North and nine to the South. The grand total odds were therefore
five against two. The odds against the South rise to four against
one if the blacks are left out. There were twenty-two million whites
in the North against five and a half in the South. But to reach
the real fighting odds of three to one we must also eliminate the
peace parties, large in the North, small in the South. If we take
a tenth off the Southern whites and a third off the Northern grand
total we shall get the approximate war-party odds of three to one;
for these subtractions leave fifteen millions in the North against
only five in the South.

This gives the statistical key to the startling contrasts which
were so often noted by foreign correspondents at the time, and
which are still so puzzling in the absence of the key. The whole
normal life of the South was visibly changed by the war. But in
the North the inquiring foreigner could find, on one hand, the
most steadfast loyalty and heroic sacrifice, both in the Northern
armies and among their folks at home, while on the other he could
find a wholly different kind of life flaunting its most shameless
features in his face. The theaters were crowded. Profiteers abounded,
taking their pleasures with ravenous greed; for the best of their
blood-money would end with the war. Everywhere there was the same
fundamental difference between the patriots who carried on the war
and the parasites who hindered them. Of course the two-thirds who
made up the war party were not all saints or even perfect patriots.
Nor was the other third composed exclusively of wanton sinners. There
were, for instance, the genuine settlers whom the Union Government
encouraged to occupy the West, beyond the actual reach of war. But
the distinction still remains.

Though sorely hampered, the Union Government did, on the whole,
succeed in turning the vast and varied resources of the North against
the much smaller and less varied resources of the South. The North
held the machinery of national government, though with the loss of
a good quarter of the engineers. In agriculture of, all kinds both
North and South were very strong for purposes of peace. Each had
food in superabundance. But the trading strength of the South lay
in cotton and tobacco, neither of which could be turned into money
without going north or to sea. In finance the North was overwhelmingly
strong by comparison, more especially because Northern sea-power
shut off the