REPORT

BY

HON. GEO. L. CHRISTIAN,

Chairman.

OCTOBER 28, 1903.

NORTH CARolina and VIRGINIA IN THE CIVIL WAR.

REPORT OF OCTOBER 28, 1903

To the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans of Virginia:

Your History Committee again returns its thanks to you and the public for the flattering and cordial way in which you have received its last report. It will be as gratifying to you as it is to the committee to know that we have heard of no attempt to controvert any statement contained in any report of this committee up to this time. It will also be gratifying to you to learn that at the late reunion of the United Confederate Veterans, held in New Orleans, the several reports of your committee were not only incorporated as a part of the report of the History Committee of that great organization, but received its unanimous and unqualified endorsement.

REGRETS OF COMMITTEE.

We had expected in this report to discuss a very different subject from that which now claims our attention. Indeed, we deeply regret that the matter which demands our attention at this time should have to be considered by us at all. But we conceive it to be our first duty to our mother State to see that her record in the Confederate war is kept true, and not misunderstood or misrepresented by either friend or foe. We have always deprecated controversies between the Confederates. We think, as General Early once said, there is glory enough attached to the Confederate struggle for all of us to have a share, that we should stand together and see that the truth of that conflict is preserved; this is all we have a right to ask, and we should be content with nothing less.

This being our position, we repeat our sincere regret that some recent publications from representatives of our sister State of North Carolina have come to us in such a way, and that these publications emanate from such sources, that they demand consideration and attention at the hands of your committee. We again repeat our sorrow that we feel compelled to notice these matters,

and in doing so we shall strive to say nothing which will even tend to detract from the fame won by the glorious "Old North State" in the Confederate war, except in so far as attempts have been made to augment that fame at the expense of Virginia.

THE PEOPLE OF NORTH CAROLINA.

We know the people of North Carolina and greatly admire their many virtues and noble characteristics. We knew the soldiers sent by her to the Army of Northern Virginia. We have seen their splendid bearing and frightful sacrifices on many a field of carnage, and we bear willing testimony to the fact that no truer, better, or braver soldiers ever stood on the "bloody front of battle." North Carolina is truly a great State, inhabited by a noble people, and with a record of which she has a right to be proud. We love State pride, and particularly that State pride and devotion to principle which has made North Carolina do what she could to preserve the names and records of her soldiers in the Confederate armies. Every other Southern State should follow her example, no matter what it may cost to do so.

No truer patriots ever lived or died for their country than those who fought in the Confederate armies. These men are as well satisfied now as they ever were that their cause was just. They enlisted at the command of their several States; they did their duty to the best of their ability; they are, and have a right to be, proud of their achievements, and they have a right to expect that their States will see to it that their names and the record of their deeds are preserved.

CLAIMS MADE BY NORTH CAROLINA.

Conceding, as we cheerfully do, the great fame achieved by North Carolina in the Confederate war, it seems to us, from reading the publications to which we have referred, that some of our friends from that State have not been either just or generous in some of their allusions to her sister States, and have seemed both spiteful and boastful in some of their charges, claims, and references to their "next-door neighbor," Virginia. What Virginia

may have done to provoke this, we are not advised. If aught, we regret it. It is these charges, these claims, and seeming reflections on Virginia alone, that we now propose to consider, as we feel in duty bound to do. In doing this we shall not imitate the course pursued by some of the writers to whom we have referred. Some of these have not hesitated to reflect on the people and soldiers from Virginia in the harshest and, in our opinion, most unjust manner. We shall not imitate these writers (1) because we feel confident they do not, in their criticisms of Virginia and her people, reflect the real feelings of North Carolinians toward Virginia, and (2) because neither the people of Virginia nor the soldiers sent by her to the Confederate armies need any defense at our hands. The presentation of the truth of what Virginia did and dared and suffered for the Confederate cause is her complete vindication, and it is a part of this task that we now filially but cheerfully assume.

THAT SHE FURNISHED MORE TROOPS.

First. The first and most serious claim made by North Carolina is that she furnished more troops to the Confederacy than any other Southern State.

This claim has been made and published far and wide, and, as far as we know, no attempt has been made to refute it. It generally assumes the form of a boast, but is sometimes made the basis of a complaint. We saw not long since in a North Carolina paper (the Charlotte Observer of May 17, 1903,) a statement from the pen of a distinguished writer of that State, in which he complained that partiality had been shown to Virginia, and consequent injustice done to North Carolina, during the war, in the appointment of the general officers of the army, especially, he said, since Virginia had furnished only about 76,000 troops to the Confederacy to North Carolina's 126,000, or 50,000 more than Virginia.

PRESIDENT DAVIS.

So far as the question of partiality is concerned, since President