The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1883-03-01
Southern War History.


and decentralization"
Southern War History.
New Orleans Times-Democrat.l
1t seems to us a patriotic duty OF
the people of the south to RESPOND
warmly to the disinterested appea
now made by the Southern Historical
society for financial support.
The society is purely what its nam,
proclaims it to be-a historical society
its ambitions have no political tint
It's work is, in certain sense, as truly
sacred duty as that of the priestly
annalists of the ancient republics
who rel1glously preserved written
history OF all important events, and
considered it a crime to allow the
memory of such events to be lost.
The duty of collecting, arranging
and preserving all records capable OF
bearing witness in that great future
trial of our civil war at which the
worlds greatest historians shall sit in
judgment, is not only duty we owe
to Ourselves-to the living-to the
dead-to the country at large, north
and south; it is duty we owe to the
world and to future civilization.
We may unhesitatingly declare that
th0 results of our late civil war have
been more deeply appreciated, more
philosophically judged i'll Europe than
at home,
The immediate consequences of that
struggle were felt too keenly in the
United States to allow of philosopbi-
cal impartiality in our histories of it.
The GibbOn of American history will
write only after we, of this genera
ton, shall be slumbering in our
graves. However, in the progressive
history of our war literature, the pure
ly political and violent era has passed
away; we are now in an era of anecdO-
tage, narrative, unbiased fact-lead-
ing up to that future historical posi-
tivism, from whose accommodations a
mighty historian will create the eter-
nal monument of our civil war Our
present duty is to collect all possible
positive evidence.
Each soldier who survives a battle
can recount but little of what actually
occurred, yet the testimony of many
will often serve to elucidate an his
torical problem. The witnesses of
the civil war are to a certain extent
like soldiers who have taken part in
some tremendous battle, and each of
whom can only recount something of
what passed in his own immediate
vicinity.
AS for the political writers, they
have written the history of their own
opinions rather than of general events:
for impartiality could not have been
expected of them; they watched the
struggle as astronomers study an
eclipse of the sun-through smoked
glasses.
And then the eyes of the nation
have been so dimmed by tears that
the immense consequences of its great
agony to the world beyond the Allan
tic, and to the greater world beyond
the eighteeth century, were but half
observed by us, as though mists.
The civil war Of the United States
revOlutionized warfare. gave a sudden
impulse to military science that de-
veloPed its terrible power hundred
fold, and changed the naval architec-
ture Of civilization.
We began the struggle with old
fashioned muZzle loading muskets,
wooden ships, smooth-borG cannon of
small calibre. 1t was ended with
irOn-clads, monitors, sixteen-shot ri
fes, prodigious cannon. The navies
of England, France and Italy were
born of the inventions of the Ameri-
can civil war; and, although Euro
pean military chiefs might affect to
diSdain American lack of disc pine,
there is ample proof that the most
perfected military systems of Europe
to-day were designed after observa-
tiOns taken during the American
four-years' contest. Our heaviest
war ordinance could not indeed
be compared with the Krupps,
Armstrong or Whitworths of 1882;
but the value of heavy ordnance was
first fully proven to Europe by our
war. and our own heavy cannon were
the precursors of the monster rifles of
to-day.
The strength of the republic was
also first taught the world by that
war, and the advantage of numerical
superiority even against superior gen.
eralship. A great English authority
well observed that the armies of the
United States in that period fully re-
allied the traditions of Xerxes and
Artaxerxes, and gave new support to
many doubtful facts in the histories
of early European warfare
"Out Of the eater come forth meat"
out of our civil war there came uni
YerSal blessings. Its results have
been to make modern warfare so
costly and so terrible as to greatly
lessen its frequency; and the further
development of inventions born of
our necessity may yet inaugurate an
era of almost universal peace.
The military glories of our civil
war are far from being sectional;
they are national. With every new
DEVELOPMENT in the history of that
war, the story of the Confederacy be-
comes more astounding. That the
south should have found strength to
withstand armies huge as the hosts of
the Teutoni and Cimbri, and protract
the war with her ports blockaded and
her resources exhausted, will certainly
be a marvel for future generations.
The southern historical society are
seeking to preserve all the records of
our past in that tremendous strife.
They need substantial aid; they need
a solid endowment fund. and IL would
be perpetual disgrace upon the part
of our people to refuse it. But We
have already ample evidence of the
public interest and generous feeling
in this regard.
And at the coming meeting it is
grateful to know that the chief of the
lost cause-who saw the birth and
death of the greatest of modern civil
wars, who was the Alpha and Omega
of that titanic struggle for principles
which by its results has remodeled all
the forces of civilization, and who has
already given us the faithful record
of his own part IN history-will speak
to the south in behalf of the historian
of the future.
Speaking of Frederick Warde, the
most promising tragedian in this
countrv. the Baltimore Sun saws.