The work which assumes to perpetuate the history of Kershaw’s Brigade should not be a skeleton, consisting of an enumeration of the battles, skirmishes, and marches which were participated in—­with the names of the commanding officers.  What is needed is not a skeleton, but a body with all its members, so to speak.  It should be stated who they were, the purposes which animated these men in becoming soldiers, how they lived in camp and on the march, how they fought, how they died and where, with incidents of bravery in battle, and of fun in camp.  No laurels must be taken from the brow of brave comrades in other commands; but the rights of the soldiers of Kershaw’s Brigade must be jealously upheld—­everyone of these rights.  To do this work, will require that the writer of this history shall have been identified with this command during its existence—­he must have been a soldier.  Again, he must be a man who acts up to his convictions; no toady nor any apologist is desired.  If he was a Confederate soldier from principle, say so, and apologize to no one for the fact.  If he loved his State and the Southland and wished their independence, say so, and “forget not the field where they perished.”  Lastly, he ought to have the ability to tell the story well.

The friends of Captain D. Augustus Dickert, who commanded Company H of the Third South Carolina Regiment of Infantry, are confident that he possesses all the quality essential to this work.  He was a splendid soldier—­brave in battle, clear-headed always, and of that equilibrium of temperament that during camp life, amid the toil of the march, and in battle the necessity for discipline was recognized and enforced with justice and impartiality.  He was and is a patriot.  His pen is graceful, yet strong.  When he yielded to the importunities of his comrades that he would write this history, there was only one condition that he insisted upon, and that was that this should be solely a work of love.  Captain Dickert has devoted years to the gathering together of the materials for this history.  Hence, the readers are now prepared to expect a success.  Maybe it will be said this is the finest history of the war!

Y.J.  Pope.  Newberry, S.C., August 7, 1899.

History of Kershaw’s Brigade.  By D. Augustus Dickert. (9x5-3/4, pp. 583.  Illus.) Elbert H. Aull Company, Newberry, S.C.

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The name of Kershaw’s Brigade of South Carolinians is familiar to all who wore the gray and saw hard fighting on the fields of Virginia, in the swamps of Carolina and the mountains of Tennessee.  This was “the First Brigade of the First Division of the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia,” and many of its members volunteered for service before the first gun was fired at the Star of the West, while its ragged regimental remnants laid down their arms at Greensboro not till the 2d of May, 1865, nearly a month after the fateful day of Appomattox.  Its history is a history of the war, for, as will he seen, there were few pitched battles in the East that did not call forth its valor.