The Southern Historical Society is doing an exceedingly valuable work in publishing these
Papers, which have not received in the
North the attention to which they are entitled.
They make already five volumes, with a sixth half completed, and they are full of the most useful materials for the history of the late war. The
battle of Gettysburg is especially fully treated, there being more than a score of papers on it, and nearly all by officers who personally took part in it; and Murfreesboroa and many other battles are more or less fully treated.
The purpose of the Society is, we believe, especially to show the gallant part which the
South played in the contest, and there is naturally now and then something of the warmth and one-sidedness of men who find not only their patriotism but their personal reputation at stake.
But this is to be expected always in the raw material of history, and the more these
Papers are studied the more valuable they will be found.
Not only the battles, military and naval, but incidental matters, like the capture of
Davis and the treatment of prisoners, are discussed.
As to the capture of
Davis, the author makes sad work of
Wilson's account, but he is forced to admit that the
ex-President was captured on his way to the spring with women with a pail, and that he had a cloak thrown over him, probably for disguise; and the affidavits of the
Federal officers there show that it seemed to them an imperfect imitation of feminine costume; so that the dispute so vehemently waged is narrowed down to the fine point of whether it was his cloak or his wife's, and precisely what she exclaimed about his hurting somebody if they were not careful.
The painful matter of the treatment of the prisoners at
Andersonville is not so candidly handled.
It appears that the frightful mortality arose in part from the poor quality and character of the food, for which the authorities were not perhaps wholly to blame.
The more potent causes were, however, the over-crowding, the foul water, the total absence of drainage, shelter, &c. As there was an abundance of vacant land near, and also of water and timber, these evils might easily have been cured by putting the prisoners at work enlarging the stockade, digging drains, building huts, and so forth.
Yet the horrible mortality continued without any attempt at amelioration through the year of 1864, the deaths reaching during that frightful summer ten thousand in the twenty thousand usually confined there.
There had been some attempts to escape by prisoners employed on the works, and no doubt it was supposed that by exchange or removal the number might be diminished; but that surely cannot excuse the continued neglect of the most simple
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precautions when men were dying from fifty to a hundred a day.
General Winder and
Lieutenant Wirz can never be absolved from their awful responsibility for this wholesale slaughter which they could so easily have stopped in great part.
As to how far
President Davis is to be blamed, there will probably always be a difference of opinion.
That he knew in a general way of the enormous mortality, and of the charges against
General Winder, cannot be doubted, the agitation was so loud and long, and official reports so outspoken, and he admits that he knew them, but was always convinced that they were unfounded from his reliance on
Winder's character; and he certainly paid no attention to them except to enlarge
Winder's power — an indifference for which he can hardly be acquitted at the bar of history.
No doubt the
North might have pushed exchanges, and managed its own prisoners better; but these incidents of warfare cannot excuse
General Winder; and the death-rate of Northern prisoners (which has never been satisfactorily calculated, by the way) seems never to have approached the rate of
Andersonville, although it apparently exceeded the other Southern prisons.
While we are compelled to differ with the
Secretary on this point, we must heartily express our admiration for the energy and desire for truth which made this enterprise possible in the impoverished
South.
We hope that their Northern subscription list will be extended, for these are volumes that no library, public or private, that pretends to historical fulness, can afford to be without.
Cannot this example be imitated in the
North, so that we may preserve, while it is yet possible, the personal recollections of the
Northern actors in the national struggle?
The late discussion over
Lookout mountain shows how much is still in doubt.
The reader will see with surprise the charge that the writers who are contributing so well to the science of history have been excluded from the national archives.
These surely should be opened to the historian in the freest manner,
1 with every assistance of arrangement and index; and every pains should be taken to make the collection complete by the purchase or exchange of copies.