This breaking out of hostilities brought into the Confederacy the Border States, not so vitally interested in the subject of slavery, but with every tradition and instinct keenly alert to their legal rights under the original Consti tution.
This was the real issue of the War, and not slavery, as is often loosely asserted. It is attested, not only by the titles "Union" and "Rebel," universally applied to the two armies by the North, but by the passionate claim of the Confederates that their struggle was for that liberty of self-government so dear for ages to the Anglo-Saxon race. And at the Fort Mon roe conference in February 1865 between Presi dent Lincoln and Vice-President Stephens, the South's surrender of her claim to integrity of the Union was the one point upon which Lin coln insisted, and the one which Stephens could not yield, although utter destruction awaited him scarcely 60 days off. It is further shown in the desperate character of the struggle upon both sides, involving, with equal ardor, indi viduals and communities of most diverse de grees of interest in the question of slavery.
The combatants were very unequally matched, and as each side was in deadly earnest, the final outcome of the contest was inevitable from its beginning. On the Union side was a population of over 20,000,000, with an army, a navy, a treasury, a highly developed system of transportation by land and sea, as well as of manufactures, of commerce and of credit. On the Confederate side was a much scattered pop ulation, almost entirely agricultural, of about 5,000,000 whites, comparatively destitute of all those elements of military strength. Even their agriculture was so little devoted to food prod ucts that actual starvation of men and horses in their armies finally hastened the inevitable end.
Besides the whites, there was a population of 3,000,000 slaves. It was believed by many at the North that if their freedom was proclaimed by President Lincoln, as a war measure, while their masters were absent in the field, they would rise in insurrection, or at least desert their labor in mass. The experiment, however, being tried, proved a failure. The slaves gen
erally remained faithful everywhere, except in the sections overrun by the enemy. During the four years of the war there were actually mus tered into the Union army 2,898,304 men. The Confederate numbers cannot be accurately known, but the total white male population be tween the ages of 18 and 45 was, by the census of 1860, 984,475. In 1864 the ages of military service were extended to include all between 17 and 50, an act which was described by General Grant as "robbing the cradle and the grave." Nearly 2,000 battles and skirmishes were fought, and in them the number of killed and wounded on the Union side is officially given as 389,345. The numbers on the Confed erate side are not accurately known, no com plete records existing, but they are estimated at about 300,000.
Of lives lost in the war from battle, wounds and disease, the official records of the Union army report 316,516. The lives lost in the Con federate army could not have been less than 250,000.
The Confederates appreciated the odds against them, but with firm conviction of the righteousness of their cause they trusted to be able by fortitude and endurance to wear out and discourage their adversaries. The fighting was often very desperate as shown by the casualties upon both sides, which frequently exceeded the casualties of the severest battles of Europe. Upon three occasions, some historians have imagined, the Confederates were within reach of very important results.
At Bull Run, the first battle of the war, the Federals were completely routed and Washington might have been captured, it is supposed, had the victory been followed up. Gettysburg is considered by many to have been the crisis of the war, a desperate attack by the Confederates being repulsed. But there is strong evidence that the greatest period of discouragement on the Union side followed the battle of Cold Harbor, 3 June 1864. It was, however, of brief duration and of no effect. Successes elsewhere soon followed and made it apparent that the Confederate resources were approaching exhaustion.