Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1893 — A GREAT UPRISING. [ARTICLE]

A GREAT UPRISING.

The Surprising Material and Moral Strength of the Loyal States In 1861. As the years roll by we get a proper perspective of the civil war, and as we have leisure and opportunity to compare it with other wars we realize the importance of one fact too often overlooked. In oar impatience and criticism in 1861-5 we forgot that no war of modern times had been waged by any nation with rnlers so little prepared by experience. The soldiers of the Union., in 1861 were absolutely new to the art of war, and t>y an extraordinary combination of circumstances the civil rulers were at the same time almost devoid of experience in practical administration. The Republican party was led by very new men, whose almost entire experience had been in political opposition. They were indeed ardent patriots, bnt so far as experience in governing went they were in 1861 just like passengers who might suddenly be called to take charge of a ship going to pieces beneath their feet in a storm which made thrice seasoned mariners pale. Suddenly they were called upon to deal with the most embarrassing complications in diplomacy, the most difficult problems in finance, the most subtle and complex issues in constitutional law, and to meet demands for military purposes which would have staggered the most powerful monarchies in Europe. Russia, Austria, England and France had in torn owned their incapacity to suddenly mobilize a quarter of a million men. The United States, which had bnt 16,000 men in its regular army in April, 1861, had before the frosts of autumn fell nearly 700,000 men. armed and equipped and in camp or on the march. And with what success? Comparisons are in this case indeed eloquent. Great Britain’s administrative system confessedly broke down in supplying less than 60,000 men in the Crimea. In the winter of 1861 the Washington administration supplied 600,000 men, scattered along a line of 2,500 miles from the mouth of the Potomac to New Mexico. Before the war a revenue of $60,000,000 a year alarmed the nation. In a few months Secretary Chase had to raise $600,000,000 a year, and soon had to doable that. In naval warfare the Americans of April, 1861, were as children, yet in eight months they had established a naval blockade the most thorough in history, and in eight more their rams,' monitors and other ironclads had revolutionized naval warfare. The energy of the north was indeed wonderful, its reserve of strength vastly greater than itself suspected. To quota a western byword, “We ached with strength.” No country in the world was ever stronger for war purposes than were the adhering states in 1861. And back of all the material resources were the soul, the moral vigor, the fierce, and high resolve that the time had cone to settle the great issue once foralL Only twice in all history has theca been anything at all approaching it—the uprisings of Holland against Spain, and of France in her early revolutionary era. Time, instead of lessening, heightens our appreciation of that great and) truly national movement. The perspeo-t tive of 80 odd years gives ns a more in-l spiring view of the great uprising of thof north. J. H. Beadle, h M J