Page:Minutes of the Immortal Six Hundred Society 1910.djvu/16

Rh of organizing into some form the survivors of the Six Hundred, that the record might be preserved and a true story of the inhuman barbarity inflicted upon us helpless prisoners of war given to the world. At this time Comrade [Vannoy Hartrog (Van) Manning] Manning was a member of the United States Congress and Comrade Crisp Speaker of Congress. I concluded to do this work and had started to arrange for it, but before arrangements were completed both Comrades Manning and Crisp died and for the time the work was dropped. It was about this time that Major Goldsborough, the gallant Marylander, one of the true Six Hundred, had begun writing his story for the Baltimore local papers, giving a history of the trip from Fort Delaware to Morris Island on the prison ship Crescent. I had never seen this work of Major Goldsborough until a few months ago it was shown to me by Comrade D. C. Grayson, who preserved a copy of the papers.

Just before the death of Col. Van Manning I went to see him and he exacted from me a promise that I would again take up the work of trying to get together the survivors of the Six Hundred and preserve the record and publish the names of the true and false members of our party, I felt the great burden I was taking up. Being; the time engaged in newspaper work I concluded to begin again. But, as I stated before, the deaths of Manning and Crisp delayed my work. After sometime I begun getting together as best I could remember them, the facts and incidents of the trip and obtaining from the war records of the United States Government such official data as was published bearing on our imprisonment under fire, etc., I begun a series of advertisements in the local papers of the South for information of the Six Hundred Confederate officers who were under fire on Morris Island and remained true unto the end. This I did at my own expense, the Veteran and its editor aiding me very much in the way of advertisements. After much hard work and writing hundreds of letters I succeeded in finding nineteen old comrades and getting photographs of them. With this date I begun work on my book, "The Immortal Six Hundred," the history of our trip and cruel treatment by the United States Government, using the roll of Capt. John L. Cantwell, made at Morris Island and Fort Pulaski and now on file in Washington, D. C, and used as official roll by the Government. From this book I did expect to get at least returns sufficient to pay me for its publication, its cost only.