Southern History of the War

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

THE author, in presenting to the public a second edition of nis work, has taken occasion to correct some errors, to make material annotations, and to add a supplementary chapter, tracing the progress and developments of the war from the concluding point of the first year of its history to the period of publication.

He desires to make his grateful acknowledgments for the favor with which his work has already been received by the public; for numerous kind notices of the newspaper press, and for words of encouragement spoken by many whom he is proud to call his friends. The success with which his work has so far met, being unprecedented, he believes, in the literary enterprises of the South, has surprised and gratified the author. He protests, however, that, under any circumstances, he has but little literary vanity to be inflated; that he composed his work in haste, with neither time nor purpose to polish his style, or to captivate the taste or readers, and that he is content to ascribe the success of his book to the fact that, though rudely written and imperfect in many particulars, it is, as he believes, honest, fair, independent, and outspoken.

While such has been the general character of the reception given his book by the public, the author is sensible that some attacks have been made upon it from malicious and disappointed sources, and that the honest record which he has attempted of the truth of history, has been encountered by many unjust, ignorant, and contemptible criticisms, emanating mainly from favorites of the government and literary slatterns in the Departments. The author has made no attempt to conciliate either these creatures or their masters; he is not in the habit of toadying to great men, and courting such public whores as "official" news. papers; he is under no obligations to any man living to flatter him, to tell lies, or to abate any thing from the honest convictions of his mind. He proposed to writo an independent history of some of the events of the existing war. IIe is willing for his work to be judged by the strictest rule of truth; he asks no favors for it, in point of accuracy; he only protests against a rule of criticism, which exalts paid panegyric above honest truth, and reduces the level of the historian to that of the scrubs and scribblers who write poetry and puffs in newspaper corners.

The flatterer's idea of the history of the present war would no doubt be to plaster the government with praises; to hide all the faults of the people of the South while gilding their virtues; to make, for a consideration, “especial mention" of all the small trash in the army; to coat his puffs thickly with fine writing and tremendous adjectives; and to place over the whole painted and gilded mass of falschood, the figure of Mr. Jefferson Davis, as the second Danicl come to judgment. thor has no ambition to gratify in these literary elegances.

The au

In the eyes of the historian the person of Mr. Jefferson Davis is no more sacred than that of the meanest agent in human affairs. The author has not been disposed to insult the dignity of office by coarse speeches; he recognizes a certain propriety of style even in attacking the grossest public abuses; but, while he has avoided indecency and heat of language, and has, on the other hand, not attempted the elegance and elevation of the literary artist, he trusts that he has given his opinions of the government and public persons with the decent but fearless and uncompromising freedom of the conscientious historian. He is certain that he has given these opinions without prejudice against the Administration in this war. The danger is, in such a contest as we are waging, that we will be too favorably and generously disposed towards the government, rather than prejudiced against it—that we will be blind to its faults, rather than eager and exacting in their exposure.

The author is aware that the views expressed in this work of the autocracy of President Davis, and the extraordinary absorption in himself of all the offices of the government, have been resented with much temper by critics in some of the newspapers. He would ask these persons who are so anxious to vindicate the character of Mr. Davis in this respect, for a single instance in the history of the war, where the Cabinet has interposed any views of its own, addressed any counsel to the government, or been any thing more than a collection of dummies. In all our experience hitherto of republican government, we hear of views of the Cabinet and the counsel of this or that member. In this war these common observations are lacking; the Cabinet is dumb or absolutely servile; we have never heard a syllable from it on a single question of national importance, and the voice of the President alone decides the conduct of the war, distributes the patronage of the government, and forces into practice the constitutional fiction of himself being the commander-in-chief of our armies. These facts are notorious in the streets of Richmond.

The Cabinet of President Davis has really no constitutional existence The Cabinet has many objects to serve in our system of government. I was designed as a check to Executive power; it was intended to culi and collect the wisdom of the country in the management of public af

fairs; it shares the qualities of a popular system cf representation with the conservatism and virtues of aristocracy; it constitutes the highestand gravest council in our form of government. Certainly not one of these constitutional offices has been fulfilled by the Cabinet of President Davis, and history is forced to confess that the harmony of our govern ment has been deranged by striking from it an important, valuable, and essential part.

The author is sensible that another ignorant rule of criticism besides that of the professional political flatterer, has been unjustly applied to his work. He is informed that there are persons so childish and contemptibly ignorant as to have decried his work on the ground that it has exposed abuses in our administration, and faults in our people, which will be a gratification and comfort to the enemy. The objection is simply absurd and contemptible. Throwing out of consideration the interest of truth, it is surely much better, even on the narrow ground of expediency, to expose abuses, and to let the enemy have what pleasure and comfort he can from them, than to permit them, unnoticed and uncorrected, to sap the strength of our country, and publish their conclusion to the world in the ultimate ruin of our cause. There are ignoramuses in the Southern Confederacy who think it necessary in this war that all the books and newspapers in the country should publish every thing in the South in couleur de rose; drunken patriots, cowards in epaulets, crippled toadies, and men living on the charity of Jefferson Davis, trained to damn all newspapers and publications in the South for pointing out abuses in places of authority, for the sage reason that knowledge of these abuses will comfort the enemy and tickle the cars of the Yankees. Those creatures would have a history written which would conceal all the shortcomings of our administration, and represent that our army was perfect in discipline, and immaculate in morals; that our people were feeding on milk and honey; that our generalship was without fault, and that Jefferson Davis was the most perfect and admirable man since the days of Moses---all for the purpose of wearing a false mask to the enemy. They would betray our cause while hoodwinking the enemy; they would make a virtue of falsehood; they would destroy the independence of all published thought in the country. The author spits upon the criticisms of such creatures.

So much the author has thought it necessary to say with reference to two classes of critics, who have attacked not only his book, but every form of free and independent thought in the country. With reference to the public, confident as the author is of the rectitude of their decision, he is content to submit his work to their judgment, without importuning their favor.

Finally, the author begs to make, without temper and in the fewest words, a plain and summary vindication of the character and objects of his work.

Every candid mind must be sensible of the futility of attempting high order of historical composition in the treatment of recent and in complete events; but it does not follow that the contemporary annal, the popular narrative, and other inferior degrees of history, can have no value and interest, because they cannot compete in accuracy with the future retrospect of events. The vulgar notion of history is, that it is a record intended for posterity. The author contends that history has an office to perform in the present, and that one of the greatest values of contemporary annals is to vindicate in good time to the world the fame and reputation of nations,

With this object constantly in view, the author has composed this work. He will accomplish his object and be rewarded with a complete satisfaction, if his unpretending book shall have the effect of promoting more extensive inquiries; enlightening the present; vindicating the principles of a great contest to the contemporary world; and putting before the living generation, in a convenient form of literature, and at an early and opportune time, the name and deeds of our people.

Richmond, September, 1869.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Delusive Ideas of the Union.-Administration of John Adams.-The "Strict Con

structionists."-The "State Rights" Men in the North.-The Missouri Restriction.-

General Jackson and the Nullification Question.-The Compromiso Measures of 1850.

-History of the Anti-Slavery Party.-The "Pinckney Resolutions."-The Twenty..

first Rulo.-The Abolitionists in the Presidential Canvass of 1852.-The Kansas-

Nebraska Bill.-The Rise and Growth of the Republican Party.-The Election of

President Buchanan.-The Kansas Controversy.-"Lecompton" and "Anti-Lecomp-

ton."-Results of the Kansas Controversy.-The John Brown Raid.—“Helper's

Book."-Demoralization of the Northern Democratic Party.-The Faction of Stephen