Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 6.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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[192] Secretary McCrary seemed disposed to allow our people more privileges than we had ever had before — and that Colonel Scott, who had been put in charge of the archives, seemed to be a gentleman of very liberal views.

We are glad to be able to announce to the Society and to our friends generally, that our Committee has received from General Marcus J. Wright (a gallant soldier of the Army of Tennessee), who has been employed as an agent of the Archive Bureau, a letter, in which he says that the Secretary of War authorizes him to tender any agent of the Southern Historical Society free access to the archives, and the privilege of copying anything needed for historical purposes. This proffer (made voluntarily and without conditions) will be appreciated by our friends.

Of course our Committee have cordially accepted and reciprocated the kind offer. The War Department seems very anxious to complete its files of Confederate documents, and we should be glad to do anything in our power to aid in this, as it is obviously very important that the Confederacy should be fully represented in any publication of documents which may be made. If parties have original Mss. which they are unwilling to part with, we would be very glad to take charge of them until copies could be made, both for our Society and the War Department, when they could be returned to the owners.