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DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA
JOHN FULTON, D.D., LL.D., Rector of St. George's Church, St. Louis, EDITOR AND HISTORIOGRAPHER.
The Right Reverend ALEXANDER GREGG, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of Texas, The Right Reverend RICHARD HOOKER WILMER, D.D., Bishop of Alabama, The Right Reverend CHARLES TODD QUINTARD, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of Tennessee,
Consulting Editors.
St. Louis, Mo., Jan 7 1884
My dear Doctor,
I received your bundle of documents some of which have been useful in connection with the University topic. Others will come in later, and many will be invaluable for the Documentary History of which I enclose prospectus. I shall endeavor to make the best possible use of all that are available.
I have now the satisfaction to write that the University chapters are done. I send them to you by Express today. You will remember that when I saw you in New York, I thought that
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all I was to do was to write as fully as I could my personal recollections of your Father's views and plans touching the University. Having hardly any material at hand, there was nothing but my own recollections to draw from; and so I wrote some twenty pages or so in that way.
Then, most unexpectedly came the files of University Documents from Sewanee. I confess I read them with some considerable fear that they might prove to be inconsistent with what I had written. On the contrary, however, I found that, as far as they go, they confirm my recollections in all respects.
I had next to consider how best to use these documents. If I had been aiming at literary repetitions, I should have taken the easier plan of condensing their contents in as picturesque a narrative
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as i could make out of them. But the object of your work is to show your Father not to exhibit literacy style; and I felt and feel that your Father's personal self could be best presented by giving his letters, the documents in which he had a hand, on the contents of which he inspired, and the plain unvarnished record of what he did, and how he did it. This to some might seem to be the easier thing to do, but it is not so to me. At any rate, for the reason given above, I chose it as the best for your purpose. I do not know whether it will suit you, but I trust it may, for I do not think I can do it any better. It has grown to much larger proportions than either of us expected; for my twenty pages of recollections have now been followed by a hundred and twenty pages of authenticated facts. It seems to me, however, that this is the reverse of a misfortune
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I should certainly be sorry if the story of your Father's life were to be so meager in its earlier part as to make him appear to the future historian as more of a soldiier than a Bishop.
As I wrote to you recently, I shall at once set about a chapter on the ecclesiastical events connected with Secession. That will not take long. The chapter on the taking up of arms etc. will be more difficult and will take more time.
I shall await your opinion of what I have done with some anxiety, and I continue to be anxious about the first part of the work.
I am my dear doctor,
Yours very Truly, John Fulton
Dr. W.M. Polk
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