Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 19.djvu/382

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
376
Southern Historical Society Papers.

CAUSE OF YANCEY'S DEATH.

"It has been several times stated since Mr. Yancey's death that it resulted from injuries received in this rencounter; but such is not the fact, as he died from a disease that could in no way have been superinduced by this cause."

Mr. Yancey died at Montgomery, 28th July, 1863, and B. H. Hill died in Atlanta, 19th August, 1882. O.


RICHMOND, VA., 16th March, 1891.




[From the Richmond Dispatch, January 2 and 13, 1891.]

THE TRUTH OF HISTORY.




[The following "open" correspondence is here connectedly presented in justice to all concerned.]


An Open Letter from Dr. R. L. Dabney to Dr. J. William Jones.

[For the Richmond Dispatch, January 2, 1892.]


AUSTIN, TEX. , December 75, 1891.

To the Rev. Dr. John William Jones :

Rev. and Dear Sir: My home is now nearly 2,000 miles from Virginia. I am an old man, infirm and totally blind. I have been recently told that you make me figure in the following mode in one of your published books of war reminiscences. I am told that your scene is laid at the battle of Malvern Hill in 1862, when I was chief-of-staff to General Jackson's corps, that I am represented as crouching behind a large gate-post as a shelter from artillery fire, and that I was twitted with the inconsistency between this act and that doctrine of a protecting Providence which I had preached to the soldiers. I am also told that this fiction is actually illustrated by a picture representing my face and person. This can add only a very stinging point to the story.

I have to assure you that the whole story is absolutely false, and never had even a pretext of fact to palliate its invention. You were not present on the spot yourself, and, of course, do not assert the