entuckians had not the confidence in the ultimate success of the
Confederate cause, to induce them to enlist in the Confederate service,
risking every thing, immediately sacrificing much, as they did so, when
they saw a magnificent Confederate army decline battle with a Federal
force, certainly not its superior. General Bragg was not only a very
shrewd judge of human nature, but even he might have known that the
irresolution and timidity he showed from the first day he put foot in
Kentucky, was not the way to inspire confidence in any people--it
certainly was the worst method he could have adopted to win the people
of Kentucky.

And now, to consider the effect which such a Confederate success would
have in the North: I do not allude to the effect it would have had upon
the wishes and plans of President and Cabinet, upon the views of the
Congress, nor upon the arrangements of politicians and the patch work
of their conventions, but to the direction it might have given the
popular mind and the popular feeling. Men who were then serving in the
Confederate army, know little, of course, of the temper of the Northern
people, at that time, but many were impressed with the idea, then,
strengthened by conversation with Northern men since, that, if ever the
Northern people doubted of subjugating the South, it was at that period.

Immense efforts had been made, immense sums had been expended, immense
armies had been sent against them, and still the Southern people were
unconquered, defiant, and apparently stronger than ever. Would it have
been possible to strengthen this doubt into a conviction that the
attempt to subdue the Southern people was hopeless, and the war had
better be stopped? Volunteering was no longer filling the Federal
armies. Now, if the Confederate arms had been incontestably triumphant,
from the Potomac to the Ohio, if Northern territory had been in turn
threatened with general invasion, and if the option of continuing a war,
thus going against them, or making peace, had been submitted at the
critical moment to the Northern people, how would they have decided?
Would they have encouraged their Government to draft them--or would they
have forced the Government to make peace? The matter was, at any rate,
sufficiently doubtful to make it worth while to try the experiment. When
that scare passed off, it is the firm conviction of more than one man
who "saw the war out" that the last chance of Confederate independence