With this Number we close our second volume, and the first year of the publication of Southern Historical Society Papers. We avail ourselves of the opportunity to extend to our readers our hearty thanks for their kindly appreciation.
Our correspondence abounds in kind words of encouragement, and expressions of the high value placed upon our Papers by those whose good opinion is indeed worth having. From North, South, East and West, and from Europe, we have assurances that the work in which we are engaged is esteemed one of the highest value and importance. Our brethren of the press have been exceedingly appreciative in their notices, and have placed us under many obligations. We trust that the experience of the past year will enable us to draw from our ample material with sufficient skill to enable us to make the Papers still more interesting and valuable during the coming year. And besides material now on hand, we have the promise of some papers of the highest value, prepared by those most competent of any living men to treat of the particular events which they are to discuss. In a word, we propose to make our Papers invaluable to every one who desires to know or to circulate the truth concerning our great struggle.
But we will need the active help of our friends in sustaining our publication while we are striving to accomplish our great work. Our subscription list must be kept up and, indeed, enlarged; and to accomplish this each subscriber must renew, and seek to induce others to subscribe.
The delay in issuing this number has been from causes which neither the editor nor the printer could control. While the character of our magazine does not necessitate its appearance with the regularity of a literary or pictorial monthly, we are anxious that it shall be issued early in each month and hope to be able generally to accomplish this.
Captain W. Gordon McCabe's Splendid Oration occupies so large a part of our present issue that several other important papers are crowded out. But we are sure that our readers will thank us for giving them this valuable contribution to the history of one of the most important epochs of the war. The foot notes show the diligent research and painstaking investigation which Captain McCabe has given to his subject, while they at the same time add greatly to the historic value of his noble address.
