Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 2.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[249] with the private secretary of General Belknap, which resulted in a letter from the Secretary of War to the Society, in which he gave some interesting facts concerning the Confederate records, and the progress that had been made towards preparing them for publication, assured us that there was no purpose of mutilating those records, and asked our co-operation in completing his files of Confederate reports and documents. Our Secretary replied, expressing our earnest desire that all of the Confederate archives should be published, and our readiness to co-operate with the Department at Washington — provided they would reciprocate, giving us copies of papers we need in exchange for what they wanted. The Secretary of War did not seem, in his reply, disposed to accede to our conditions, but it was still hoped that a mutually satisfactory arrangement could be effected, when General Belknap resigned, and the correspondence was broken off. We have not deemed it wise since to renew it, but we hope the day is not far distant when a returning sense of justice and fair dealing will allow us full access to those missing links of a history of which no true Southerner need be ashamed, and of which every true American will one day be proud.