From Henry to Corinth
Product Description
I HAVE endeavored to prepare the following narrative from
authentic material, contemporaneous, or nearly contemporaneous,
with the events described.
The main source of information is the official reports of
battles and operations. These reports, both National and
Confederate, will appear in the series of volumes of Military
Reports now in preparation under the supervision of Colonel
Scott, Chief of the War Records Office in the War
Department. Executive Document No. 66, printed by resolution
of the Senate at the Second Session of the Thirtyseventh
Congress, contains a number of separate reports of
casualties, lists of killed, wounded, and missing, which do
not appear in the volumes of Military Reports as now printed.
Several battle reports are printed in volume IV., and in the
“Companion,” or Appendix volume of Moore’s Rebellion
Record, which are not contained in the volumes of Military
Reports as now printed. The reports of the Twentieth Ohio
and the Fifty-third Ohio, of the battle of Shiloh, have never
been printed. Colonel Trabue’s report of his brigade in the
battle of Shiloh has never been officially printed; but it is given in the history of the Kentucky Brigade from Colonel
Trabue’s retained copy, found by his widow among his
papers.
The Reports of the Committee on the Conduct of the War
contain original matter in addition to what appears in reports
of battles and operations.
The reports of the Adjutant-Generals of the different
States, printed during the war, often supplement the official
reports on file in Washington.
Some regimental histories, printed soon after the close of
the war, contain diaries and letters and narrate incidents
which enable us in some cases to fix dates, the place of
camps, and positions in battle, which could hardly otherwise
be determined with precision. Newspaper correspondents,
while narrating what they personally saw, give descriptions
which impart animation to the sedate statements of official
reports.
Colonel William Preston Johnston’s life of his father,
General A. S. Johnston, can be used in some respects as authority.
He served first in the Army of Northern Virginia,
and was, most of the war, on the staff of Jefferson
Davis. He thus, after his father’s death, became possessed
of a valuable collection of authentic official papers. When
he was preparing the biography, all papers of value in private hands in the South were open to his use.
Letters and memoranda preserved by Colonel Charles
Whittlesey, and some of my own, have been of service.
I am under obligation to Colonel Scott for permission to
freely read and copy, in his office, the reports compiled under his direction. To Ex-President Hayes for the loan of a set of the series of Military Reports, both National and Confederate, so far as printed, though not yet issued. To the Historical
and Philosophical Society of Ohio for the unrestricted
use of its library. To Colonel Charles Whittlesey of
Cleveland, and Major E. C. Dawes, of Cincinnati, for the use of original manuscripts as well as printed reports.
M. F. FORCE.
