Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 1.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

This book is gotten up in beautiful style; illustrated with maps, plans of fortifications, &c., and gives a very interesting description of the origin, progress, and detailed history of the defences of Washington.

There are, of course, some things in it which any intelligent Confederate will detect as mistakes, but it is evidently the work of an able soldier, and is a very valuable contribution to the history of those great campaigns which threatened the capture of Washington. General Barnard falls into the common error of all Federal writers in greatly overestimating the numbers of the several Confederate armies to which he has occasion to allude; but we have come to regard that as almost a necessity with both civilians and soldiers on that side.

This book completely refutes the popular idea of the defenceless condition of Washington at the time of General Early's advance on it in 1864, and shows that he acted with proper prudence in not making a more serious attack upon very formidable works which were defended by a force much larger than his own little army.