o be sure, for some time
extensively evaded, admitting English wares of all sorts in great
quantities. But in no long time the blockade tightened. Moreover,
comparatively little cotton was raised which could in any event have
been exported. Credit failing, imports, if any, had to be paid for in
money. This, of course, was soon spent, and then importation ceased.
Privateers destroyed but could bring nothing home.

As the war progressed, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Louisiana, and
with the fall of Vicksburg the whole immense Trans-Mississippi tract,
were lost to the Confederacy. Sherman's march isolated also Mississippi,
Alabama, and Georgia.

The dearth of necessaries, save corn and bacon, became desperate. Salt
and wheat bread were rare luxuries. In 1864 a suit of jean cost $600, a
spool of cotton $30, a pound of bacon $15. It should, of course, be
borne in mind that these high prices in part represented the
depreciation of Confederate paper money. Drastic drafting and the arming
of negroes could avail little for lack of accoutrements and food. Thus
Lee's capitulation at Appomattox (April 9, 1865) represents less a
defeat of his army than the breakdown of the Confederacy at large. So
true and impressive is this that reflection upon it makes the last year
of Lee's commandership seem peculiarly glorious. Only by rarest genius,
surely, were those dazzling tactics, that lynx-eyed, sleepless
watchfulness, that superhuman patience and superhuman valor, protracted,
incessant for a whole year, keeping intact, victorious, and full of
inspiration that gray line, ever longer, ever thinner, of men
outnumbered two, then three, and at last five to one, whose food and
clothing grew scantier with the days, while the bounties of a continent
replenished their opponents,--keeping that tenuous line unbroken till
very starvation unfitted soldiers to handle muskets which must be used
empty if at all, because ammunition was spent! And when we recall that
all this was accomplished not because the Union army was cowardly,
ill-led, or asleep, but in spite of Grant's relentless push and an ably
led army as brave, wary, and determined as ever marched: let us ask
critics versed in the history of war, if books tell of generalship more
complete than this!

Lee's military conduct revealed, it must be admitted, one weakness, that
of undue leniency toward slack, dilatory, and opinionated subordinates.
This was, however, only in part Lee's personal