Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1897-06-10
QUIZ WAR HISTORIES.
rompl.trst of Their Almost UniverEal
Uafairness.

compIafrt of Their Almost Un1EeEs
Unfairness.
Tt has been one of the misfcrtunes OF
the south that she has yet to produce
writer who would describe her part IN
the civil war intelligently, faithfully
and Justly Victor's chronicles witt
ten while the echo of battles was stiii
ringing in his ears, is an absurd per-
Torrance. Some critic long ago re-
marked OF him that if he had been told
that one southern soldier had confront
ed a union army and had demanded in
slant surrender. and the army had i'm
nediately laid down his arms to him,
Victor would have swallowed the yarn,
hook, halt and sinker. Pollard's Lost
Cause- is q more interesting and better
written book, but it is infected with this
exaggeration and with a Part1sanship
which did the south much karin, when
it was published, and which even now,
when we can be calm over these things,
seems very foolish. Jefferson Davis
history Is cumbersome affair, which
probably not so persons have ever even
read after toiling through the first
volume, and Alexander II. Stephens
narrative is too Philosophic for popular
comprehension There has been
who have evidently made Pollard their
model I have come across one or two
of their histories for schools, or for the
people, Within a year or two. 1t is
impossible to read them without either
exceeding anger or commissions OF
laughter. DIR. Jones, a clergyman, has
prepared one which is a continuous
rhapsody OF southern valor from the
= al To- oh
aggeration of northern faults. Tt is in
tolerable that new generation in the
south should be fed on such stuff as this
at the hands of a member of the sacred
profession who has about as much fit
ness for writing history as George
Francis Train has to discourse on the
philosophy of human reason, and yet
who evidently believes in the truth OF
every page he has written.
tt is a remarkable fact that Horace
GGeeley's american Conflict" written
post-haste in his spare hours from edi-
torial work, and in large part while the
rebellion was still on, and with Frank
Moore's Record as his chief author
ity, is really at this late day the best
narrative from the pen of northern
man. Contentious partisan that he
was, Greeley nevertheless, with his pow
erful memory, his comprehension of
the whole subject from its beginning in
the early slavery agitations and his
newspaper instincts, produced two vo1-
umes which, if they were edited in or
der to excise the inaccuracies of hasty
composition, would still be enc of the
very fairest accounts we have as to how
we got into the war and how we got
out of it. The truth is that a complete.
accurate and impartial history of the
rebellion has yet to be written. The
count of Paris has come nearer to 1t
than anyone, but he lacks insight into
the civil and social conditions of the
people, and the great value of his work
IS from the standpoint of the military
critic, writing largely for tacticians in
the art of soldiership and for scholars.
The amount of northern literature on
the subject from the pen of word mon
gers and partisan hacks is appalling,
but in the past Is years, since northerII
newspapers and magazines began to
find that it was safe for them to give the
southern versions of battles, sieges and
campaigns, there has been vast win-
moving of the chaff, as well as an accrf
mutation of great repository of Solid
information. There'could be no nobfef
task for a scholar of leisure than to
apply himself to it for 20 years and
evolve from it the history which both
the people Of the north and the soHtk
will accept, which will have the spirit
OF the bench and not of the bar, in which
the author win look to 1000 and not
1900 for his fame, and which, like Hal
lam's History of the English Consti-
tution," will win the encomiunn of ali
parties and sections, as it did 20 years
ago. of being in its class the most inn
partial book ever wri6ten.-PhiladeL
phia Bulletin.