willing to admit that "the stain upon the National honor" can be best "wiped out," not by a manly discussion, but by silence and forgetfulness.
For ourselves, while we claim no special experience or skill in the field of polemics, we feel that our position on this question is so impregnably fortified by the facts, that we stand ready to defend it against all comers.
The Philadelphia Weekly Times is publishing a series of "annals of the war" written by both Confederate and Federal actors in the great drama. The papers are well written, and exceedingly interesting, and some of them valuable contributions to the history of the stirring events to which they relate. At some future time we propose to notice some of the articles in detail. But we can only say now that Confederates will thank the Times for allowing its readers to see so much of our side of the story (e. g., Judge Ould's able and unanswerable statement of the "Exchange" question). We are very glad to be able to see the other side presented in papers which are, in the main, so courteous, and which are so much fairer than our experience has led us to expect from that side.
The Appreciation of Competent Judges of the work in which we are engaged has been very gratifying. Not only has the press been warm in its commendation of the interest and value of our work, but we have also received private assurances from leading Confederates, from friends in Europe, and from prominent Northern soldiers, that our publications have been of great historic value. We have rarely alluded to this in our Papers, and do it now only because we feel that we ought to let our readers see the following letter from ex-President Davis, whose opinions in reference to anything pertaining to Confederate history ought to have (and do have) the highest consideration with our people.
We give his letter entire, and beg that our friends will catch its spirit, and give us practical proof of their interest by sustaining us in our work, and asking others to help us.
15th May, 1877.
Rev. J. William Jones, Secretary:
My Dear Sir—I have read with great satisfaction the back numbers of the Papers of the Southern Historical Society. The future historian, to do justice to our cause and conduct, will require the material which can only be furnished by contemporaneous witnesses, and a great debt is due to the Society, and especially to you, for what you have done and are doing to save, while there is yet time, the scattered records and unwritten recollections of the events of the war against the Southern States.
Various causes, and not the least among them, such entire confidence in the rightousness of our cause as gives assurance of a favorable verdict, have prevented our people from presenting, or even carefully preserving, the material on which the verdict must be rendered by future generations.
