On another point, "Copyrighted"? Something 150 years old is copyrighted? Even with all the relatively recent changes that make copyrights last 80 years, the copyrights are expired.
I'm not sure what angle they can claim to assert that they own any sort of legitimate copyright. But if you signed an agreement, as a man of honor, you will have to abide by it, even if it's silly.
The issue is not that the words are copyrighted. They aren’t, hence I posted words from the article on FreeRepublic. The issue is that the image of the paper is copyrighted, and it was the image that I was being asked to produce. Some company went to the trouble of taking photos of the paper and compiling them in a computer accessible file. The University of Texas, which owns the microfilm, made the copy for me. I don’t own the microfilm.
The University of Texas also owns a collection of original old newspapers, and they do not allow photos taken of their old newspapers to be published without their permission.
My son once found on microfilm an old newspaper that listed the Confederate unit my great-great grandfather had served in along with the units of about thirty other men. I sought and received permission from the people who made the microfilm so that I could post the Confederate units of all of the men listed in the paper. I then posted the names and units on a genealogical web site to help others identify the units their ancestors served in.