Can't see forest for tree?
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch October 14, 1861:
Fuel.
–The difficulty of obtaining adequate supplies of coal would not be a source of extreme annoyance to our people, if it were possible to obtain wood in sufficient quantities to make up the deficiency. The country about Richmond is rich in coal deposits, yet we lack enterprise to bring it to market, and even at the advance of $1.50 on the usual price, we hear citizens lamenting that they have to plead, almost with tears in their eyes, to persuade the dealers to send them a scanty supply for immediate wants. There is also wood enough in our forests; indeed, the quantity is vast beyond computation. The price has gone up in this market in greater ratio than the circumstances justify, and if some enterprising, men would devote their energies to the business, we feel confident that not only Richmond, but the camps in the neighborhood, might be furnished with a plenty of fuel at a reasonable, yet compensating rate. The plantations on the borders of James river are accessible, and steam-tugs and lighters could be profitably employed in transporting wood from thence to Richmond.
Certainly not everyone in the South lacked enterprise. In an editorial from the same issue the Daily Dispatch criticized the greed of speculators and the “avidity for office” of some politicians. The editorial says that the greediest Yankee trader would not even measure up to the worst Southern speculators and contains this statement:
If our forces were able to advance as fast as our prices, the Confederate flag would be now waving in triumph over Niagara falls.
What seems somehow related to the Rebel flag flying over Niagara Falls: 150 years ago today President Lincoln authorized General Winfield Scott to suspend the writ of habeas corpus anywhere from Washington, D.C. all the way to Bangor Maine. That’s where the president extended the “military line of the United States for the suppression of the insurrection”
Dixieland?
