our part, are convinced that the Russian government, which is fortunately by no means in favor of a laisser aller and free trade, will gradually find means to establish what is still wanted to a great extent for that country, to wit: an active industry, and thus also to promote the increase of population.

The Economist finds that the development of affairs has not justified the apprehensions entertained at the time of the agitation against the corn laws, that the English market would be glutted with foreign grain. Such an assertion is indeed rather bold in the face of the notorious facts, that since that time one-third of the English soil is no longer used for anything but pasture; that real estate in England is constantly getting into the possession of fewer hands; that the owners of small and middle sized estates there have nearly become extinct, and that the agricultural laborers are in a condition as little fit for human beings, as can be in a half-civilized country. It was of course understood already at the time of the corn tariff, that England's industry would necessarily be benefited by their abolition, and that this would confirm its supremacy as a manufacturing country; but the assertion, that the apprehended damage had not befallen England's agriculture, is uttering but a falsehood.

We do not wish, however, to advocate by these remarks the corn tariff, but rather merely to oppose the tendency of Great Britain to establish an industrial supremacy upon the ruins of home agriculture and upon the dependence of foreign productions of raw materials upon England's demand, and at the expense of all other countries, to become the workshop for the whole world.

WAR LITERATURE.

SHERMAN THOMAS-MEADE.

HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA. By the Count of Paris. Translated with the approval of the author by L. Tasistro. Edited by Henry Coppeè, LL. D. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: Jos. H. Coates & Co. 1875. 8vo., pp. 640, with six maps.

HISTORY OF THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND, its Organization, Campaigns, and Battles. Written at the request of Major General George H. Thomas, chiefly from his private military journal, and official and other documents furnished by him. By Thomas B. Van Horne, U. S. A. Illustrated with Campaign and Battle Maps. Compiled by Edward Ruger, late Supt. Top. Eng. Office, Hd. Qrs. Dep't. of the Cumberland. 2 vols. and Atlas. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co.

SHERMAN'S HISTORICAL RAID. The Memoirs in the light of the Record. A review based upon compilations from the files of the War Office. H. V. Boynton. Cincinnati: Wilstach, 1875. 8vo. PP. 276.

THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. By Samuel P. Bates. Philadelphia: T. H. Davis & Co. 1875. 8vo., pp. 336.

The publication of General Sherman's Memoirs has excited a very lively interest in the study of our military history. The additions to the literature of our Civil War have increased largely, and the leading new works on the subject are those of which we have, given the titles. Such of them as are controversial and intended to attack Sherman, serve only a temporary purpose, for in spite of the corrections and animadversions of Sherman's statements, the fact remains that his book is one of undoubted value and interest, read by thousands, and likely to be admired for years to come. Of course it is well that actual errors of fact should be pointed out, with a view to reaching the exact truth in future editions; but the sturdy, manly, vigorous, personal impress set upon his opinions by his own forcible style, and by his clear, positive statement of them, makes his summary a matter of historical value and of lasting importance in our literature of the war. In the main that literature is not of a sort to have much value in our own time, or much permanent interest hereafter.

It is therefore with no ordinary pleasure that we find such a hearty welcome given to the Count of Paris's History of our War, by all the leading journals, foreign and American. Some of the most important chapters were published in advance of the book itself, in the Revuee des Deux Mondes, and many readers were attracted to them by their charm of style, by the simplicity of statements, by the almost colorless impartiality of the historical portions, by the vigorous and earnest tone with which the cause of the North was sustained, while full justice was done the military leaders and the soldiers of the

South. The French edition of the work was in eight volumes, with a very large number of maps, forty or more; these eight volumes will reappear in an English translation in four volumes, each volume giving the full text of two of the French, with only the most important maps reproduced, so that the cost of the edition published in this city by Messrs. Coates & Co., and for them in London by Messrs. Low & Co., will be only Fifteen Dollars, while the Paris publishers ask nearly Fifty Dollars for theirs, and the mechanical execution of the Philadelphia edition is, as usual, better than that of its French original. It is in the highest degree honorable to our publishers to have shown the enterprise to undertake making this book accessible to all English readers, and it is done with such beauty of print and paper that they can go to London and there safely offer it to our British cousins, with their love of luxuries in the way of typography. The Count of Paris has no reason to regret the authorization in favor of Messrs. Coates & Co., and there is little doubt that the reading public will thank them substantially for thus putting his book at our own door.

Of the translating and editing not much can be said in the way of praise. The merits of the French original are sadly lessened by substituting for the author's transparent, vigorous, idiomatic, and at times eloquent style, an English which is marred by Gallicisms, blurred by the constant use of French phrases, as if English furnished no substitutes, and unpleasantly affected by a want of care in allowing blunders, not in themselves very important, to escape into print again, while matters of little or no moment are solemnly adverted to in foot-notes. "Burton" instead of "Buxton," as the friend of Wilbeforce in anti-slavery agitation; making the coast survey the exclusive work of our topographical engineers; these are not serious mistakes for a French author to make, but it is not creditable for an American editor to pass them by. Siegel and Sigel are both given; while in addition to retaining the French legal measures, which ought to be translated into English, although the standard for conversion is given in a prefatory note, leagues are also used, which are no longer legal French measures, and are not well known here. These are errors that ought not to be found in a book translated by one and edited by another competent and careful person; but still they are all comparatively slight blemishes, and they are hardly worth mention perhaps, except that they are more easily

pointed out than are the nice distinctions and differences, almost impossible to exemplify by instances, that constitute the blemishes in rendering the good French of the author into the English of the American edition. The use of the present tense in a historical narrative is thoroughly French, but it is not correct or usual in English, although constantly translated in this work, and this is but an instance of the want of care and skill of the kind needed for a successful translation.

It is hard to give the Count of Paris' book the due share of praise its merits deserve without appearing to run into indiscriminate eulogy. It is written in a broad, wide, wise way, with such diversions as bring into proper light the real military resources of the country and their apt use in our great struggle. It is free from vague declamation or loose generalization, but it is far more than a merely detailed account of the strategic and tactical operations of the variious armies in the field, for it is military history in the true sense of the term, and rises to the dignity of history by taking into view all the elements that were of importance in the war of the Union. It places before the reader a detailed account of the resources of the two contending sections, and how they were used; the services rendered by the officers of the regular army, who had received their training at West Point, and their experience in actual service, and the means by which large armies were raised and a long war carried on. The traditions of the military service of the armies of the United States are traced back to the old French wars; it was in that school the soldiers of the Revolution received their first instruction, and in the struggle with the mother country, in the war which secured American independence, they afterwards learned their best lesson, that perseverance which enabled them to turn defeat to advantage instead of succumbing to it. The national army of 1861 was organized on the same basis as that of 1776, through the States, and that was the rule sedulously followed in the war of 1812 and in the Mexican war of 1846, each of which left its special influence upon the American army and gave it a chief who organized its forces, in the next succeeding contest.

The narrative of the history shows the current of the military events which culminated in the civil war. Scott, who was the victorious general in Mexico, had earned his laurels in the war of 1812, where he served under the old veterans of the revolutionary war; and

the leaders of the army, led by Washington himself, had learned their lessons in the art of war in the old French and Indian wars. Scott, the representative of all these, the traditions and transmitted lessons of American military war, was the head of the American army when the Rebellion broke out in 1861. He was, perhaps, not more than a nominal chief, but his staff and a large part of the regular army looked up to him as the great soldier of the country; a large number of those who gained distinction on both sides of the civil war had been specially honored by him for their services in Mexico, and for later good work done in the unceasing struggles with the hostile Indians of the border. All of these influences are carefully noted by the Count of Paris, and he traces them in brief but suggestive chapters, points out that Scott's march to the city of Mexico was a prototype of Sherman's march to the sea, each cutting his communication with his original base of supplies, and making his trains large enough to eke out food for the soldiers, who for the first time learned how to live on the country through which they were marching. The Indian wars, too, were a training school, where officers and soldiers learned the habit of responsibility, the facility of taking command, individual reliance, enterprise in undertaking movements and endurance in carrying them on, in spite of frequent failure for want of support or of indifference in case of success. Even the War Department of 1861, with its control of over a million of armed men in 1865, was the same bureau that had been organized in 1800 with one secretary and eight clerks.

The Count of Paris points to slavery as the real cause of the war, denounces it and reproaches its upholders for their unjustifiable demands and for their appeal to arms as a means of perpetuating the peculiar institution of the South. He gives an able sketch of its baneful effects upon the people of the slave States and upon national policy as it was influenced by them, and he furnishes a capital account of the resources of the South, of its means of opening the war with a great appearance of success, of the elements at hand for recruiting their armies, and of the shrewd, bold step by which the Confederate Government made itself the sole master of the men and means of its whole territory, in utter disregard of the State rights which had been so eloquently upheld in its arguments for disunion. The inferiority in numbers of the Confederate forces was not less a source of defeat than the profound ignorance of the poor whites