[
2]
II.
none of our public men have a story so strange as this.
It is stranger than
Lincoln's. It is very much the strangest of them all. We have been too near the man and his time to see them clear through personal, political, and military feelings, mostly violent.
All the people are not dead yet. Nearly all the writers have a case to argue.
Sheridan must justify his treatment of
Warren.
Sherman must bolster up
Shiloh.
Beauregard must diminish Sidney Johnston.
Badeau must belittle
Meade, and also the losses in the
Wilderness.
These are mere instances.
The heroes and their biographers all write alike, inevitably moved and biassed by the throb of proximity.
Such books are not history.
They make inspiring material, when read in each other's light.
They are personal reminiscences.
History never begins until reminiscence is ended.