Title:  Continental Monthly — Volume 1 — Issue 3

Author:  Various

Release Date:  January 4, 2005 [EBook #14583]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY: 

DEVOTED TO

Literature and national policy.

Vol.  I.—­March, 1862.—­No.  III.

* * * * *

Southern aids to the north.

Perhaps the most difficult question at present before the American people is that so often and so insolently put by Southern journals, and so ignorantly babbled in weak imitation of them by English newspapers, asking what, after all, in case of a victory, or even of many victories, can we do with the revolted provinces?  The British press, prompt to put the worst construction on every hope of the Union, prophesies endless guerilla warfare,—­a possibility which, like the blocking up of Charleston harbor by means of the stone fleet, is, of course, something which calls for the instant interference of all cotton-spinning Christian nations.  Even among our own countrymen it must be confessed there has been no little indecision as to the end and the means of securing the conquest of a country whose outlines are counted by thousands instead of hundreds of miles, and whose whole extent, it is too generally believed, forms a series of regions where dismal swamps, bayous, lagoons, dense forests, and all manner of impenetrabilities, bid defiance to any save the natives, and where the most deadly fevers are ever being born in the jungles and wafted on the wings of every summer morn over the whole plantation land.  The truth is, that the simple facts and figures relative to this country are not generally known.  Let the Northern people but once learn the truths existing in their favor, and there will be an end to this misapprehension.  There has been thus far no hesitation or irresolution among the people in the conduct of the war.  ‘Conquer them first,’ has been the glorious war-cry from millions of the freest men on earth.  But when we are driving a nail it is well to know that it will be possible to eventually clench it.  And when the country shall fully understand the ease with which this Union nail may be clenched, there will be, let us hope, a greatly revived spirit in all now interested in forwarding the war.