eapons and the food to
support the army, or die in the attempt. Depositors took risks and
loaned their money to the banks. Bankers took their courage in their
hands and loaned the money to the manufacturers; manufacturers
advertised for labour in Europe and started up their factories by night
as well as by day. Wages rose, the balance of trade was largely in
favour of the North, the oil regions began to prosper, and industry,
commerce and finance all waxed mighty. In 1864 the whole land was in the
full sweep of industrial prosperity. The debts incident to the panic of
1857 were fully liquidated. Iron is the barometer, and the country
doubled its consumption of iron. An editor writing of his city says,
"Old Hartford seems fat and rich and cozy, and everything is as tranquil
as if there were no war."

But the industrial conditions of life in the South were very different.
Be it remembered that the North was a self-supporting region, both as
to foods and manufactured articles, while the South, under slavery,
produced raw material, and used that raw stuff to build up factories in
England. When the war came the South found herself without the means of
supplying her own wants. Within six months the South discovered that
every axe and saw and steam-engine and iron rail and bolt and nail had
come from the North. Davis sent out men to scurry the country for old
stoves and every iron scrap was picked up to be melted into weapons. At
the close of the war tenpenny nails were used as five-cent pieces and
currency in North Carolina. To crown all other disasters came the
debasement of the currency. Macaulay says that the world has suffered
less from bad kings than from bad shillings and sixpences. The
Confederacy issued one billion dollars of paper money, States issued
another flood of promises to pay, cities put out municipal currency,
fire and life insurances their shin-plasters, and they kept pouring out
paper money until finally all the printing presses broke down. A month
before the collapse, a Confederate soldier, returning to his little
cabin, paid $10,000 for a fifteen-year-old mule, knee sprung in front
and spavined behind, and $7,500 for the shoes for shoeing the mule.

Lee's army would have collapsed but for the marvellous heroism,
resourcefulness and courage of the Southern women. They took charge of
the fields, planted the crops, gathered the harvests, and staggered on
to the end. Not one Northern home in five was death-