Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/384

 384 Southern Historical Society Papers.

tion of the art of printing and further ages will prize it as one of the chief memorials of the first century of American Independence."

General G. T. Beauregard and other distinguished officers of both of the late contending armies of the North and South urge that " it should be the property of the Nation "

An inspection of the synopsis of the record of the State of Vir- ginia, which was sent the editor by Mr. Townsend, impresses the former as to the great and peculiar value of this portion of the work in its comprehension of incidents and details only elsewhere to be found in the newspapers and ephemeral books in which they originally appeared. The subject heads comprise "Virginia Before the War," "The Peace Convention," "State Conventions," "The Constitu- tional Convention," "The Federal Government in 1861," "The Legislatures," "Official State Documents," "Richmond Press on the War," "The Sequestration Act and its Results," "Law and Decisions," "Confederate Military Documents," "The French Tobacco," " The Execution of John T. Beall in New York," "The University of Virginia " (gallantry of its students and professors), "Jefferson College" (service of its students and of Professor Hun- ter McGuire, M. D.), " The Dahlgren Raid," " Maps, Diagrams, Geographical Information," "Federal Military Documents" (Na- tional Cemeteries in Virginia), " Loyalty in the State," " The Confederate Government and the State," "Personals, Obituaries, Arrests," etc., "The Specie and the Treasury of Virginia," "The War in Virginia," "Richmond" (the siege of), "Norfolk" (Gene- eral Butler's Rule, etc.), " Saltville," "Hampton Burning of the Town," "Slavery and Emancipation," "The Peace Question" (efforts of the Committee of Nine), "Department of Confederate Regiments," " Department of Confederate Generals," " Biographi- cal Sketches," etc.

At the last session of Congress a bill was reported in the House of Representatives for the purchase of this historical treasury at a cost of $30,000 this work upon which the patriotic and untiring com- piler has been devotedly engaged for more than thirty years, and upon which, it is claimed, and credibly, that he has expended in money more than the sum proposed to be paid to him by the Gov- ernment. In the United States Senate, September 17, 1891, the Hon. Wade Hampton, of South Carolina, thus urged its purchase :

" I did not have the opportunity of hearing the remarks of the Senator from New York [Mr. Evarts], but I am somewhat familiar