xvi REVIEW AND CONCLUSION.

“Bombardment of Fort Fisher” (the frontispiece to Vol. 5),
tke full page engraving of the “Mound Battery” and other
engravings. To Mr. James Sprunt the writer of the val-
uable article on “Blockade Running” we are indebted for the
full page engravings of the “Steamer Ad-Vance,” the “Shen-
andoah” and other engravings, and we owe to Colonel Thos.
S. Kenan, of the Forty-third regiment, the frontispiece to
Vol. 4 “Johnson’s Island” (a description of which may be
found in his personal reminiscences of prison life on page
689 of that volume) and also for a full page engraving of
Company A of his regiment. The only other engraving of
a full company is that furnished by Captain C. B. Denson
in the Twentieth Regiment.

Numerous maps are given which add much to the easy
comprehension of the narratives. The two maps of Gettys-
burg and that of the capture of Plymouth are especially val-
uable.

This work undertaken more than seven years ago has been
prosecuted with many hindrances. It would be bootless to
relate the tribulations attending such an undertaking. Its
merits are due to the efforts of the self-sacrificing patri-
otic men who have written the several histories composing
it. Its short-comings are due to the Editor and the limita-
tions which the lapse of time and untoward circumstances
have imposed.

For better, for worse, the record is now made up. The last
word to the present age or posterity has been said and al-
ready the voices of many who have spoken are stilled in
death.

On several occasions, the Confederacy was on the very eve
of success, but some unexpected fatality intervened. At Shi-
loh within a half hour of the capture of the Federal Army
with Grant and Sherman at its head, a single bullet which
caused the death of Albert Sidney Johnston changed the his-
tory of the Continent. At Chancellorsville, one scattering
volley fired by mistake of his own men took the life of Stone-
wall Jackson, when but for that fatality the capture of
Hooker and his whole army was inevitable. The unexpected
humiliation of the Federal Government in surrendering

9 te Rift stn Ow RRR IRAN DOE TRT

REVIEW AND CONCLUSION. XVii

Mason and Slidell to British threats avoided a war with that
power and with it the independence of the South, which
would have come with the command of the seas which was
within the power, at that time, of Britain’s fleet. If Stuart’s
cavalry had been on hand at Gettysburg, or even a competent
Corps commander to have held our gains of the first two days,
in all human probability the war would have ended in a great
Southern victory at that spot. Had Mr. Davis, when he sent
his commissioners to England to negotiate a loan of $15,000,-
000, acceded to the pressure of foreign capitalists to make it
$600,000,000, not only would the Southern finances not have
broken down (which was the real cause of our defeat) and
Southern troops have been amply supplied, but European
governments would have intervened in favor of Southern In-
dependence ere they would have suffered their influential
capitalists to lose that sum. They have always intervened
everywhere for such cause.

There were other occasions besides when a contrary event
would have brought about Independence. No troops in all
history have fought better nor has any people shown better
military qualities. But, as Napier said of Napoleon, “For-
tune, that name for the unknown combinations of an infinite
power, was wanting to us and without her aid, the designs of
man are as bubbles on a troubled ocean.”

Historical experience in other countries has been that the
disbanded soldiers after a long war, having contracted habits
of idleness, have been a source of long continued disturbance.
Not so with the Confederate veterans who at once went to
work to repair the ravages of war and rebuild the fortunes
ot their sorely devastated country. Not only that, but they
were the mainstay of order and in many places when the
discarded camp-followers of the other side were not restrain-
ed by the commanders of that army, these were sternly given
to understand that if order was not otherwise maintained,
the ex-Confederates could and would establish it.

Unawed by garrisons of the victorious army, and unse-
duced by the blandishments and temptations offered them,
these soldiers of a Lost Cause took their stand for Anglo-