The two volumes containing these general subjects are sustained by the other volumes of Confederate military history of the States of the South involved in the war. Each State being treated in separate history permits of details concerning its peculiar story, its own devotion, its heroes and its battlefields. The authors of the State histories, like those of the volumes of general topics, are men of unchallenged devotion to the Confederate cause and of recognized fitness to perform the task assigned them. It is just to say that this work has been done in hours taken from busy professional life, and it should be further commemorated that devotion to the South and its heroic memories has been their chief incentive.
It is fit that a few words be said here regarding the authorship of these volumes, in a general way to express the gratitude of the publishers for the hearty co-operation and patriotic spirit of all the distinguished gentlemen who have contributed to this work, and specially to note briefly those facts regarding the life of each that commend them alike to the confidence of the South and the high regard of the student who seeks historical authority.
Hon. J. L. M. Curry, LL. D., who writes upon "The legal justification of the Southern States in their ordinances of secession, and the honorable course of the Confederate States government in the conduct of the war," has had a long and eminent career familiar to the people of the South. During the important period, 1857 to 1861, he represented his Alabama district in the Congress of the United States, and upon the secession of his State he was elected a delegate to the first provisional Congress, at Montgomery, and a member of the first Confederate States Congress, at Richmond. After the close of his term he served in the field in Georgia and Alabama. Subsequently he entered upon religious and educational work, was president of Howard college, a professor of
