has migrated, but no discerning person would include him in Mr. Oglesby's list. * * * "It was to be expected that the publishers of the Encyclopedia Britannica, preferring to get at the truth, would take the pains to free its articles on American subjects from the defects, arising from sectional prejudices, that disfigure American encyclopedias and other books published in the North. This, however, it has clearly not done. It has apparently had its articles on American subjects written or edited in New England, and in the narrow provincial spirit of the literary men of that section. The quotation from its article on American literature must amaze readers who have acquaintance with the facts of American history."-The Sun (Baltimore, Md.) Prefatory Note. THE following answer to the Encyclopedia Britannica's aspersion of the South, and accompanying comment in criticism of that encyclopedia, were first published in the form of articles in the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, in January, 1891. To refute the misrepresentation of the South by a book of worldwide circulation that was accepted as authority by so many people-to show that the stigma it places. upon her is undeserved-and to further, to the extent at least of the circulation of the paper in which they were published, the establishing of the truth of history in place of the grossly false so-called history which ignorance and prejudice have so long and with so much detriment to the South, caused to be taken for the truth, was the object of these articles. Shortly after their appearance in the columns of the Advertiser, an edition of the articles, under the title "The Britannica Answered And The South Vindicated," was issued in pamphlet form, in compliance with requests so numerous as to indicate what seemed to be a very general desire. Many appreciative-and appreciated-expressions touching the pamphlet were received in personal letters from Boston to California, but the decision to issue another edition-the execution of which has been long delayed for a convenient season-was chiefly induced by the two following let ters: "MARIETTA, GA., Nov. 20th, 1893. "T. K. OGLESBY, Esq., New Orleans. "My Dear Sir: I cannot undertake what I wish to say in regard to the pamphlet 'The Britannica Answered and the South Vindicated'-with a pen. you. I cannot write to you; I must converse with "In one sense your pamphlet gave me great comfort; in another sense quite the reverse. Words cannot convey an idea of the goneness about my heart which has now existed for so many years, created by the realization, constantly kept alive by new discovery, that Mr. Stephens's great work, 'The War Between the States,' had fallen, as it were, 'still-born' from the press; that it was unread at the South; that the educated man at the South who knew anything of its contents was a 'rara avis.' That, however, was a work of two volumes; but here—in the pamphlet-was a grouping of brief, lively articles brimful of thought and fact, which had appeared in a newspaper, and I, always eager to read anything defensive of the South, had never heard of them. So far as I was concerned -but for the incident which has brought us together -they might as well have been published in mid-Africa. Why were the articles not republished, at the time of their appearance, in some of the newspapers I am in the habit of reading? Why were they not thrown into all of our papers? Alas! alas! it is the same old story! The independent South has ceased to exist. The memory of the South is potent only in Confederate Veteran Associations. * "I observe that you placed your masterly and absolutely invaluable series of papers in aggregate form for the market. Am I venturing too far in asking what success you have met with-not with an eye to pecuniary profit-but to giving circulation to your work? "My dear sir, as I continue to write, I feel the oppression growing heavier upon me that the pen (which I have come to wield so painfully and awkwardly) will not subserve my purpose. Do you not visit Georgia occasionally? Is it likely that you will be in Georgia soon? Most happy would I be to welcome you under my roof, and so soon as you can come. I feel that I must see you if that be possible. * * * # "Pray excuse my slovenly penmanship; and allow me to subscribe myself your sin cere and admiring friend, "HENRY R. JACKSON." "AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, MISS., May 22, 1894. "MR. T. K. OGLESBY. "My Dear Sir: I write to express my great appreciation of the pamphlet named "The Britannica Answered and the South Vindicated,' which was published by you, and to express the hope that you will get out a new edition of it in order that the very valuable historical facts brought out in it may be further perpetuated, and placed on file in the libraries of the South. I consider the pamphlet one of the most complete and thorough vindications of the South that has been written by any one since the war. I prize it as the most valuable I have seen. I feel sure it will find a ready sale if reproduced, and I trust that you will have a new and enlarged edition published. Your efforts in vindicating the South should have the thanks of every true Southerner. I am frank to say that I do not know of any one who has done more effective work in this direction than yourself. "With kind wishes, yours truly, ** "S. D. LEE." These two letters, especially, constrained me to feel it a duty-which I thought to have performed before now-to issue another edition of the publication to which they refer in terms which I cannot but feel are far beyond its merits. They came from two of the most illustrious representatives of that Old South that held the goodliest fellowship of knightly men and loyal women whereof this world holds record;-that South (now dead, alas, forever!) whose memory, to all who ever felt its charm, to all who ever inhaled the aroma of its rare civilization, is "dear as remembered kisses after death." It was to vindicate that South from the charge of barbarism made against it by such a book as the Encyclopedia Britannica that the pamphlet had been written, and it is with the desire that its facts "may be further perpetuated"-may be more |