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Southern Historical Society Papers.

first appearance, was republished in the Southern Historical Society Papers for August, 1877. The statement of James H. Jones, President Davis' colored coachman, now a respectable citizen of Raleigh, N. C., recently republished in the Philadelphia Times, is clear and satisfactory on the same point, although it has some mistakes in names of persons, places, &c.,—as might be expected from a witness of limited education, after so long a lapse of time. Appended, also, will be found interesting letters from Colonels Wm. Preston Johnston and F. R. Lubbock, (Ex-Governor of Texas), both of whom were aids to President Davis, and both in company with him when captured, and also front the Hon. George Davis, of North Carolina, who was a member of his Cabinet. Colonel Johnston's letter (from which some passages of a merely personal interest have been omitted), is singularly clear, dispassionate, and temperate in tone, and bears on its face the impress of intelligent and conscientious truthfulness. Governor Lubbock writes more briefly and with freer expression of honest indignation, but the two statements (made without any sort of concert) fully confirm each other. Mr. Davis' letter—received after the foregoing narrative was written—substantiates all that has been said as to events occurring at the time of the evacuation of Richmond.

Still later, but entirely independent of all other evidence, has appeared the letter of the Ron. John H. Reagan, Confederate Postmaster-General, published in the Philadelphia Times, entirely corroborating the statements hereunto appended, and giving emphasis (if that were possible) to their exposure of the untruthfulness of General Wilson's narrative in its beginning, its middle, and its end.

W. T. Walthall.

September, 1877.


Letter from Colonel William Preston Johnston, Late Aid to President Davis.

Lexington, Va., July 14th, 1877.

Major W. T. Walthall, Mobile, Ala.:
My Dear Sir: Your letter has just come to hand, and I reply at once. Wilson's monograph is written with a very strong animus, not to say virus. It is in no sense historical. It bears upon