The Daily Dispatch: February 8, 1862., [Electronic resource]

From the Southern literary messenger.

It is hard to say in what the charm of this book consists. There is a charm about it. We, who have read books, essays, pamphlets, editorials, sketches, tales, novels, and poems on slavery until the whole subject was state to us, confess to have been fascinated by MacMahon. His style is good, elevated, often eloquent; often betraying a not easily repressed tendency to floridity; but it was not his style that kept us pinned to his pages as to those of a romance His learning is varied and extensive, but his physical, ethnological, and other facts had long been at our fingers' ends. His method, as the philosophers would say, is excellent; but — the author must pardon the pun — we are no methodist. His manner of ‘ "disengaging"’ his subject, and of prsenting it to the reader, discovers the discipline and order of a cultivated and naturally strong intellect; but this does not tell the secret of the book's attractions — Let us say that a part of the charm consisted in the pleasant surprise of finding a man of European birth, education and association, so thoroughly well-informed upon the subject of slavery in all its bearings, and so completely disabused of the prejudices which he must have shared in common with all men of transatlantic origin.--No where in the Confederacy could a Southerner, born and bred, be found, who could treat the subject of slavery with greater fairness, or with more ability, than this gifted young Irishman. With like ability, he discusses the causes that led to the present war, and contrasts the antagonist governments and peoples. His book shows that MacMahon is a genuine convert to Southern ideas. He is no Yankee, who has come to us for lucre's sake. A thoughtful and studious proselyte, he joined his fortunes to ours when ours were untried and seemingly desperate. He came to us because he was convinced that we were right, and because he could give abundant reason for the faith that was in him. Such a man, apart from his ability as a writer, is worth having among us. He is in truth and in spirit a Southerner. The work before us, the first literary fruit of the war, is of itself, both in its matter and its form — for it is most handsomely printed — worthy to be called a triumph alike for the author and for the cause he has so nobly espoused, and which he has no ably vindicated. ‘"Cause and Contrast"’ is intended as an introduction to a general history of the war. It is a mighty task the young man promises to perform, but we have proof before us that it will be well done. It gives us pleasure to say a kind word for one who consecrates his life to a noble career; and we tell him in confidence, what we sincerely believe, that the MacMahons of the next generation will be proud of their father, the historian; whom the South delighted to honor.