Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/410

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Southern Historical Society Papers.

The work will be found also of great historic value, as the Third Volume will embrace more especially the consideration of the diseases and accidents of armies, and such observations on the medical and surgical history of the Confederate army, as the author was able to make himself or to obtain from the Confederate medical officers.

The results of the investigations concerning the nature, relations and treatment of special diseases during the civil war of 1861-1865, will also be found under the appropriate divisions of each monograph, in three volumes, constituting the present series.

It may be obtained by addressing the author, Dr. Jos. Jones, box 1500, New Orleans.

Life of Chief Justice Chase. By J. W. Schuckers. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

As private secretary and intimate friend of Mr. Chase, Mr. Schuckers has brought to his task very full materials which he has woven into a deeply interesting story of the busy life of one of the ablest men this country has ever produced.

Always a leader in the party opposed to the rights of the South, Mr. Chase's record is one which we cannot, of course, endorse. But in his latter days he evinced towards our people a much more kindly spirit, and it is but just to say that his private character always stood fair, and that his correspondence, as presented in this book, evinces a purity of motive and a freedom from the bribery and corruption by which he was surrounded truly refreshing. The book is admirably gotten up, and very readable.

The Civil War in America. By John Wm. Draper, M. D., LL. D. New York: Harper & Brothers.

The publishers have kindly sent us (through West & Johnston, Richmond,) a copy of this work. We are thus enabled to place on our shelves three beautiful volumes, gotten up in the highest style of the book-maker's art, and "intended to be a history of the causes which led to the civil war, and of the events connected with it, considered not in a partisan but in a philosophical and impartial spirit." How far the learned author has succeeded in his avowed purpose is altogether another matter. Indeed it requires only a glance through these volumes to see that instead of writing in "a philosophical and impartial spirit," Dr. Draper is so bitter a "partisan," that it seems simply impossible for him to make accurate statements about even the most trivial matters.

We may take occasion to pay our respects to Dr. Draper more fully here after, and to show how his narration of the causes and events of the war is so colored by partisan prejudice as to render it utterly worthless as history.

Books Received.

From the publishers (Jos. H. Coates & Co., Philadelphia,) we have received the second volume of the translation of the History of the Civil War in America, by Comte de Paris.

From Geo. W. Harris, of Albemarle, The Confederate Soldier, by Rev. J. E. Edwards.

These books, and any others which may be sent us, shall have due notice.