now that there
would have been no more battles at the West after the capture of Fort
Donelson if all the troops in that region had been under a single
commander who would have followed up that victory.

There is little doubt in my mind now that the prevailing sentiment of
the South would have been opposed to secession in 1860 and 1861, if
there had been a fair and calm expression of opinion, unbiased by
threats, and if the ballot of one legal voter had counted for as much as
that of any other. But there was no calm discussion of the question.
Demagogues who were too old to enter the army if there should be a war,
others who entertained so high an opinion of their own ability that they
did not believe they could be spared from the direction of the affairs
of state in such an event, declaimed vehemently and unceasingly against
the North; against its aggressions upon the South; its interference with
Southern rights, etc., etc. They denounced the Northerners as cowards,
poltroons, negro-worshippers; claimed that one Southern man was equal to
five Northern men in battle; that if the South would stand up for its
rights the North would back down. Mr. Jefferson Davis said in a speech,
delivered at La Grange, Mississippi, before the secession of that State,
that he would agree to drink all the blood spilled south of Mason and
Dixon's line if there should be a war. The young men who would have the
fighting to do in case of war, believed all these statements, both in
regard to the aggressiveness of the North and its cowardice. They, too,
cried out for a separation from such people. The great bulk of the
legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were
generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating
their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very
limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre--what there was,
if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too
needed emancipation. Under the old regime they were looked down upon by
those who controlled all the affairs in the interest of slave-owners, as
poor white trash who were allowed the ballot so long as they cast it
according to direction.

I am aware that this last statement may be disputed and individual
testimony perhaps adduced to show that in ante-bellum days the ballot
was as untrammelled in the south as in any section of the country; but
in the face of any such contrad