Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/444

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432
Southern Historical Society Papers.

daughters of Confederate soldiers who are unable to pay their fees. 2. Those who are fitting themselves for teachers, and are unable to fully meet the expenses of such a school.

We take pleasure in chronicling this offer (parties desiring further details can correspond with Dr. Vaughan), and of expressing the hope that all of these scholarships in this excellent school may be promptly filled.


A Medal of Stonewall Jackson, purporting to have been struck in France during the last year of the war by order of Colonel Charles Lamar, of Georgia, who proposed presenting one to each member of "the Foot Cavalry" who survived the great chieftain, is being sold for the benefit of the Hood orphan fund by Mr. Mac Pittman.

We are under obligations to our friend, Captain Winfield Peters, of Baltimore, for one in a beautiful morocco case with our name and that of the donor upon it. On one side of the silver medai is the head, name, date of birth and date of death, and on the other, entwined in a wreath, is the motto of the Confederacy and the names of the battles in which "Stonewall" Jackson led his brave legions. While regretting that the likeness is not more accurate, the medal makes a pleasing souvenir which an old soldier would prize.


Literary Notices.

Fredericksburg—Past, Present and Future. By Rev. Robert K. Howison.

We are indebted to the author for a copy of this admirable sketch of the historic old town. With a subject of deep interest, Mr. Howison's facile pen has produced a narrative which should find a place in every historic collection.


First Day of the Battle of Gettysburg—An Address before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. By Colonel Chapman Biddle. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.

This is a carefully prepared, admirably written, and exceedingly fair sketch of the first day at Gettysburg. We cannot admit the accuracy of all of his statements and conclusions, and yet Colonel Biddle has carefully studied both sides [in his foot-notes he makes fifty-two references to the Southern Historical Society Papers], and evidently means to tell the truth as he understands it. It is a very valuable contribution to the history of that great battle, and we could wish for many more war papers written in the same spirit of pains-taking research and fair statement of ascertained facts.


Columbia—A National Poem—Acrostic on the American Union with Sonnets. By W. P. Chilton, of Montgomery, Alabama. New York: The Author's Publishing Company.

The author evidently has poetic talent of no mean order and has accomplished this very difficult style of versification in a manner at once ingenious and pleasing. The sentiment of the poem is one of lofty patriotism, and the book, beautifully gotten up, would find appropriate place alike in the homes of "the Blue" or "the Gray."