CHAPTER XVII.

THEORIES OF TRADE. ENGLAND'S NEUTRALITY.

G1

RANT now understood perfectly the character of the war, and urged a vigorous use of all the recognized means of weakening the enemy. Until the battle at Pittsburg Landing, he believed the difficulties could be settled by negotiations between the sections; but, after he became satisfied of his mistake, he went for war with all its terrible realities.

99.66

"Feed your armies on the country which makes the war; "Destroy every thing useful to the enemy;" "Seize every thing useful to your own forces." Have no measures of half war and half peace. If you blockade the rebel ports, and shut the South out from trade, shut them out wholly. Draw the cord so tight, that all commerce with them shall be strangled. Let there be no half trade and half non-intercourse. It was in this spirit that Gen. Grant thus wrote to Washington in answer to suggestions for partial trading: "No matter what the restrictions thrown around trade, if any whatever is allowed, it will be made the means of supplying the enemy with all they want. Restrictions, if lived up to, make trade unprofitable; and hence none but dishonest men go into it. I will venture that no honest man has made money in West Tennessee in the last

year; whilst many fortunes have been made there during that time. The people in the Mississippi Valley are now nearly subjugated. Keep trade out but a few months, and I doubt not but that the work of subjugation will be so complete, that trade can be opened freely with the States of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi." He concluded, "No theory of my own will ever stand in the way of my executing in good faith any order I may receive from those in authority over me: but my position has given me an opportunity of seeing what could not be known by persons away from the scene of war; and I venture, therefore, great caution in opening trade with rebels."

Gen. Halleck perceived fully the vast importance of the results achieved, and generously wrote to Grant, —

"Your narration of the campaign, like the operations themselves, is brief, soldierly, and in every respect creditable and satisfactory. In boldness of plan, rapidity of execution, and brilliancy of routes, these operations will compare most favorably with those of Napoleon about Ulm. You and your army have well deserved the gratitude of your country; and it will be the boast of your children that their fathers were of the heroic army which re-opened the Mississippi River."

The rank of major-general in the regular army was conferred upon Gen. Grant; and the country everywhere rejoiced in the success of his armies.

On the 26th of July he writes, "I am very much opposed to any trade whatever until the Rebellion in this part of the country is entirely crushed out."

On the 13th of August, "My opinion is, that all trade with any enemy with whom we are at war is calculated to weaken us indirectly. I am opposed to sell

ing or buying from them whilst war exists, except those within our lines."

Still later he says, "If trade is opened under any general rule, all sorts of dishonest men will engage in it; taking any oath or obligation necessary to secure the privilege. Smuggling will at once commence, as it did at Memphis, Helena, and every other place where trade has been allowed within the disloyal States; and the armed enemy will be enabled to procure from Northern markets every article they require."

Yet, at the same time, application was made to Gen. Grant for medicines by the rebel sick at Raymond, and subsistence for some families who were in extreme suffering; and he ordered supplies forwarded at once.

He acted in the spirit of a father, and wrote, "It should be our policy now to make as favorable an impression upon the people of this State as possible. Impress upon the men the importance of going through the State in an orderly manner, refraining from taking any thing not absolutely necessary for their subsistence while travelling. They should try to create as favorable an impression as possible upon the people; and advise them, if it will do any good, to make efforts to have law and order established within the Union."

There could be no wiser policy than this. A movement was soon after made by citizens near Pearl River to bring Mississippi back into the Union; but it was premature.

Grant now advised that Mobile should be taken, the expedition starting from Lake Pontchartrain. If this advice had been followed, and an attack been made at once, there is little doubt that Mobile would have fallen,

and the war have been shortened by a year. But this was not done. The President himself wrote to Grant, "I see by a despatch of yours that you incline strongly towards an expedition against Mobile. This would appear tempting to me also, were it not, that, in view of recent events in Mexico, I am greatly impressed with the importance of re-establishing the national authority in Western Texas.

The truth was, that the government at this time was greatly embarrassed by the movements of England and France in Mexico, and desired to strengthen itself on the border-line between Mexico and Texas. It was impossible to foretell what the hostility of the English Government might prompt them to do.

The policy of England had fastened slavery upon us as colonies, and her people had waxed rich upon the profits of the slave-trade. Within fifty years, a million and a half of its inhabitants were stolen from the coast of Africa by English ships, a quarter of a million of whom died from the horrors of the voyage; and their floating corpses showed the track of the vessels.

Their orators and writers never failed to denounce the crime of American slavery; yet, when slavery made war upon the Republic, they hastened to bestow belligerent rights upon the slaveholders before the American minister could present himself at her court.

In all the varieties of argument, ridicule, and persuasion, the war for the Union was denounced in its causes, its objects, and the methods of its pursuit, by the statesmen, the press, and the writers of England.

Her people carried on a civil war for nearly a hundred years, until massacre and devastation had well

nigh destroyed the land, on the question, whether, if the king died without a child, he should be followed by his brother, or the son of his brother.

Yet a nation three thousand miles distant from their shores, carrying on a war for four years to maintain its national life, and uphold human liberty, was execrated as exhibiting the "bloodiest picture in the book of time."

Englishmen dethroned seven of their kings, and beheaded another; drove into exile the house of Stuart; and imported aliens from Germany, ignorant of their language and their laws, to play for them the part of royalty; and sneered at Americans because they had "no personal representative of loyalty."

For years, the scaffolds of England were red with the blood of the noblest martyrs to liberty in Church and State; and yet they sermonized to Americans on "toleration in political differences.”

England built ships for the rebel navy, forged their guns, crowded their decks with sailors, furnished them with supplies, welcomed and protected them in their ports, rejoiced in the destruction of our unarmed merchantmen, sorrowed at rebel defeats, mourned over the sinking of "The Alabama” as if it were a national disaster, and boasted to us of their "strict neutrality."

In India, England seized upon that vast country and its wealth; and, when its rapacity and oppression for long years had goaded its people to resistance, they blew the rebel Sepoys in pieces from the mouths of their cannon, and preached to Americans of "magnanimity to rebels."

In Ireland, England has robbed and plundered the inhabitants for five hundred years, and driven them like