JOHN WILLIAM DKAl'ER. 



Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War, issued orders to the adjutant 

 general of the army of the United States to " furnish him copies of 

 all orders, reports, correspondence, telegraphic dispatches, or other 

 documents on file in the War Department as he might request, and 

 to permit him to inspect and have copies of any maps, plans, and 

 other papers necessary for the preparation of his work, and to fur- 

 nish him with statistical information respecting the armies of the 

 United States, their organization and operations." This order in- 

 cluded also all the Confederate archives in possession of the War 

 Department. Nor was the interest of the Secretary of War limited 

 to this. He supplied a large amount of personal information of the 

 utmost value. Access was not unfrequently given the author to 

 documents and correspondence of the most confidential kind, with 

 a view of guiding him to correct conclusions ; and many of the most 

 decisive military operations are detailed from private memoranda 

 furnished by the commanding officers themselves. 



The last literary work on which Dr. Draper was engaged was the 

 " History of the Conflict between Religion and Science," issued in 

 1874 as one of the volumes of the International Scientific series. 

 Much of the material utilized in this volume is said to have been 

 matter originally intended for the " Intellectual Development of 

 Europe." The book attempted to trace the development of the an- 

 tagonism which has ever been present between the conservative and * 

 the scientific elements of thought, between the ecclesiastical and old 

 on the one side and the radical and new on the other. The former, 

 always opposed to the progress of the latter, has sought in all times 

 to hinder this progress by every means it could devise lest forsooth 

 some of its antiquated tenets should require modification. The title 

 of the book has sometimes been criticised on the ground that relig- 

 ion is a personal element entirely, and with this, of course, science 

 can never be in antagonism. But using the word in the broader 

 sense, in which Dr. Draper used it as synonymous with ecclesiasti- 

 cism and theology there always has been a conflict between them 

 and there always will be so long as they both shall exist. The 

 favor with which this book was received was something surprising. 

 In the first ten years of its existence it passed through more than 

 twenty editions in the English language and was translated into 

 French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, 

 Polish, and Servian. It has even been placed on the Index Ex- 

 purgatorius of the Romish church, an honor which its author has 



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