Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/581

 Booh Notices. 575

Anything that came from so prominent an actor in such great events would have possessed interest, and there is no doubt that the tragic circum- stances under which the book was written — the financial ruin, protracted illness, and slow death of General Grant — have added greatly to the desire of the public to read it.

It must be said also that the book itself possesses many elements of inte- rest. Written in a pleasing, narrative style, and, in the main, in a very kindly tone, it contains many anecdotes, reminiscences, and expressions of personal opinion about men and things which give a decided interest to the narrative, and give the book a certain historic value.

But it is (as was to have been expected from the circumstances under which it was written) a book full of blunders and flat contradictions of the official reports (both Federal and Confederate), and the future historian who attempts to follow it will be led very far astray from the real truth.

E. g.: In the account given of the campaign from the Wilderness to Peters- burg, the impression sought to be made by the narrative is that Grant en- countered Lee with about equal forces, and steadily drove him back until he took refuge behind impregnable entrenchments in front of Richmond — that Grant was always eager to push the offensive and that Lee persistently refused to fight except behind heavy entrenchments — that Lee's losses were nearly, if not fully as heavy as Grant's, and that Grant's campaign was a splendid success which raised to the highest pitch the morale of the Army of the Potomac, while it depressed and demoralized the Army of Northern Virginia to such an extent that it steadily melted away until the end came.

Now any one who will read Grant's narrative of this campaign in connec- tion with the official reports — or will compare it with the accounts of Early, Venable, Walter H. Taylor, Swinton, or Humphreys, will see at once that it is all stuff — the veriest romance that was ever attempted to be palmed off as history. The real truth about that campaign is given by Colonel Venable in his address before the Army Northern Vir- ginia Association, which we publish in this volume, and is in brief simply this: As soon as Grant with his immense host, crossed the Rapidan, Lee moved out and attacked him — Lee made no move in the campaign which was not to meet the enemy— there was never a day when he did not long for and earnestly seek after "an open field and a fair fight" — Grant did more entrenching on that campaign than Lee, and his entrenchments were (because of greatly superior facilities) much stronger — and yet, despite of the immense odds in numbers and resources against which he fought, Lee out- generalled Grant at every point, whipped him in every battle, and finally forced him, after losing more men than Lee had, to sit down to the siege of Petersburg, which position he might have taken at the beginning without firing a shot or losing a man.

We have not space at present for a further review of this remarkable book, but we propose at some suitable time to review it fully — under some such title as " Grant's Memoirs vs. the Official Reports " — and to demonstrate how utterly unreliable and untrustworthy it is alike in its statement of events, and its expression of opinions whether about military or civil matters. .