Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 12.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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[447] not competent to pass judgment ex cathedra, we cannot but sympathise with the keenness of his disappointment and the honesty of his patriotic grief. With such a deep-rooted conviction of the correctness of his views, it is perhaps not astonishing that he attributed the persistent neglect of them, and the treatment which he thought he received in other respects, to personal enmity from the Government which he was anxious to serve so zealously. We leave aside these grievances, whether real or fancied, as not coming within the scope of this essay.

Colonel Roman's ‘Military Operations of General Beauregard’ is an important work. We feel personally indebted to him for the information which we have derived from its perusal. The style of his narrative, bating some repetitions which might have been spared, is all that the nature of his composition required. It is pure, elegant, lucid, and vigorously descriptive in more than one page. There is occasionally some pardonable vivacity of personal feelings, but always expressed in proper and dignified language. He has done full justice to his subject, which is no small achievement, for it is seldom that as much can be said of most writers. If his impartiality is questioned by some, we believe that his evident intention to be just will be acknowledged by all. His assertions and appreciations are based on documents which he puts on record as judicial evidence. Henceforth, of our civil war, it will be impossible to write the history without taking this valuable contribution td it into the most serious consideration.