Chapter 20:
- Conclusion -- the case against the Memoirs summed up.
In closing this review, based throughout upon facts disclosed by the official files, the case against the author of the Memoirs may be summed up as follows: Ten years after the close of the war, when the open, and all the secret official records, collected and arranged for ready reference, were at his service, he has published to the world a story of his campaigns, crowded with inaccuracies, and stained with injustice done associate commanders and cooperating armies. The kindly years which, for most who followed the flag, have effaced whatever jealousies and misunderstandings arose in the field, leaving prominent in memory only the central and enduring fact of common service in a worthy cause, seem to have exerted no such influence upon him, but rather acted as mordants to fix all unpleasant things indelibly upon his pages. By following the statements of his book, and comparing them with the records of the same events, made at the time of their occurrence, and often by his own hand, many grave differences have been established. Where the Memoirs give the credit of the move on Forts Henry and Donelson to Halleck, the records show that it belongs to Grant. Where General Sherman argues against the idea of a surprise at Shiloh, the records prove it to have been complete, and due mainly to his own blindness and neglect. Where he seeks to detract from the service rendered there by Buell and his army, the records set that service in
