Editorial Paragraphs.
The sixth volume of our Papers closes with this number, and with it the subscription of the larger number of our readers. We beg that those whose subscription ends with this number will renew at once, or at least notify us of their purpose to do so. Our January number will be out by the 20th of December (the first form will go to press much earlier), and it is very important that we should know how many copies to print. We shall adhere strictly to our rule, and not send our January number to anyone who does not authorize us to do so. The right thing to do, then, directly you read this paragraph, is to sit down and send us $3, to renew your subscription, or authorize us to draw on you for the amount, or at least notify us that you will remit by the 20th of December. We beg our subscribers to heed this request. We have a bright future before our enterprise, if our friends will only stand by and help us these “hard times” ; but we must keep up our subscription list to at least its present number, and we cannot afford, kind reader, to drop your name. Let us, then, hear from you promptly; and it would be so easy to double our subscription list if each one would secure us a new subscriber. As an inducement for our friends to work for us, we offer the following special terms: any one sending us a club of seven new names and the money ($21) shall have a copy of our Papers gratis for one year.
Our Papers for 1879 shall not deteriorate in interest or value; but, on the contrary, we hope to make them at the same time more interesting to the general reader and more valuable to the student of history. Some of our ablest military critics have promised us papers which we know will prove of rare historic interest and importance. We shall publish a large number of reports and other official matter which have never been in print, and we have other plans which will greatly add to the already high character of our Papers.
The appreciation of our work by our friends everywhere is, of course, very gratifying to our feelings, and the warm commendations we have received from leading Confederates, through the press and by private letters, would make amends for a thousand adverse criticisms. But we have been more than gratified at the widening field of usefulness opened up to us. We number among our constant readers many distinguished officers of the United States army and navy, and other intelligent gentlemen at the North, who (while differing from us, no doubt, as to much which we publish) have borne cheerful testimony to the value of our publications. We are placing our volumes on the shelves of many of the public libraries at the North and in the Northwest, and we are receiving an increasing number of letters from that section asking for information on various points. We have already quoted the New England Historical and Genealogical Register as saying that [291] “no library, public or private, which pretends to historical fullness, can afford to be without these volumes” of our Papers, and we have the same testimony from other sources in that section. And yet we confess to an even greater pleasure that there is a constantly increasing interest in our work in Europe, where our side of the story has been so long unknown. From England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Italy and Poland, we have had letters of highest commendation of our Papers, and have had the privilege of disseminating in these countries the truth as we hold it. And just as we are going to press, there comes from one of the ablest critics in Europe a notice, from which we extract the following:
The Papers of the Southern Historical Society contain a mass of information relative to the late war, without a careful study of which no historian, however limited his scope, should venture to treat any fragment of that most interesting story. It is especially valuable as contradicting upon conclusive authority many of the favorite illusions propagated by Northern writers, and establishing beyond doubt the enormous superiority in numbers of the Federal armies in every campaign and in almost every battle.The above extract is from the London Saturday Review, and praise from that source is praise indeed. But pardon us, kind reader, if we seem too intent on “blowing our trumpet.” You will bear us witness that we have done little of this heretofore, but this is the last number of the year, and — well, we had as well tell the whole truth--we want you to renew and to get us some new subscribers.
Our relations with the Archive office in Washington continue to be of the most pleasant and satisfactory character, and we have received from all of the officers connected with the department the most courteous and accommodating kindness. Adjutant-General Townsend seems deeply interested in the work of completing — with a View to the ultimate publication of — the files of his Bureau, and manifests not only an intelligent zeal but a sound judgment in the direction of the whole business. He is also diligently collecting for the library of the War Department such books, documents, photographs, relics, &c., as shall illustrate the military history of the whole country, from colonial times down to the present. We do not hesitate to urge any of our Confederate people who can aid him to do so, and we can assure them that they will find him, as we certainly have done, a courteous and pleasant gentleman with whom to deal. We have not as yet had occasion to have any personal intercourse or correspondence directly with the Secretary of War, but we doubt not (from all we have heard) that the same remark would apply to him. General Marcus J. Wright and Mr. A. P. Tasker (who is chief clerk and keeper of the Confederate archives) have spent five days in our office, and are expecting to return again in order that they may, from the most careful examination, determine just what we have that is needed by the War Department. The more we see of General Wright the more we are disposed to congratulate [292] the Department on securing an officer whose high character, wide acquaintance and intelligent zeal make him so emphatically the “right man in the right place,” in the work of collecting and compiling Confederate papers. Mr. Tasker has impressed us as being one of the finest clerks we ever met, one of the most accurate and systematic keepers of Mss., &c., with whom we ever met, and at the same time a high-toned, conscientious gentleman, who could never be prevailed on to alter, or allow to be altered, the dotting of an i or the crossing of a t of any document under his charge. We feel that the cause of truth will not suffer at his hands, and that the whole country is to be congratulated that he occupies his present position. We have not written these things for the sake of an empty compliment to individuals; but in order to assure our friends that the “War record” office is now under control and management which give assurance of fair play in both the compilation and the publication of the “official history of the war,” and which should make all Confederates not ashamed of our heroic history ready and anxious to help the Department in supplying the missing links and ultimately publishing to the world the official data which will perpetuate the story of the glorious deeds which shed a lustre on the American name, and are the proud heritage of our whole country.
Courtesies to the Society have been received on several occasions from the “Atlantic Coast line” (through their agent, Mr. Armistead, and Colonel Shaw, Superintendent of the Richmond and Petersburg railroad); from the Richmond and Danville railroad (through their President, Colonel Buford); and from the Richmond, York River and Chesapeake railroad (through their Superintendent, Colonel Douglas), for which we take pleasure in making our cordial acknowledgments. These courtesies are all the more appreciated as coming from true Confederate soldiers who sympathize In our work.
Correction.--
