Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 36.djvu/250

234 North can put up their fine monuments in the South, right under our noses, falsifying history, and think it is all right, but the Southern people must say nothing. The Grand Army of which he was commander-in-chief, has been objecting to using histories in the Southern schools not written by Northern authors, teaching our children that we were rebels, traitors, knaves, liars and the most brutal people living. Unfortunately, the South has always depended upon the North for their textbooks; but when the war was over and they sent down here such infamous stuff to poison the minds of our children, we had simply to throw it out, and have published histories of our own. I will illustrate the case of one little public school girl in Nashville, Tenn. Soon after the war, upon being called to her history class, she told the teacher that she had no lesson, and when asked the reason, informed her that she had burned up her history. When being reproved for having done so, the little girl informed her that she would not study a history so full of lies as hers was, and went on to explain that her history stated that the Confederates were whipped at the battle of Chickamauga. The fact of the case is that the battle was begun at Crawfish Springs, thirteen miles south of Chattanooga, and on the evening of the second day all of the Yankees were cowering under the banks of the Tennessee River in Chattanooga, and the Confederates were on Missionary Ridge, a mile and a half from the river, their army not only being whipped, but all of it except Thomas's corp, having been panicked. Now, this army was whipped and driven thirteen miles, and yet their historians claim the victory. Our little children knew better and simply resented it. Corporal Tanner holds the Confederate government responsible for the treatment of the prisoners, and says it was their duty to treat them humanely, whether the United States government would agree to an exchange or not. He therefore agrees that his government refused to exchange the prisoners. In the next paragraph, he says, "The plea that it could not have fed them better is conclusively refuted by the fact that when Sherman passed through that country he found an abundance of provisions for his great army of 60,000 men." Yes, we