War Spirits High

In the beginning of the war, spirits were buoyed up by the belief that it would soon be over. Neither the South nor the North seems to have realized how long and fierce and costly the struggle was to be. Three months, six months, or at the outside, a year, was the time given it in the prevailing opinion. Each side seems to have greatly underestimated the other.

In Arkansas, as elsewhere in the South, the confidence in a swift victory soared above graver considerations. Bells pealed forth, and bands vociferated martial airs. There were banquets resounding with stirring, heroic oratory. The newspapers promised an early, glorious triumph for Southern arms.

At first is seemed as if that optimism was to be a true forecast of events. The Southern forces crashed through every Northern opposition. Never did a warring people face brighter prospects than did the South up through the winter of 1863.

All the world believe the Confederacy was destined to win, and that recognition of its government would come soon from England, France, and other European powers. Northern agents in England reported that a majority of the British parliament favored the South. So, too, did Gladstone and most of the British cabinet. The nobility of England and her powerful merchants were of the same way of thinking. Carlyle ridiculed the Yankees. Dickens made fun of Lincoln. It seemed, in the winter of 1863, only a matter of weeks before England would intervene on the South’s behalf.

French sentiment was equally strong for the South. The French emperor, Napoleon III, loaned large sums of gold to the Confederate government.

But when the Emperor Napoleon finally asked England to join France in recognizing the Confederacy, England refused. There were a number of reasons. One was the opposition of British labor, then entering on a long struggle with capital, and translating its owns demands for fairer treatment into an unfriendliness toward slavery. Also, as an outcropping of European animosities, Russia looked with hostile eyes at England, and was friendly to the North. Russian battleships were anchored off San Francisco, and that fact had to England a dubious look.

But most of all, by 1863 it was becoming apparent that the North had heavy advantages over the South in larger population and greater industrial development, food production and wealth. Along about that time, one of the stoutest and ablest defenders of the Southern cause, John R. Eakin, editor of the Washington Telegraph wrote in his paper.

“Let us no longer commit the folly of encouraging our people by contemptuous depreciation of the courage and military skill of the enemy. They are neither cowards nor fools. We must be honest with ourselves in our estimate of facts…Although we have room for anxiety, there is none for despondency. We should not have hoped to crush our enemy as we would a set of impotent Chinese. They have superior numbers, superior arms, and are of the same race as ourselves…Let us bide our time, and lend every effort to strengthen our armies and fire the hearts of our soldiers. Stand firm!”

And stand firm Arkansas and her sister states of Dixie did. There was no thought of yielding while any means of fighting remained. Complete success, or measureless ruin – that was the choice the South made. Only the noble in spirit are capable of accepting such desperate alternatives.