The Life of John Kalb - Major-General in the Revolutionary Army #226528

All these gentlemen are requested to accept my heartfelt thanks for the friendship thus extended. In the office of the Secretary of State at Washington I had no difficulty in obtaining the consent of General Cass to my taking copies of letters and documents relating to the subject of this memoir. Under the administration of Mr. Seward, several excerpts from a volume containing the De Kalb and the Du Coudray papers were withheld from me on the ground that they were deemed not relevant to my subject. A written demonstration to the contrary, which I furnished, received no attention. On the whole, no change has taken place in the narrow-minded jealousy with which the revolutionary documents are guarded in Washington, any more than in the neglected early education of the gentle men who guard them. The unsophisticated views of these worthy functionaries on matters of historical interest are without a parallel in the present century. The following correspondence took place between the State Department and myself in relation to this subject.