h. The
Confederacy, alarmed by the reverses of the winter and spring, had just
put forth tremendous and almost incredible efforts. The South had done
all that she could be made to do by the stimulus of fear. Increased,
aye, even sustained exertion could have been elicited from her people,
only by the intoxication of unwonted and dazzling success. No additional
inducement could have been offered to the soldiers, whom pride and
patriotism had sent into the field, to remain with their colors, but the
attraction of brilliant victories and popular campaigns. No incentive
could have lured into the ranks the young men who had evaded the
conscription and held out against the sentiment of their people, but the
prospect of a speedy and successful termination of the war. But there
are few among those who were acquainted with the people of Tennessee,
Alabama, and Mississippi, and their temper at that time, who will not
agree with me, that a great victory in Kentucky, and the prospect of
holding the State, perhaps of crossing the Ohio, would have brought to
Bragg's army more Tennesseeans, Alabamians and Mississippians, than were
ever gotten into the Confederate service, during the remaining two years
and a half of the war. Such a victory would have undoubtedly added more
than twenty thousand Kentuckians to the army, for accurate computation
has been made of that many who were ready to enlist, as soon as Bragg
had won his fight. Five thousand did enlist while it was still uncertain
whether the Confederate army would remain in the State. It is not
perfectly certain that more than five thousand volunteers were ever
obtained, in the same length of time, in any seceded State. All of these
men, too, followed the army away from Kentucky. Some of General Bragg's
friends have assigned, as one reason, why he left Kentucky without an
effort to hold her, that he was disappointed in not receiving more
recruits from the State. It is highly probable that such was the case.
If an able General had marched into his enemy's territory, depending
upon fighting an early and hardly contested battle against a veteran
army, with the assistance of recruits just obtained, and whom he could
not have yet armed, his friends would have concealed (if possible) his
design, or if unable to do so, would have confessed it a weakness
unworthy of their chief, for which they blushed. But it is not difficult
to believe that General Bragg entertained just such a plan. The
K