mony drawn almost exclusively from Northern sources, it is only left for us to consider how the war, thus forced upon the South by the North, was conducted by the respective combatants through their representatives, both in the Cabinet and in the field? We fully recognize that within the limits of this report it is impossible to do more than to "touch the fringe," as it were, of this important inquiry. The details of the horrors of the four years of that war would fill many, many volumes, and it is not our purpose or desire to go fully into any such sad and harrowing recital. We propose, therefore, only to give the principles of civilized warfare as adopted by the Federal authorities for the government of their armies in the field during the war, and then cite some of the most flagrant violations of those principles by some of the most distinguished representatives of that government in the war waged by it against the South. Of course, in doing this we shall have to refer to some things very familiar to all of us; but the repetition of them in this report would nevertheless seem necessary and proper to its completeness.
In performing this distasteful task we wish, in the beginning, to disclaim any and all purpose or wish on our part to reopen the wounds or to rekindle the feelings of bitterness engendered by that unholy and unhappy strife. As we said in our last report, we recognize that this whole country is one country and our country, and we of the South are as true to it, and will do as much to uphold its honor and defend its rights, as those of any other section. But we are also true to a sacred past, a past which had principles for which thousands of our comrades suffered and died, and which are living principles to-day—principles which we fought to maintain, and for which our whole people, almost without exception, willingly and heroically offered their lives, their blood and their fortunes; and whilst we do not propose to live in that past, we do propose that the principles of that past shall live in us, and that we will transmit these principles to our children and their descendants to the latest generations yet unborn. We believe that only by doing this can we and they make good citizens of the republic, as founded by our fathers, and that not to do this would be false to the memory of our dead and to ourselves.
