all that "has largely made the United States, governed her, administered justice from her judicial tribunal, commanded her armies, created her greatness." It should not be forgotten that the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, at the close of the revolutionary war, had over two-thirds of the territory acquired by the United States from Great Britain by the treaty of Paris, and gave it up to the general government. The South, standing by its patriotic record, and tendering all its resources to the government, cordially bids our reunited country God-speed.
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General S. D. Lee's References:
BOOKS OF REFERENCE.
I have freely consulted and used facts and data collated in the following books, pamphlets, etc.:
Noted Men of the Solid South; or, Reconstruction and its Results. --Hilary A. Herbert.
Mayes' Life of L. Q. C. Lamar.
Avery's History of Georgia.
The Last Quarter Century of the United States.--Andrews. Woodrow Wilson's Works.
Facts About the South.--R. H. Edmunds (1894 and 1895).
The Industrial Condition of the South before 1860. "The Chau-tauquan," February, 1896.--R. H. Edmunds.
The Industrial Condition of the South after 1860. "The Chautau-quan," March, 1896.--R. H. Edmunds.
Proceedings of the Trustees, Peabody Educational Fund, Thirty-fifth Meeting.--Dr. J. L. M. Curry.
The South's Redemption--From Poverty to Prosperity.--R. H. Edmunds, 1892.
Unparalleled Industrial Progress.--R. H. Edmunds, 1892. "The Tradesman," Chattanooga, 1896, 1897.
The United States Census, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.
What the South is Doing for Education, and What Education is Doing for the South.--Dr. W. T. Harris.
Address of J. R. Preston, State Superintendent Education, Mississippi.
Data furnished by Gen. Clement A. Evans--"Education," January, 1896.
Some Present Aspects of Education in the South.--Rev. A. D. Mayo. "Progress," Nos. 11 and 12.
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M. E. Wolf