William Boynton, Sherman's Historical Raid

[9] thrusts his pen recklessly through reputations which are as dear to the country as his own. He detracts from what right fully belongs to Grant; misrepresents and belittles Thomas; withholds justice from Buell, repeatedly loads failures for which he was responsible, now upon Thomas, now upon Schofield, now upon McPherson, and again upon the three jointly; is unjust in the extreme to Rosecrans; sneers at Logan and Blair; insults Hooker, and slanders Stanton.

The salient points of the long story are readily found by those who either followed, or made themselves familiar by study with his campaigns. The reader turns naturally for explanations of the surprise and attending disgrace at Shiloh; the ill-judged and fatal assault at Chickasaw Bayou; the protest against the move by which Vicksburg was captured; his failure to carry the point assigned him at the battle of Chattanooga; the escape of Johnston from Dalton and Resaca; the terrible mistake of the assault on Kenesaw; the plunging of his army, marching by the flank, into Hood's line of battle under the supposition that Atlanta was evacuated; the escape of the rebel army from Savannah; the careless and inexcusable periling and narrow escape of his own army at Bentonville; and lastly, the political surrender to Johnston at Raleigh: these are points upon which every reader desires light. But instead of gaining it, he finds that for most, the chief aim of the author seems to be to make the darkness more impenetrable.

The succeeding chapters will treat, in their order, of the prominent movements and battles which General Sherman passes in review in his Memoirs, and in each of these the version of his book will be compared with the facts as disclosed by the records now on file in the War Department.