ections, felt on vital questions that agitated them; and papers were
thus forced, as it were, into becoming the medium for interchange of
sentiment.

An examination of the leading journals of the South at this period
will show that--whatever their mismanagement and want of business
success--there was no lack of ability in their editorial columns. Such
organs as the New Orleans _Delta_, Mobile _Advertiser_, Charleston
_Mercury_ and Richmond _Examiner_ and _Whig_ might have taken rank
alongside of the best-edited papers of the country. Their literary
ability was, perhaps, greater than that of the North; their discussions
of the questions of the hour were clear, strong and scholarly, and
possessed, besides, the invaluable quality of honest conviction. Unlike
the press of the North, the southern journals were not hampered by any
business interests; they were unbiased, unbought and free to say what
they thought and felt. And say it they did, in the boldest and plainest
of language.

Nowhere on the globe was the freedom of the press more thoroughly
vindicated than in the Southern States of America. And during the whole
course of the war, criticisms of men and measures were constant and
outspoken. So much so, indeed, that in many instances the operations of
the Government were embarrassed, or the action of a department
commander seriously hampered, by hostile criticism in a paper. In naval
operations, and the workings of the Conscript Law, especially was this
freedom felt to be injurious; and though it sprang from the perfectly
pure motive of doing the best for the cause--though the smallest
southern journal, printed on straw paper and with worn-out type, was
above purchase, or hush money--still it might have been better at times
had gag-law been applied.

For, with a large proportion of the population of different sections
gathered in huge army communities, their different newspapers reached
the camps and were eagerly devoured. Violent and hostile criticisms of
Government--even expositions of glaring abuses--were worse than useless
unless they could be remedied; and when these came to be the text of
camp-talk, they naturally made the soldiers think somewhat as they did.

Now, the greatest difficulty with that variously-constituted army, was
to make its individuals the perfect machines--unthinking, unreasoning,
only obeying--to which the perfect soldier must be reduced. "Johnny
Reb" _would_ think; and not infrequently, he