ld handle 100,000
men, and that was the Duke of Wellington.) Had the volunteers been
associated with an equal number of trained and disciplined soldiers,
as had been the case in Mexico,* (* Grant's Memoirs volume 1 page
168.) they would have derived both confidence from their presence,
and stability from their example; had there been even an experienced
staff, capable of dealing with large forces, and an efficient
commissariat, capable of rapid expansion, they might have crushed all
organised opposition. But only 3000 regulars could be drawn from the
Western borders; the staff was as feeble as the commissariat; and so,
from a purely military point of view, the conquest of the South
appeared impossible. Her self-sustaining power was far greater than
has been usually imagined. On the broad prairies of Texas, Arkansas,
and Louisiana ranged innumerable herds. The area under cultivation
was almost equal to that north of the Potomac and the Ohio. The
pastoral districts--the beautiful Valley of Virginia, the great
plains of Georgia, the fertile bottoms of Alabama, were inexhaustible
granaries. The amount of live stock--horses, mules, oxen, and
sheep--was actually larger than in the North; and if the acreage
under wheat was less extensive, the deficiency was more than balanced
by the great harvests of rice and maize.* (* Cf. U.S. Census Returns
1860.) Men of high ability, but profoundly ignorant of the conditions
which govern military operations, prophesied that the South would be
brought back to the Union within ninety days; General Winfield Scott,
on the other hand, Commander-in-Chief of the Federal armies, declared
that its conquest might be achieved "in two or three years, by a
young and able general--a Wolfe, a Desaix, a Hoche--with 300,000
disciplined men kept up to that number."

Nevertheless, despite the extent of her territory and her scanty
means of communication, the South was peculiarly vulnerable. Few
factories or foundries had been established within her frontiers. She
manufactured nothing; and not only for all luxuries, but for almost
every necessary of life, she was dependent upon others. Her cotton
and tobacco brought leather and cloth in exchange from England.
Metals, machinery, rails, rolling stock, salt, and even medicines
came, for the most part, from the North. The weapons which she put
into her soldiers' hands during the first year of the war, her
cannon, powder, and ammunition, were of foreign make. Mor