19123 Some Generalizations 



physically fit. Conscripts, though in many cases the equal of 

 volunteers, were on the average inferior to the latter in moral and 

 physical qualities, making poorer soldiers. A certain rather 

 small number ("bushmen") fled to the hills and woodlands to 

 avoid conscription. Others deserted from the ranks and joined 

 them. Deserters suffered much inconvenience butlittle loss of life. 



The volunteer militia companies, having enlisted at the 

 beginning, lost more heavily than the conscript companies who 

 entered later. "Those who fought most survived least." The 

 result was that the men of highest character and quality bore 

 largely the brunt of the war. Thus was produced a change in 

 the balance of society by reducing the percentage of the best 

 types without a corresponding reduction of the less desirable 

 ones, a condition which was projected into the next generation 

 because the inferior lived to have progeny and the others did not. 



"The curse of the war was heavier than its blessing." "It is 

 not right that war be classed with pestilence and famine in our 

 prayers. It should have an hour, a daily hour to itself alone." 



Eighty per cent of the "best blood" of Spottsylvania County 

 fell in the war.^ "Of course, in any estimation of quality, we 

 can judge of those who died only by the subsequent success of 

 their fellows who survived. We should have accomplished a 

 great deal more in these fifty years if we could have had the help 

 of those who fell in the war." Widows of soldiers suffered great 

 hardships; most of them never remarried; the death rate among 

 them was high for the first ten or fifteen years after the war. The 

 sweethearts of many victims never married. With the lack of 

 men of their own class some girls of the aristocracy married below 

 their previous social station. 



"War is not survival of the fittest; it is the survival of those 

 who never 'fit.' " The pubhc men of the South as a whole do 

 not measure up to those old times. "The men who got them- 

 selves killed" were on the whole the better men. The energetic 

 fell first in battle; the weaker died in camp. The very weakest 

 were left behind from the beginning. 



Emigration (mostly westward) has weakened the South, in 

 some parts as much as war, 



^ I may note that "best blood" must be interpreted In terms of racial, not 

 social, standards. That stock is best which holds most potentiality of physical 

 and moral advance. 



C 439 3 



