ass, the proportion of Southerners bred to an outdoor life was
higher. Generally speaking, if not exactly more frugal, they were far
less used to living comfortably. Above all, all classes of people
among them were still accustomed to think of fighting as a normal and
suitable occupation for a man; while the prevailing temper of the North
thought of man as meant for business, and its higher temper was apt to
think of fighting as odious and war out of date. This, like the other
advantages of the South, was transitory; before very long Northerners
who became soldiers at a sacrifice of inclination, from the highest
spirit of patriotism or in the methodic temper in which business has to
be done, would become man for man as good soldiers as the Southerners;
but the original superiority of the Southerners would continue to have
a moral effect in their own ranks and on the mind of the enemy, more
especially of the enemy's generals, even after its cause had ceased to
exist; and herein the military advantage of the South was undoubtedly,
through the first half of the war, considerable.

In the matter of leadership the South had certain very real and certain
other apparent but probably delusive advantages. The United States had
no large number of trained military officers, still capable of active
service. The armies of the North and South alike had to be commanded
and staffed to a great extent by men who first studied their profession
in that war; and the lack of ripe military judgment was likely to be
felt most in the higher commands where the forces to be employed and
co-ordinated were largest. The South secured what may be called its
fair proportion of the comparatively few officers, but it was of
tremendous moment that, among the officers who, when the war began,
were recognised as competent, two, who sadly but in simple loyalty to
the State of Virginia took the Southern side, were men of genius. The
advantages of the South would have been no advantages without skill and
resolution to make use of them. The main conditions of the war--the
vast space, the difficulty in all parts of it of moving troops, the
generally low level of military knowledge--were all such as greatly
enhance the opportunities of the most gifted commander. Lee and
"Stonewall" Jackson thus became, the former throughout the war, the
latter till he was killed in the summer of 1863, factors of primary
importance in the struggle. Wolseley, who had, bes