when the forces on the exterior lines are the better provided with
sea-power. Again, if the exterior forces are so much stronger than
the interior forces that these latter dare not leave any strategic
point open in case the enemy breaks through, then it is evident
that the interior forces will suffer all the disadvantages of being
surrounded, divided, worn out, and defeated.

This happened at last to the South, and was one of the four advantages
she lost. Another was the hope of foreign intervention, which died
hard in Southern hearts, but which was already moribund halfway
through the war. A third was the hope of dissension in the North,
a hope which often ran high till Lincoln's reelection in November,
'64, and one which only died out completely with the surrender of
Lee. The fourth was the unfounded belief that Southerners were
the better fighting men. They certainly had an advantage at first
in having a larger proportion of men accustomed to horses and arms
and inured to life in the open. But, other things being equal, there
was nothing to choose between the two sides, so far as natural
fighting values were concerned.

Practically all the Southern "military males" passed into the ranks;
and a military male eventually meant any one who could march to
the front or do non-combatant service with an army, from boys in
their teens to men in their sixties. Conscription came after one
year; and with very few exemptions, such as the clergy, Quakers,
many doctors, newspaper editors, and "indispensable" civil servants.
Lee used to express his regret that all the greatest strategists
were tied to their editorial chairs. But sterner feelings were
aroused against that recalcitrant State Governor, Joseph Brown
of Georgia, who declared eight thousand of his civil servants to
be totally exempt. From first to last, conscripts and volunteers,
nearly a million men were enrolled: equaling one-fifth of the entire
war-party white population of the seceding States.

All branches of the service suffered from a constant lack of arms
and munitions. As with the ships for the navy so with munitions
for the army, the South did not exploit the European markets while
her ports were still half open and her credit good, Jefferson Davis
was spotlessly honest, an able bureaucrat, and full of undying zeal.
But, though an old West Pointer, he was neither a foresightful
organizer nor fit to exercise any of the executive power which he
held as the c