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
