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REPORT OF OCTOBER 23, 1902.
To the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans of Virginia:
Your History Committee again returns its thanks to you, and the public, for the very cordial way in which you have shown your appreciation of its labors, as contained in its last three reports. It may interest you to know, that whilst these reports have been published and scattered broadcast over this land, no attempt has been made to controvert or deny any principle contended for, or fact asserted, in any of them, so far as we have heard. We think we can, therefore. Justly claim that the following facts have been established:
First. That the South did not go to war to maintain, or to perpetuate, the institution of slavery.
Second. The right of secession (the real issue of the war), and that this right was first asserted at the North, and as clearly recognized there as at the South.
Third. That the North, and not the South, was the aggressor in bringing on the war.
Fourth. That on the part of the South the war was conducted according to the principles of civilized warfare, whilst on the part of the North it was conducted in the most inhuman and barbarous manner.
The last of the above named was the subject of our last report, in which we drew a contrast between the way the war was conducted on our part, and the way it was conducted by our quondam enemies, which, we think, was greatly to the credit of the South. The subject of this report, the
"TREATMENT AND EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS"
is really a continuation and further discussion of the contrast begun in that report, and a necessary sequel to that discussion. The further treatment of this subject becomes most important, too, from the fact that our people know very little about the
