Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 35.djvu/197

Rh The value of this faithful presentation of a period so full of menace to all, held dear in the South, has been attested in numerous commendatory notices.

Those who suffered and endured, during this darkest era of wanton oppression, and who resisted all-encompassed with circumstances in every way depressing with a patriotism not to be overwhelmed, respond in every fibre to the stirring depiction. Mr. Wells served with Hampton in his famous Legion, and his previous work is the authority on the resplendant military career of the great Carolinian. As to the scope and purpose of his work the author justly says in his preface:

"This sketch is part of the biography of a people, the American people, at a most important period of its life.

'The past is the parent of the present and of the future of a people's life, as it is with every man's life.

"Hereditary inclinations, good and evil, influence a people's career, just as they influence that of an individual, and they should be equally subject to the guidance and restraint that experience imposes through conscience. Although this is an account of events happening many years ago, yet the causes producing them, at present in the background, are as full of vitality now as then they are sleeping lions. Where treasure is, near at hand will always be lurking thieves.

"Because you may be sailing on summer seas, free of care and with no thought of tempests, you do not doubt that the ocean, now so harmless looking, will some time or other be lashed into angry waves mountain-high, by blasts at present slumbering in the caves of the winds.

"So will the demon of storm reappear from time to time in your political summer seas.

"You cannot prevent this by ignoring it, but you can save