II.
Is it a fact that the above letter is a true copy of a letter written by General R. E. Lee? The Sun does not profess to print from the original, which is not produced, nor its absence accounted for. Whoever sent the copy to the Sun affirmed that the original had been found at Arlington House, and the Sun published the letter on the faith of that statement. This, at least, is the presumption. No one now connected with the Sun has any knowledge of the facts.
Without insisting on the rules of evidence, but freely admitting any matter, which, as a basis of inference, is in its nature probatory, let us examine on what grounds the authenticity of the above letter, which we shall hereafter call The Duty Letter, has been questioned. And without inquiry as to the legal burden of proof, let us concede that this letter should be taken as prima facie genuine, and that those who deny its authenticity should prove it spurious by a preponderance, at least, of evidence. For this letter has been accepted as genuine by two generations of Americans. In the South, it has been esteemed by many as almost a new gospel; and it has been taught to children with the Bible and the catechism. And when its authenticity is denied, the lovers of Lee (and who is not?) cling to it with a passionate tenacity that is almost pathetic, as if their
manner of exhibition, and the class of matter similarly displayed in the same place on other days, I should personally be slow to assume, without other evidence, that this was the earliest appearance in print of the forged letter. It looks, introduction and all. quite as much like reprint of current matter in other publications as like first hand and previously unedited, news."
It is probable that the question here raised will never be settled. It does not seem important. It is certain, I think, that the Richmond (Va.) Whig (as to which see post) copied The Duty Letter from the Sun. It gives no credit to any paper, but prints the -letter with precisely the same heading and introduction as the Sun. Besides this, the Whig prints The Duty Letter verbatim et literatim as it appears in the Sun, even to reproducing the erroneous spelling Devenport for Davenport, the right name.
At the time of the publication of The Duty Letter, the editor and proprietor of the New York Sun was Moses S. Beach. Mr. Charles A. Dana bought and took over the Sun in 1868. If the astute Dana had been editor of the Sun in 1864, it is probable that the forged letter would not have passed his scrutiny.
