my Dear Sir,--I hope you have not forgotten your old Southern friend; but I have not received the
Southern Historical Papers since the month of April.
You know how deeply I am interested in your Papers, and how I appreciate the valuable military study they afford me.
I am proud to say that the combined efforts of
Heros Von Borcke and myself have brought it about that in the German-Prussian army nothing concerning the civil war in
America is so in fashion as accounts of the deeds of Southrons.
Sherman and
Grant, the pets of ten years ago, are forgotten, and
Lee,
Jackson and
Stuart are now the favorite heroes of our officers.
Your friends will be interested by the statement that many of the
Southern organizations have been a pattern for ours.
For the first time the cavalry has studied
Stuart's movements, and
General Von Schmidt, the regenerator of our cavalry tactics, has told me that
Stuart was the model cavalry leader of this century, and has questioned me very often about his mode of fighting.
It will doubtless be of interest to you to know what parts of your Historical Papers I have translated, and commended to our German armies.
Among them are the following:
General Early's
Relative strength of the Confederate and Federal armies.
McCarthy's
Detailed Minutiae of soldier life.
Stuart's Report of
Cavalry operations in 1863.
Stuart's Report of the
First Maryland campaign.
General R. E. Lee's
Report of the Chancellorsville campaign.
Field Letters from
Lee's Headquarters.
General Fitz. Lee's Address on
Chancellorsville.
Colonel.
William Allan's Address on
Jackson's Valley campaign, (with maps.)
Lee and Gordon at Appomattox.
Hubbard's paper on “Operations of
General Stuart Before
Chancellorsville.”
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572]
Pierce's Attempts at Escape from Prison.
Colonel Patton's
Reminiscences of Jackson's infantry.
Kirkland, the hero of Fredericksburg.
Major McClellan's address on
The life and Campains of General J. E. B. Stuart.
Two specimen cases of desertion.
General J. E. B. Stuart's
Report of the Gettysburg campaign (with map.)
I have also translated many interesting parts of your
Life of Lee.
I have also published biographies of
R. E. Lee,
Jackson,
Stuart and
Mosby, besides my larger History of the
War.
I do not mention these things to glorify my poor efforts to bring my friends out of their modest shade into the clear sunlight of truth, but I do wish to prove to my old gallant and noble comrades of the
South that I have not been ungrateful to their country and her heroes, whom I admire so much.
Your obedient servant,