Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/190

 182 Sniillnni llixttH-inil Nor/V/// /*'ij>< i'*.

cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the Poles had shown their inca- pacity to manage their own government ere they were consigned to foreign rule. In our case, however, the civilized nations of the earth have stood aloof and seen a brave and patriotic people politically murdered, while maintaining an unprecedented struggle for the right of self-government, and manifesting at every step their capacity for it, and this, too, when under an assumed neutrality, the resources of men, money, and munitions of war of those very nations were being freely used to consummate the monstrous deed, and thereby give the final blow to a genuine Republican Government even in the United States.

On behalf of my down-trodden country, I make the appeal to those nations that they will not commit the further injustice of re- ceiving the history of this struggle from the mouths and pens of our enemies, but that they shall wait until the time shall come for placing a true history before them. In the meantime, let all my countrymen who were in a condition to know the character of the contest, put in a tangible form, to be preserved for the use of the future historian, such facts and materials for that history as are in their knowledge or possession.

J. A. EARLY, Lieutenant- General, C. S. A.

[From the Richmond Times, April 12, 1896.]

THE FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG.

Tribute to Brave General Harry Heth who Opened the Great Battle.

A DESCRIPTION BY AN EYE WITNESS.

Interesting Observations of Jaquelin flarshall fleredith, Chaplain of Heth's Division His Version of the "Cause of Failure."

To the Editor of the Times :

SIR, I have read with regret the war of words in regard to ' ' cause of failure ' ' on the part of the Confederates at the battle of Gettysburg. In the various accounts of the battle, not one has come from an eye-witness of the first day's fight, of July i, 1863. Not one of these accounts, that I have seen, have done simple justice