ally certain; and between complete defeat and
conquest there is no such distinction as some have imagined, for a
military force which has destroyed all military forces opposed to it can
always impose its will unconditionally on the conquered. But that these
States would remain united and determined was not certain at all. If the
South put up a sufficiently energetic fight, there might arise in the
dominant section a considerable body of opinion which felt that too high
a price was being paid for the enterprise. Moreover, there was always
the possibility and often the probability of another factor--the
intervention of some foreign Power in favour of the South, as France had
intervened in favour of the Americans in 1781. Such were the not
unlikely chances upon which the South was gambling.

Another factor in favour of the South was preparation. South Carolina
had begun raising and drilling soldiers for a probable war as soon as
Lincoln was elected. The other Southern States had at various intervals
followed her example. On the Northern side there had been no preparation
whatever under the Buchanan _regime_, and Lincoln had not much chance of
attempting such preparation before the war was upon him.

Further, it was probably true that, even untrained, the mass of
Southerners were better fitted for war than the mass of Northerners.
They were, as a community, agrarian, accustomed to an open-air life,
proud of their skill in riding and shooting. The first levies of the
North were drawn mostly from the urban population, and consisted largely
of clerks, artisans, and men of the professional class, in whose
previous modes of life there was nothing calculated to prepare them in
any way for the duties of a soldier. To this general rule there was,
however, an important reservation, of which the fighting at Fort
Donelson and Shiloh afforded an early illustration. In dash and
hardihood, and what may be called the raw materials of soldiership the
South, whatever it may have had to teach the North, had little to teach
the West.

In the matter of armament the South, though not exactly advantageously
placed, was at the beginning not so badly off as it might well have
been. Floyd, at one time Buchanan's Secretary for War, was accused, and
indeed, after he had joined the Secessionists, virtually admitted having
deliberately distributed the arms of the Federal Government to the
advantage of the Confederacy. Certainly the outbreak of war fo