John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[246] the war with great usefulness and distinction, though it so happened that Dana met him but seldom either in the Vicksburg or Richmond campaign, and had no opportunity to become intimate with him. The simple fact that all complaint in reference to the Thirteenth corps ceased after it passed under Ord's control is conclusive evidence that the change which Dana had urged so persistently was necessary, and that the new commander was a judicious and fortunate selection.

Dana's two remarkable letters from Cairo to Stanton have been published in full in his Recollections, and hence they are omitted from this narrative. They constitute a series of contemporaneous sketches of unusual interest and accuracy, and so far as I can learn they are the only ones of the kind ever sent to the Secretary of War. That the secretary regarded them as private and confidential is shown by the fact that they were not placed on the files of the War Department, but were finally returned to the writer, where they remained till they were placed in my possession. They are in Dana's well-known hand, and are singularly free from erasures or changes. Having known personally and officially every officer mentioned, I confidently assert that in no case did Dana do injustice or give a false or exaggerated impression. What he says about Grant, Sherman, McPherson, Hovey, Osterhaus, A. J. Smith, William Sooy Smith, John E. Smith, Giles A. Smith, Logan, Lawler, Blair, Steele, Woods, C. C. Washburn, Stevenson, Leggett, McArthur, Crocker, Ransom, and Quimby is a model of perspicuity as well as of fair and judicious portraiture. In every instance, except where death overtook the officer, as in the cases of McPherson, Crocker, and Ransom, Dana's prediction of future usefulness and distinction was fully realized. It is remarkable that in no single instance was he mistaken, and still more remarkable that in no single instance where doubt was cast upon the officer's character