Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 03.djvu/103

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Editorial Paragraphs.
93

opened, and the white shirt stiffly tied at the neck with black. Although this uniform, however, indicates a definite historical period, we cannot help seeing in the air of the majestic face something which that particular uniform never accompanied—the accomplished work of life, the chastening and visionary sadness of a Lost Cause, the grandeur of self-repression. By this happy inconsistency, this ben trovato anachronism, we conceive the engraver to wish to include the whole record of a great career, and to combine at once the characteristics of the time of effort and the time of retrospection. The technical quality of this head is throughout peculiarly good: seldom has pure line given as good a suggestion of the painter's carnation and gray and silver and warm shadows. Every plane of the modeling, every variation of tint in a rich blood-chased complexion is keenly followed by the change of line, and subtly interpreted to the eye. The mere technical inventiveness of this large print is a lesson to the line-engraver.


"Wade Hampton, Governor of South Carolina," is now a grand historic figure whom the world admires. Lieutenant-General Wade Hampton of the old Cavalry Corps, Army Northern Virginia, won the admiration of all who love chivalric skill and daring. But the bold yet cautious and prudent campaign which has rescued his native State from "carpet-bag" rule and plunder, and made "Wade Hampton Governor of South Carolina," the idol of his people, and the admiration of the world, has shown him possessed of even nobler traits of mind and heart than he ever displayed on the field of battle, and has made the world more anxious than ever to see the lineaments of his classic face.

We are greatly indebted to Walker, Evans & Cogswell, of Charleston, S. C., for a superb engraving of this grand man. The likeness is a very admirable one, the execution is fine, and the picture one which we would be glad to see extensively hung in the homes of our people, that our children may study the features of this noble specimen of the soldier, patriot and statesman.


A Roster of General Ed. Johnson's Division, Ewell's corps, had been prepared along with the other "copy" of the Army Northern Virginia Roster, and was left out by one of those strange mishaps which will sometimes occur in the best regulated offices. It will appear at the end of the entire Roster.


The Confederate Roster is nearly complete, and has excited considerable interest and attention. That some errors should have crept into it, and some omissions have occurred, is not to be wondered at. Indeed, no one can have any tolerable conception of the immense amount of labor it has cost to dig out a Roster from the imperfect records to be had, without admiring the patient research which our friend, Colonel Jones, has shown, and wondering that his work contains so few errors or omissions.

After the publication of the Roster in its present form is completed, it is designed to thoroughly revise and correct it, make such additions to it as may be necessary, and then publish it in separate book form. Meantime the