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T II K
I’.annev of th jl cnrtli
A N O
IJhmtrr’s Journal,
jE\i >TEJ)TO AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE,
NEWS, MEMORIES OF THE LOST CAUSE,
LITERATURE, SCIENCE and ART.
HENRY MO OR E,
A. R. WRIGHT.
PATRICK W AESH.
TERMS —$3.00 per Annum, in Advance.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1870.
THE BANNER OF THE SOUTH AND
PLANTERS JOURNAL
ITS CONTRIBUTORS.
‘Tt will give me great pleasure to aid
iu promoting the success of the Banner
cf the South and Planters’ Journal,
and when I have more leisure will try
to furnish such papers as are asked for.
Wade Hampton.
Columbia, Oct 19, 1870.
“Your purpose is most commendable,
and I wish it success with all heart.
While I cannot undertake to be a regular
contributor, it may be that I shall And it
m my power to contribute an occas : onal
paper. M. L. Bonham.”
Edgefield , Oct 20, 1870.
‘lt would afford me very great plea
sure to lend my aid to your meritorious
enterprise, and I most earnestly wish suc
cess to the Banner of the South and
Planters’ Journal; but my time is, I
fear, too much occupied, at present for me
to think of any regular contributions.
Geo. Frederick Holmes.”
Uniuersity Va. } 17 Oct., 1870.
“I wiil with pleasure contribute some
articles on Historical and Political sub
jects. Z. B. Vance.”
Charlotte, N. C., Oct. 19, 1870.
“I will checfully give all the aid in
my power to promote the success of the
Banner cf the South and Planters’
Journal. W. Pope Barrow.”
Maxey's Oct. 18, 1870.
“It will be gratifying to me to be
come a frequent contributor to the Ban
ner of the South and Planters’
Journal. R. K. Meade.”
Wilmington, Oct. 14, 1870.
“I am so enthusiastic in my admira
tion of the plan for the Banner of the
South and Planters’ Journal, that it
fills me with regret that I will nor be able
for some time to aid you as a regular
contributor. I hope, however, to be able
to contribute from time to time.
J. E.Willet.”
Professor Mercer University.
“It will give me great pleasure to res
pond to your request in behalf of so
meritorious au enterprise,
Charles U. Jones, Jr.”
New York City, Oct. 5, 1870.
“1 have long thought that a well con
ducted journal on the plan you propose,
would meet with eminent success and be
productive of great good. It can be
come a powerful auxiliary in educating
the poople and awakening the dormant
thought in the South. I accept your
proposition and will endeavor to furnish
you with articles fortnightly.
Wm. Leroy Broun,
Prof. of Georgia.”
“I shall take great pleasure in con
tributing to the columns of the Banner
of the South and Planters’ Journal.
W. T. Brantly, D. D.”
Atlanta, Oct. 10, 1880.
“My occupation is such as to preclude
my becoming a regular contributor, but
I will fi\»m time to time send you articles
which may- be worthy the columns of the
Banner us the South and Planters’
Journal. R. Ransom.”
Wiminglon, N. C., Oct. 8, 1870.
“I accede t§ your terms and do here
by make myself responsible for one arti
cle per week for the Banner of the
South and Planters’ Journal. You
have my heartiest as well as my most
sanguine wishes for your success. You
will suoceed. Ist. Because you will
be absolutely without a rival in the
South. 2nd. Because of the perfect
X
BANNER OF THE SOUTH AND PLANTERS’JOURNAL.
novelty cf the project: no Southern pa
per has ever before offered to pay its
contributors; and contributions not worth
paying for, are not—commonly speaking
—worth printing.
Wm. Henry Waddell,
University of Georgia.”
Athens, Oct. 6, 1870.
‘ I fear that I shall not be able to write
as often as you indicate, owing to my
somewhat precarious health. If how
ever. I find the thing impracticable, I can
wit! and aw.
E M. Pendleton, M. D.”
Sparta, Oct. 3,1870.
“A paper established on firm ground
and edited with ability, on the plan pro
posed for the Banner of the South
and Planters’ Journal, is much needed
in the South, and I believe Augusta is
a good point at which to establish it. I
will contribute some “War Papers.”
Jos. A. Englehard.”
Wilmington, Oct. 6, 1870.
-‘I shall hasten to show you that I am
with you heart and hand. Your plan
is right; you cannot fail. The South
wants a plain scientific paper. Hereto
fore our papers have been too much on ex
tremes. One class has been so learned
that ordinary people could make nothing
out of them, while the other class has
been so unlearned that nobody would
have anything to do with them.
J Parish Stelle ”
Waynesvillc, 30iss, Oct. 11; 1870.
SWINTON’S HISTORY OF THE ARMY OF
THE POTOMAC-
The right of Secession was not the
only question debated in battle dui ing the
recent “little unpleasantness” between
the North and South; and Patriotism was
not the only sentiment which recruited
the ranks of the “Defenders of the Union”
and inspired their efforts to replant the
flag where defiant hands had torn it
down. Had the one been the only ques
tion, many- public men at the North, who
either admitted the right as unquestiona
ble, or in thmr hatred of the South want
ed her “kicked out” of the Union right
or wrong, would have been earnest op
posers of the war, instead of being, from
the very outset, its most active advocates
and abettors.
Had the other been the only sentiment,
not only might even Butler have es
caped the infamy of his Order No. 28,
and Sherman have burned fewer dwel
lings, and have allowed the women and
children of Atlanta and the wives of
Confederate officers in Savannah, to dwell
in such peace as they could; but the close
of the war would have witnessed some ef
fort put forth by the North to restore
good feeling between the sections, instead
of five years spent in devising legislation
to insult and more effectually to injure
her prostrate and disabled foe.
It was not to prevent such injury as
Secession would have wrought, but to
avenge the insult, that the North honored
the heavy drafts for men and money
made upon it. And the insult lay in the
simple fact that the South dared to secede.
The political historian and philosopher
will make a long story of the events
which brought about the war, and may
trace its causes back through centuries
to the bitter hatreds of the Cavalier and
the Roundhead ; but the man who was
otneng the Northern people during the
twelve months preceeding the war—the
man who not only read, but heard and
saw, and more especially, who felt the
temper of the day, can give a briefer ac
count of how it all befel.
Uneasy at the progress and attitude of
the Radical party, the Southern States,
in 1860 began to agitate the propriety
of Secession ; a minority, however, only
favoring it in the beginning, for the Union
was dearly loved at the South in days
gone by.
Tins agitation of the question was free
ly commented upon at the North in a
way which tended to increase its popu
larity at the South. Openly declared
by individuals in conversation and more
or ier-s plainly apparent in the tone of
the press, Democratic and Republican,
religious and secular—agreed on this
however differing otherwise—the senti
ment of the North pronounced the South
a cowardly braggart that did not dare to
fulfil its threats; and, in a sort of defi
ance of them, the Radical party became
more and more radical, and openly pro
claimed the “irrepressible conflict.” To
all this the Southern States replied, as
might have been expected, with increas
ing warmth, and finally, with Secession,
which they begged leave, however, to
make peaceabhu
The North was for a while dumfound
ed with surprise, and, fer a few months,
seemed unable to realize that it was not
all a sham, and that the seceding States
had no idea of returning. As the real
attitude of the South, became ap
preciated the North began to threaten.
Not that they wanted the South back,
but they were over twenty millions to
the South’s seven millions. They had
the Navy, the Army, the Treasury, the
workshops, and the granaries of the whole
country. They had education, talent and
industry. The South was indolent and
ignorant. The South, moreover, “slept
on a volcano” and it only needed a word
from the North to wrap its land in flames
and poison the very food in its people’s
mouths. As the North recounted its ad
vantages, its valor grew and its sense of
the insult offered by the South, in not be
ing afraid of it, deepened every day. And
then it was proposed to “give our South
ern cousins a little lesson.” Dixie, mean
while, kept up its courage very well and,
while its newly inaugurated Government
male many efforts to adjust peaceable
terms of separation, and only asked to
be “let alone,” the press and people did :
not hesitate to declare publicly that,
should circumstances demand the effort,
they felt little doubt about being able to
whip—they stated the odds variously—
from three to ten times their number of
Yankees.
This was certainly not so modest a self
estimate as the one which inspired the
courage of our Northern brethren but
the South did no hesitate to back its
words by deeds. The very moment that
the North commenced the first hostile
movement she stood not on ceremony,
and without any care for the looks of
the thing, “she struck her adversary and
drew the first blood at Sumter.”
In doing so she fell into the deep-laid
trap for putting upon her the odium of
the first blow, and the act was, moreover,
not necessary, and therefore, in her situa
tion not wise, for Anderson might have
been starved out nearly as quickly as he
was shelled out. But the question was
now one of being bullied, and the pluck
of the action is the best offset for its lack
of prudence. The North was really the
aggressor in attempting* to hold and to
reinforce the Fort, and that being eqiva
lent to a declaration of war, there was
no use dickering about who should fire
the first gun.
Then the whole North flew to arms
not to restore the Union—but to show
that twenty millions of Yankees, well
equipped, with such sinews of war as
money, arms, ships, and an organized
army, could whip four millions of Southern
whites without any of these appliances,
and with three millions of negroes among
them, who could be turned against them
also. Had its odds in its favor been less
the North never would have provoked the
war, but would have allowed the “erring
sisters to go in peace.” It was under
taken in pure hatred and spite, simply to
show that they could whip the South, and
the history of the country since 1865 de
monstrates the fact as conclusively as the
story of its beginning and progress. We
read in scripture of a good woman who
recovered by much sweeping a piece of
silver, which had been lost, and of a
shepherd who hunted up, at some trouble,
a seceding sseeph e ep and brought it back to
the fold. But did the pious lady spit cr
stamp upon the recovered coin or devote
her leisure for years afterwards to scratch
ing out and defacing “the image and
superscription of Caesar,” which it had
borne ? Or did the gentle shepherd
hasten to shear the re-captured lamb— 1
did he confiscate its long forage—tie it
outside the bars and put it under mili- '
tary government ? No so. These typi
cal individuals ivanted what they sought
so assiduously, and when they found, they
rejoiced over the missing treasures and
celebrated the occasion with sumptuous
fare. But the Yankees were guilty of no
such extiavagance on winning back their
“erring sisters” and restoring a broken !
Constitution and a lost Union, for the sim I
pie reason that this was not that for wh'eh’
they had fought, On the contrary, the
close of the war put them in a more
truculent mood than ever before, because
they felt that the true wager of the battle J
had been lost.
In short, the gist of the whole fight '
was to see who could whip, and the North
is apparently much dissatisfied with the j
result. She certainly crushed the South |
in her campaigns, and starved her with
her blockades, but did she whip her in
fair and equal battles 7 Which has the
greatest reason to be proud of its war
record ? We say, let History decide.
Such questions have been in her line,
since the days of Epaminondas, and in
fact since then the Goddess is popularly ap
preciated and supported principally to de
cide such issues.
The object cf this article is to appeal
to her, and the occasion of the appeal is
this:
A gentleman named Swinton has
written a history of the (Federal) Array
of the Potomac, in which, we must do
him the credit to say that, he is unusu
ally candid and unusually accurate. As
an illustration of both his accuracy and
candor, in a single short sentence, he
states, of Mdj. Gen. John Pope, that
“he had the misfortune to be, of all
men, the most misbelieved.” As ano
ther: he says of Sheridan’s incendiarism
in the Valley of Virginia, that “it was
unjustifiable and indefensible;” and, as a
third, he points out, (on page 505) some
discrepancies between well established
facts, and Gen. Grants official repoit of
them, with the remark that he “leaves
the reconciliation of this descrepancy to
those better equipped for the task.”
Mr. Swinton is therefore a witness, to
whose testimony history will attach much
weight, for few contemporaneous histo
rians write with so little fear of individu
als before their eyes. But when the
question involved is the ability of the
Yankee army to defeat anything like its
equal number of the Rebels, Mr. Swin
ton has by no means shown himself an
impartial writer. In short, while his
hero is not any individual, but the “Army
of the Potomac” as a whole, he is none
the less a partisan, and his whole book is
but an effort to explain away and excuse the
patent facts, which he feels have shed
much lustre upon the Confederate arms
at the Federal expense- He indeed pre
faces that many of these facts are * 'seem
ingly unancountable,” and that he pur
poses offering explanations, which must
“modify the conclusions of those at a dis
tance”—a very fair admission that he
feels the verdict of the world to be
against him. And at the close of the
narrative he makes the admission ex
plicitly in the remark that the credit due
the Army of the Potomac “has not yet
been accorded it.”
Now, it is not our purpose toseik to
detract from any positive credit that has
been, or may be, accorded that array,
for much is doubtless due: but the com
parative credit, as we have already stated,
was the principal question of the four
years bloody debate, and this is the ques
tion we refer to the Goddess of History
and respectfully urge her—as she has lit
tle else to do—to settle it for us, and we
object to the issue being changed into
simply “who was good ?” when we fought
to know, “who was best V* Mr. Swinton
would modestly insinuate that neither
was best, and he uses for the purpose a
very artful expression much in vogue
among Northern writers when they wish
to appropriate Rebel renown, to patch
up the deficiency in Yankee glorv. For
this purpose a phrase, wonderful in its
cunning and sublime in its impudence,
has been devised, and the North cries to
the world that she has made a diseoverv
—that the terrible character of the war
was due to the fact that it was “Ameri
can against American.” and there is there
fore no question of comparative pluck in
volved. Now, with many thanks for the
compliment implied, we object to the
change of issue. In 1861 the cry was
“Yankee against Rebel” and “twenty
againts four,” with a gcod many cutside
odds additional, in favor of the twenty.
These odds we were willing to meet, and
the idea of its being “American against
American” would have onlv discouraged
us then, and the national adjective is
rather too comprehensive for our taste
now. We fought it as Rebels against
Yankees, and four against twenty. We
did it in part to see who could whin.
* & ■
and now as Rebels, (though happily re
constructed) we would like to know who
did whip. And as Mr. Swinton’s book will
be largely read with this question in
view, and as we consider him a very unfair
witness we propose to review him briefly
from a strictly Rebel (but as above, and
always to be understood, happily recon-'
structed), point of view.
His great task is to account for the
“seemingly unaccountable” fact that with
its greatly superior numbers, arms,
equipments and discipline, the Army of
the Potomac wrs so often defeated and
never decisively victorious.
He does this not on any broad princi
ple, but in various ways, on various occa
sions, some of which we shall illustrate
1 and remark upon.
First. The ill success of the Federal
Army is frequently attributed to bad
generalship in its commander, an i the
. freedom with which this is dune, is so
great, that scarcely one of those unfortu
j . ■'
nate officials, from McDowell to Grant,
j escapes with a reputation which can be
called decent.
| Tills nat only seems to relieve the
! army from all blame in many eases, but
it gives an air of candor to the r.arative
J °
■ which does not properly belong to it
upon other points. The harsh criticisms
j upon il e generals commanding may,
| indeed, be always deserved, but when
. the opposing lines are at last face to face
, and under each others fire, if the largest
. and fullest ranks fiinch from it first, cr
fail to advance upon and overwhelm
their numerically inferior opponents.
| provided no insurmountable obstruct! n
interposes, the fault is not altogether
that of the army commander. This was
the case at Bull Ran, Second Mana-sis.
Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chaneel
i lorsville, Wilderness, Spottsylvania, se
ll cond Cold Harbor, Petersburg and on
many other minior occasions.
In the next place, the features of the
ground and the character and extent o:
the intrenchments thrown r.i> are fre
quently either exaggrated or overlooked
! so as to attribute to them more than
| their due influence on the Federal re
veries, and less than their influence cn
the few victories of which he is able to
boast. Many instances of this m:gu:
be pointed out but we have only the
space for a few by way of illustration.
In his account of the battle of Fredericks
burg he speaks of the “terraced heights,