Southern Historical Society

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The Southern Historical Society was an organization founded by Confederate Major General Dabney Herndon Maury in 1868-1869 and documented Southern viewpoints, both military and civilian, from the American Civil War. These were compiled into the Southern Historical Society Papers, published in the late 1880s and early 1900s, comprising 52 volumes of articles written by Southern soldiers, officers, politicians, and civilians, as well as genealogies.

Aside from the statements in volume 18 and its many details on the structuring of the Southern Historical Society, the number two collection and compilation of primary resources on the Civil War. The following comes from the 52 volumes of the Southern Historical Society including its Founder and the year founded. Its purpose is for a better understanding of the society and what it was and is today. Presently the fifty-two volumes are on CD and DVD and are now distributed throughout the world and many universities in the United States as primary resource materials with a quick search for any word/s on the CD and DVD. The DVD includes the one-hundred and twenty-eight volumes of the Official Records, compiled in Washington D. C. and are the number one resource material for learning about the Civil War and the people involved in it.

Documenting The American South

BOOK: [1]

RECOLLECTIONS OF A VIRGINIAN IN THE MEXICAN, INDIAN, AND CIVIL WARS

BY GENERAL DABNEY HERNDON MAURY

EX-UNITED STATES MINISTER TO COLOMBIA

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1894

...since that day I have had nothing to do with duels save to prevent them, although - to anticipate my narrative a little - the reckless opponents of Mr. Cleveland have censured him for appointing me United States Minister to Colombia, because I have "shot several men in duels."

On the last occasion of this mendacity, I wrote to Mr. President Cleveland, telling him that for myself I did not care; that my own people knew my character and history so well they had elected me a member of the Anti-Duelling Society of South Carolina. But, as the slander was published to injure him, I would take any measures to expose and punish its libellous authors he might advise. He replied with characteristic kindness, saying, "No one believes what that paper publishes, and unless it is reiterated I would not notice it." An eminent lawyer informed me I could successfully prosecute for such slander, but I decided to await further developments, which never came. Thank heaven, duelling among gentlemen has become almost unknown. The men who fought in the great war between the States have no need of such encounters to prove their courage or protect their honor.

To return to my story, whence the recollection of this threatened duel led me to wander, in New Orleans, in 1868, I determined to set on foot a plan for the systematic collection and preservation of the Southern archives relating to the war.

Richard Taylor, son of President Zachary Taylor cordially encouraged me, and in May of that year I called a meeting by quiet personal requests of nine or ten gentlemen in the office of Hewitt and Norton. After conversational discussion, it was agreed to meet at the same place in one week from that date.

Meantime, each of us agreed to canvass among his friends and bring them in to help. Next week forty of us assembled, and the noble and able Presbyterian divine, Dr. B. M. Palmer, was elected president, and our work went on for several years, though without important result.

In 1873, a convention was called at White Sulphur Springs. It was attended by many able Southern gentlemen, who evinced the most earnest interest in our work. President Jefferson Davis, Admiral Semmes, Governor Letcher, and General Beauregard took leading parts. The domicile of the society Southern Historical Society was moved to Richmond [Virginia].

Colonel Wythe Mumford was appointed secretary and I chairman of the Executive Committee. We occupied an office in the capitol of Virginia, made acknowledgments in the newspapers for documents received, and arrangements for their publication.

The Executive Committee included the Honorable Robert Mercer Taliferro Hunter and several other gentlemen of high character and ability, and so soon as we began to publish our records, our membership rapidly increased; so that the Secretary of War at length sought to procure access to and the use of our archives. We replied, "Open yours to us, and ours will be open to you."

This ended the negotiations.

The next Secretary asked access to our papers with the same result.

Then Mr. Hayes obtained the Presidency, and announced a conciliatory policy towards the South. He appointed General Marcus Wright [CSA], who had already collected by his own exertions many of our war papers, to the charge of that business, and sent him to me to accomplish a free interchange of documents between the War Records Office and the Southern Historical Society.

To this I cordially assented, and opened our office with all of its great collection of papers to the free access of the office in Washington. Since then the interchange has continued, until now the War Records Office can publish the authentic facts of both contestants in the struggle.

Before bringing my narrative to its end with an account of my experience and adventures as an appointed United States Minister Colombia, I wish to pay a tribute to my old friend, Senator M. C. Butler, of South Carolina Senator Butler is a descendant of the best families of the Southern and the Northern States. The famous Commodores Perry of New England were his uncles. On his father's side he was of the Butler families of Virginia and South Carolina. That noble Senator Butler, Andrew Pickens Butler, compeer of Calhoun, was his uncle. None who ever enjoyed the pleasure of his acquaintance here forgot how high a privilege that was. Judge Butler, Robert Mercer Taliferro Hunter, and James Murray Mason were for years the great triumvirate of the United States Senate.

Note: Dabney Herndon Maury descendes directly from the Mercer, Brooke, and Taliferro families. That is why, for genealogists, the use of initials like "R.M.T.Hunter" is not good and why I used the full name at least once, in the fifty-two vols. of the Southern Historical Society's Papers on CD.

The ancestor, General Hugh Mercer lived in Fredericksburg, Virginia and there is a monument to him there. He served under General George Washington and was seriously wounded attacking Hessians in the American Revolutionary War. John Mercer Brooke [USN & CSN] also descends from General Hugh Mercer. Hugh Mercer had been in Scotland fighting for "Bonnie Prince Charlie" and was left for dead on the battlefield of Culloden. He moved to America and became a surgeon until the war started. General George Washington knew him well as they had lived close to each other and saw one another often in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

This is how one can learn about ancestry and collateral kin using this particular resource and it is why first and middle names were added to men mentioned in the Southern Historical Society text. Too, the Southern Historical Society included its own genealogies as previously shown and which is but one simple example but may mean a lot to people researching their families of so long ago.