464 NortH Caro.iIna Troops, 1861-’65.

good faith and moral support of her people at large, and in
all the qualities which mark self-sacrifice, patriotism and de-
votion to duty, North Carolina is entitled to stand where her
troops stood in battle, behind no State, but in the front rank
of the Confederation, aligned and abreast with the best, the
foremost and the bravest. And I regret exceedingly that
many of the facts and figures I shall give are reproduced
from memory, though I am quite sure they will approximate
exactitude. My familiarity with all the affairs of the State
during the last three years of the war, was such as to enable
me to state facts with reasonable certainty. The principal
records of the State covering that period, in the Executive
Department were seized and carried to Washington by the
Federal authorities in 1865, where they yet remain. And
though efforts have been made to that end, the officials would
neither return the original nor permit copies to be made for
the use of the State. No doubt such a course was designed
~ to serve some great and wise State policy, though exactly
what it was beyond the pleasure of irritating and disobliging
our people, I have never been able to see. But so it is; we
are utterly without official records in North Carolina concern-
ing the most eventful period in our annals of 290 years.*
It may be said that there were only eleven States wholly
committed to the late war—Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,
Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee. Maryland, Kentucky and
Missouri were only partially engaged, the great majority of
their people remaining with the Union. Of these eleven,
North Carolina occupied the following position at the begin-
ning of the war: In extent of territory she was the seventh ;
in total population she was the fifth ; in white population the
third ; Virginia and Tennessee only exceeding her; in wealth
she was the seventh; in the value of all farm products the
fourth ; in the production of cotton the ninth; in the produc-
tion of corn the fourth; of wheat, rye and oats, the third, and
in the number of horses and cattle the fourth. In manufac-

*Since then, copies of those letter books have been furnished to the
State.—Eb.

 

NortH Carouina’s REcorp. 465

tures of all kinds, she was the third; in the production of
iron and material of war, about fourth, and in root crops,
fisheries and naval stores, the first of the eleven.

Such, in brief, were her capacities and resources for sus-
taining a war as compared with her associates. Her mate-
rial condition was in all respects good. Average wealth was
considerable, and prosperity and comfort abounded. Her
credit was excellent and her State schemes of internal im-
provement were advancing cautiously and prudently. The
cultivation of cotton was advancing northward and that of
tobacco was coming South; manufactures were growing and
industry diversifying—the surest road to wealth—and every-
thing indeed was moving on a solid basis. Politically, whilst
our people were loyal to Southern institutions, they were em-
inently conservative and attached to the Union of the States.
In considering what North Carolina did or did not do, in the
war, this fact of her Union proclivities should never be for-
gotten. She was the last to move in the drama of secession,
and went out at last more from a sense of duty to her sisters
and the sympathies of neighborhood and blood, than from a
deliberate conviction that it was good policy to do so. So
late as February, 1861, her people solemnly declared, by a
majority of many thousands, that they desired no convention
to consider the propriety of seceding. But after the fall of
Sumter and the proclamation of President Lincoln ealling
upon her for troops, she hesitated no longer. On 20 May,
1861, eighty-six years after her first Declaration of Inde-
pendence of Great Britain, she repealed the ordinance by
which she became a member of the American Union, and took
her stand with the young Confederacy. None stood by that
desperate venture with better faith or greater efficiency. It
is a proud assertion which I make to-day when I say that, so
far as I have been able to learn, North Carolina furnished
more soldiers in proportion to white population, and more
supplies and material in proportion to her means, for the sup-
port of that war, than any State of the Confederacy. I beg
you to believe that this is not said with any spirit of offence
to other Southern States, or of defiance toward the Govern-
ment of the United States, but simply as a just eulogy upon

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