PUBLISHER'S ANNOUNCEMENT.
In issuing in the convenient form of two volumes the Southen History of the War, by Mr. E. A. Pollard, of Richmond, the actuating motive is the belief that this work is one of permanent historical value.
Of the two classes of historical composition-namely, that which is made contemporaneously with the transactions recorded and that which is made after the interval of years-it must always happen that the former will show errors of fact, errors in the interpretation of facts, and errors in the correlation of facts. These a calm, judicial survey will readily avoid. Yet public appreciation accounts such faults to be fully countervailed by the life-like interest of the narrative, by the revelations of actual motive on the part of the actors and by a tone and color of reality that only portraiture from the life can convey.
The work of Mr. Pollard belongs to the former category. That many things are now known more justly than when the author poured forth, from the warm feeling of the moment, his thoughts, impressions, and aspirations, it is easy to believe. There is also much in the tone of the book that now, since the close of the war and the failure of the Secession experiment, might appropriately be changed.
Yet granting all these drawbacks, which are inseparable from Contemporaneous composition, the work of Mr. Pollard remains one of marked and peculiar value. Living at the centre of the Confederate power, Mr. Pollard's opportunities for penetrating