of that committee, Mr. John P. McGuire, made a special report on the whole subject, which has been incorporated in this paper.
It was supposed some eighteen months ago that the History Committee of the Grand Camp of Virginia, successful in the efforts of that period, had finished its labors and had no further cause for action nor reason for existence. We imagined that books hostile to the truth and dishonoring to the dead and living of the South, had been driven from our State, and that with them would go opinions derived from them and of like effect, and therefore debasing to those who held them.
The actual situation is such that we consider it wise to begin this report with a brief description of our position at home and of the forces arrayed against us. It should serve to guide and concentrate our own action. It ought to secure the vigorous co-operation of all the Confederate camps in the South.
WORK NOT DONE.
We were in error in supposing our work done. We are not altogether rid of false teachings, whatever may be said of the purposes of our teachers. Because of newly-aroused thought, the opinions alluded to are less prevalent than they were at the time we speak of, but they are still heard from young men who, during the last thirty years, have been misled as to the characteristics of our people and the causes of the "war between the sections," for some who, "looking to the future," as they phrase it, foolishly ignore the lessons of the past, and from others who, thinking themselves impoverished by the war and being greedy of gain, have neither thought nor care for anything nobler. There are a few older men who think that the abandonment of all the principles and convictions of the past is necessary to prove their loyalty to the present. There are some who dare to tell us that "the old days are gone by and are not to be remembered;" that "it is a weakness to recall them with tender emotions." To these we reply, "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." Young or old, these men are few, but they are ours, and their children inherit their errors.
