Kirkwood                               

Aug 21, 1911

 

Mr. Luther W. Hopkins

                        Baltimore, Md.

 

Dear Sir & Comrade of '61,

                        Accept my grateful thanks for a copy of your charming book. I have read it with thrilling interest. Last night at our Camp Meeting U.C.V. (Atlanta Camp 159) I called attention to it and furnished your address to several comrades who expressed a desire to have a copy. I think it likely I could dispose of a number of copies in Atlanta and at our State Reunion in Rome next month.

 

Have you an agent in Ga. It may be I would like to handle it for you. / So kindly let me your terms to Agts.

 

            You ask for a criticism. I will be frank with you. I object to that part of your "truth in a nutshell" on page 179-80, so far as the North is concerned. I hold we made no attempt to destroy the Union, meaning the U.S. Gov, therefore North could not have fought "to prevent the destruction of the Union"

 

            I know that was Lincoln's war cry; but the purpose was to prevent the Southern States from forming a union of their own—to coerce us & force us to return.

 

Somewhere in the front pages you use the term restive, when you mean restless, nervous. These criticisms are those of a sincere well wisher and of course / for your eye only.

 

The book is one of the most readable and fascinating that has ever come into my hands. It contains not only interesting personal incidents that are very entertaining but sufficient historical data to make it valuable from the standpoint of history. I hope it will have wide circulation.

 

            Again thanking you for your kind consideration and courtesy, I am

 

                        Your friend & Comrade of '61

                                                B. M. Zettler /

 

I sincerely appreciate the compliment of friend Saussy in giving you my name He thinks I appreciate a good thing in history when I see it

 

 

[margin note]

 

Consult this letter if a [?] is needed

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