nd
communicating by numerous channels with the open sea. Moreover, it
was still an even chance whether cotton became a source of weakness
to the Confederacy or a source of strength. If the markets of Europe
were closed to her by the hostile battle-ships, the credit of the
young Republic would undoubtedly be seriously impaired; but the
majority of the Southern politicians believed that the great powers
beyond the Atlantic would never allow the North to enforce her
restrictive policy. England and France, a large portion of whose
population depended for their livelihood on the harvests of the
South, were especially interested; and England and France, both great
maritime States, were not likely to brook interference with their
trade. Nor had the Southern people a high opinion of Northern
patriotism. They could hardly conceive that the maintenance of the
Union, which they themselves considered so light a bond, had been
exalted elsewhere to the height of a sacred principle. Least of all
did they believe that the great Democratic party, which embraced so
large a proportion of the Northern people, and which, for so many
years, had been in close sympathy with themselves, would support the
President in his coercive measures.

History, moreover, not always an infallible guide, supplied many
plausible arguments to those who sought to forecast the immediate
future. In the War of Independence, not only had the impracticable
nature of the country, especially of the South, baffled the armies of
Great Britain, but the European powers, actuated by old grudges and
commercial jealousy, had come to the aid of the insurgents. On a
theatre of war where trained and well-organised forces had failed, it
was hardly to be expected that raw levies would succeed; and if
England, opposed in 1782 by the fleets of France, Spain, and Holland,
had been compelled to let the colonies go, it was hardly likely that
the North, confronted by the naval strength of England and France,
would long maintain the struggle with the South. Trusting then to
foreign intervention, to the dissensions of their opponents, and to
their own hardihood and unanimity, the Southerners faced the future
with few misgivings.

At Richmond, finding himself without occupation, Major Jackson
volunteered to assist in the drilling of the new levies. The duty to
which he was first assigned was distasteful. He was an indifferent
draughtsman, and a post in the topographical department was