INTRODUCTION. V 



hereditary wealth and elegant culture these are 

 now memories of the past. The scenes described 

 but a few years ago, glowing in sunshine and beauty, 

 :ire now but silent desolation : the hospitable hearth 

 is now roofless and cold. Even as Rachel, the 

 South sits mourning for her children, and will not 

 be comforted. Who can recall them from the 

 grave ? 



The calamities which have befallen a great people 

 whose only impulse was that desire for self-govern- 

 ment, ever regarded as a noble aspiration are 

 amongst events occurring in these days that are 

 inscrutable to our judgment. We live in an era 

 when right, reason, justice have come to be treated 

 as things obsolete and effete when brute force and 

 success are the idols before which all are to bow 

 down and worship. But there are those who believe 

 that, though the principles of truth and justice may 

 thus be trampled down for a season, the time will 

 come when, being imperishable, they will reappear, 

 and command again the reverence of mankind. 

 When that time shall come, the world will do justice 

 to the rights which the people of the South attempted 



