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Bibliographical note
Relative to the principal works consulted by the author.
Without pretending to give a complete list of the sources from which the author has derived his information in writing the first volume of this history, it is proper to mention the principal publications by which he has been guided in the composition of his work.
We will quote, in the first place, ‘The Rebellion Record,’ a vast collection of reports, narratives, correspondence, newspaper extracts, prepared at intervals during the war; it requires a certain degree of familiarity with the subject to find out precisely what you are in search of, but it abounds in valuable information.
The official documents of both parties are almost invariably distinguished for their general correctness, although frequently too pompous in their style; it would not be safe, however, to rely upon the statements they contain of certain conditions of affairs, except when they bear a confidential character.
Unfortunately, these documents are far from being complete.
The Navy Department of the
Union has published the reports of all its
officers in extenso; the War Department has only given abstracts of the reports of the
Secretary and the
commander-in-chief, and only the full reports of the
quartermaster-general, which, in a statistical point of view, afford some curious information.
A large number of the reports of both parties are to be found in the ‘Rebellion Record;’ there were published besides, in
Richmond, in 1864, two volumes of the reports of
General Lee and his subordinates, and a few official Confederate documents were reprinted in New York in 1865.
Among the numerous documents contained in the
Richmond archives, subsequently taken to
Washington after the war, there are several of which the author possesses copies, for which he is indebted to the kindness of
General Grant.
All the depositions received by the ‘Joint Committee on the Conduct of the
War’ have been collected into seven volumes which, among interminable repetitions, present some interesting views and much information not to be found elsewhere.
As to the principal works which the author has consulted besides these different collections, he will simply mention their titles, beginning with four publications from which he has borrowed more than from
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any other; the first commends itself to our special consideration on account of the conscientious impartiality with which it was written; the others, by the judicious care with which their respective authors made use of the published and unpublished documents they had on hand.
These are, ‘The Illustrated History of the
War,’ by
Mr. Lossing; ‘The American Civil War,’ three volumes; ‘Life of
General Grant,’ by his former aid-de-camp,
General Badeau, of which only the first volume has appeared; the two books of
Mr. Swinton, entitled, respectively, ‘History of the Army of the Potomac,’ one volume, and ‘The Twelve Decisive Battles of the
War,’ one volume.
To continue the list of works written from a Union point of view, we will mention, without attempting to classify them, ‘History of the
Rebellion,’ by
Appleton, one volume; ‘Life of
General Grant,’ by
Coppee, one volume; ‘Life of
General Sherman,’ by
Bowman and
Irwin, one volume; ‘Thirteen Months in the
Rebel Army,’ by
Stevenson, one volume; ‘The Volunteer Quartermaster,’ one volume; ‘History of the United States Cavalry,’ by
Brackett, one volume; a large number of technical papers in the ‘American Cyclopaedia,’ a work in four volumes; ‘Political History of the
Rebellion,’ by
McPherson, one volume; ‘Life of
Abraham Lincoln,’ by
Raymond, one volume; ‘The American Conflict,’ by
Horace Greeley, two volumes.
Among the
Confederate publications to which we are indebted, we must mention, above all, the works of
Mr. E. Pollard: ‘The First, Second, and Third Year of the
War,’ three volumes, ‘The Lost Cause,’ one volume, and ‘
Lee and his
Lieutenants,’ one volume; the works of
Mr. Esten Cooke: ‘Life of
General Lee,’ one volume, ‘Life of
Stonewall Jackson,’ one volume, and ‘Wearing of the Grey,’ one volume; and, finally, ‘The Southern
Generals,’ anonymous, one volume.
The number of works published by Europeans possessing real interest is very limited; it will be enough to mention the remarkable work of
M. Vigo Roussillion on ‘The Military Power of the
United States,’ and the writings of three officers with whom the author had the good fortune to serve in the campaign against
Richmond in 1862: ‘History of the
War of Secession,’ by the
Swiss Federal colonel F. Lecomte, two volumes; ‘History of the
War of Secession,’ by
Lieutenant-colonel Fletcher of the
British Guards, three volumes; and ‘Four Years in the Army of the Potomac,’ by
General Regis de Trobriand, two volumes,
Paris, 1867.
This last work, French in language, in spirit, and in the place of its publication, possesses at the
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same time, in an historical point of view, all the value of a narrative written by one of the eye-witnesses and actors in the great American drama.
We shall conclude this note with a final reference, which will convey to the reader an idea of the multitude of documents of varied importance and value that have been published on the subject of which we are treating; this is a large quarto volume entitled ‘
Bartlett's Literature of the
Rebellion,’ which appeared in 1866, and is simply a catalogue of all the works relating to the civil war; it contains more than six thousand numbers, and during the last six years the quantity of these works has probably doubled.
In the succeeding pages of our history we shall indicate whatever sources worthy of mention we may have occasion to consult in any subsequent portion of the narrative.
end of volume I.
