Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/573

Rh the breaking of our lines, the retreat, and the surrender — "General Lee as a soldier," gives the estimate of an able soldier of his great chief, and concludes General Long's part of the book.

The two hundred and seventy one pages which follow are, as we understand it, compiled b}^ General Marcus J. Wright, and embrace chapters headed "President of Washington College," " Home and Society Life," "Death and Memorial Ceremonies." and "The World's Estimate," and "An Appendix " containing a number of offi- cial reports, letters, etc., some of which have never before been pub- lished, and are of great interest and historic value.

General Wright, who was a gallant soldier in the Army of Ten- nessee, and is an accomplished gentleman for whom we cherish a high personal regard, seems to have attempted nothing but a compi- lation, and to have done his work with the earnest industry which characterizes him.

The publishers have brought out the book in good style — the engravings are good, though we do not think they have selected the best likenesses of General Lee, and the whole get-up of the book is satisfactory.

And now, having said so much in praise of a book which we de- sire to see widely circulated, and which we hope may have an im- mense sale (especially as a part of the proceeds are to go for the benefit of the " Confederate Soldiers' Home" at Richmond), candor compels us to add several other things :

1. There is a marked and inexcusable failure to give proper credit to other authors, whose work has been freely used — e. g. : No one who has read " Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters idi General R. E. Lee," by J. Wm. Jones, can fail to see that nearly every chapter of this book draws largely on that. Letters, anec- dotes, and sometimes whole pages of the substance, if not the lan- guage of that book, are freely transferred to this. Now we submit that while the free use of this material was entirely legitimate, there ought to have been distinct acknowledgment of the same. And yet, with the exception of a general acknowledgment in the Preface of " the use of the publications of Rev. J. M. Jones " [whoever he is] and others, and an acknowledgment (on page 400), of a single anecdote as taken from "Jones's Personal Reminiscences of General Lee," there is not the slightest intimation of the wholesale use of a book which cost the author years of hard work.

2. The letters in the Appendix, taken from General Lee's letter- books, which are in the War Records office at Washington, are, of