468 NortH Carorina Troops, 1861-65.

me for this task was that the North Carolina dead there ex-
ceeded the dead of any other State; showing that in all the
glorious campaigns of Jackson, Ewell and Early, in that
blood-drenched valley, North Carolina soldiers were either
very numerous or else had an unusual share of the hard fight-
ing; neither of which facts would be so much as suspected by
reading the popular histories of those campaigns. Dead men
do tell tales, and tales which can not be disputed.

Almost the only commands in Lee’s army which were in-
tact and serviceable at Appomattox, were North Carolina
brigades, and the statement is made, and so far as I know

without contradiction, that she surrendered twice as many
muskets as any other State. At Greensboro, too, Hoke’s Di-
vision, containing three brigades of North Carolina troops, in
splendid condition and efficiency, constituted one-third or
more of Johnston’s entire army.*

I mention these facts, not by way of ill-tempered or un-
tasteful boasting, but by way of a proper self-assertion, a
quality in which the people of my State are charged, and
justly charged, with being deficient; and also because they
testify to a state of things, which in the hands of a just and
discriminating historian must greatly redound to the credit
and honor of North Carolina. For I shall not scruple to
make the statement here which I have often made elsewhere,
and I make it without the fear of giving offence to brave and
great men, that the writers who have hastened to pen biogra-
phies of the great and illustrious leaders which Virginia gave
to the Confederacy, have been too anxious to eulogize their
heroes to give due attention to the forces which wrought their
plans into such glorious results—the plain men whose deeds
gave their leaders so much renown. The history of the Brit-
ish Kings had been often written, said Macaulay, but no one
had ever written the history of the British people, which was
the more useful to be learned. So we are having many his-
tories and biographies of the great generals and chieftains of

*In his estimate of the proportion of North Carolinians at the two sur-
renders, Gov. Vance unintentionally overstates the facts in favor of his

— ee of course in honest reliance upon the information before
im.—Ep.

NortH Carouina’s REcorD. 469

our war, but we have not and are not likely to have soon, any
history of the Confederate people—of the thousands upon
thousands who rushed forward under the banners of these
chieftains; of the numbers who died; of the sufferings they
endured, the sacrifices they made, of the labors of all classes
performed; of the subsistence and material furnished by
those not in the ranks; of their feelings, their hopes, patriot-
ism and their despair. No history can be useful or instruc-
tive which gives us no glance into such things as these. The
broad, Catholic cosmopolitan history of this most remarka-
ble struggle has yet to be written, wherein the story of the
people shall be told; wherein, when it is said how that a great
general won a victory, it will also be mentioned what troops
and where from who fought it for him; how the artisan in
the shops, the ploughman in the field, the little girls in the
factories, the mothers at the old hand looms, the herdsmen on
the mountain’s side, the miner in the earth’s bowels, the
drivers and brakesmen on the railroad engines, how all these
felt, and strove, and suffered equally with the soldier, and yet
without his stimulus of personal glory. Such a history
would fill with content the palaces of the rich and the cottages
of the poor, would imbue the humble masses with still greater
patriotism, and our statesmen with a most useful knowledge ;
would remove local jealousies, and increase brotherly affec-
tion.

Having shown how North Carolina performed her duty to
the Confederacy in furnishing soldiers, I desire to call at-
tention heretofore corrected to the part she took in furnishing

supplies and material. And here it would greatly interest the
political economist were I able to give accurate instead of es-

timated figures, to consider what resources a people may ex-
hibit under pressure of cireumstances. Every industry look-
ing to the support of an army in the field, or the people at
home, sprang forward with astonishing activity, especially
those wherein we had formerly been dependent on foreign
manufacturers. Like most of the Southern people, we were
slavish tributaries to Northern and British manufacturers;
the simplest article, in common use bore their impress, from
a broom or an axe handle to a water bucket. In the manufac-