Before the war, Charleston was one of the most interesting cities of the country. It was a small aristocratic community, with an air of refinement and distinction. The story of Athens proclaims that a large population is not necessary to exercise a powerful influence on the world; and, after the election of Lincoln in 1860, the 40,000 people of Charleston, or rather the few patricians who controlled its fate and that of South Carolina, attracted the attention of the whole country. The story of the secession movement of November and December, 1860, cannot be told with correctness and life without frequent references to the _Charleston Mercury_ and the _Charleston Courier_. The _Mercury_ especially was an index of opinion, and so vivid is its daily chronicle of events that the historian is able to put himself in the place of those ardent South Carolinians and understand their point of view. For the history of the Civil War, newspapers are not so important. The other material is superabundant, and in choosing from the mass of it, the newspapers, so-far as affairs at the North are concerned, need only be used in special cases, and rarely for matters of fact. The accounts of campaigns and battles, which filled so much of their space, may be ignored, as the best possible authorities for these are the one hundred and twenty-eight volumes of the United States government publication, the "Official Records of the Union and Confederate armies." The faithful study of the correspondence and the reports in these unique volumes is absolutely essential to a comprehension of the war; and it is a labor of love. When one thinks of the mass of manuscripts students of certain periods of European history have been obliged to read, the American historian is profoundly grateful to his government, that at a cost to itself of nearly three million dollars,[45] it has furnished him this priceless material in neatly printed volumes with excellent indexes. The serious student can generally procure these volumes gratis through the favor of his congressman; or, failing in this, may purchase the set at a moderate price, so that he is not obliged to go to a public library to consult them.