A COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE GREAT REBELLION; OR, THE CIVIL WAR IN THE UNITED STATES, 1861-1865. COMPRISING A FULL AND IMPARTIAL ACCOUNT OF THE #EITARY AND NAVAL OPERATIONS, WITH VIVID AND ACCURATE DESCRIPTIONS OF Biographical Sketches of the principal Actors in the Great Drama. BY DR. JAMES MOORE, LATE SURGEON U. 8. ARMY, AUTHOR OF "KILPATRICK AND OUR CAVALRY,' "HISTORY 99 WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY DR. R. SHELTON MACKENZIE. PHILADELPHIA: W. S. BURLOCK & COMPANY. 1880. the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. INTRODUCTION. THE great war over-Freedom's battle begun and ended -the public mind has a strong desire for a clear and reliable narrative of the varying events which occupied four years of our national existence, and finally achieved a great end. At the cost of much blood and treasure, of all evils that can afflict a nation, none is greater than that of civil war, if not only for the sorrows it causes and the heartstrings it breaks, but for the heavy legacy of crushed feeling which it bequeaths, and the material penalty of heavy taxation which it inevitably and invariably inflicts. It is easier to forgive than to forget, and a true history in which nothing is extenuated, nor any thing set down in malice, must go a great way in mitigating angry feelings, by dissipating prejudices or false impressions created or confirmed by the pen of exaggeration. Knowing the honest purpose of Doctor James Moore, and appreciating the ability, research, industry, and Christian feeling which he has brought to the composition of the following pages, I can have no hesitation in complying with his publisher's request, to introduce him in a few lines, confident that his own merits of impartiality and ability will speedily be recog nized by his readers. He is no mere civilian, writing of what he merely saw in the far distance, and forming a book out of military despatches and newspaper correspondence, but he has himself served in the war, in his professional capacity, and has had personal experience of what he here describes. The materials for a history of the late war are so numerous that he who has to use them must feel himself almost overwhelmed by their bulk. The despatches of military and naval commanders must form the natural as well as the surest foundation for such a work, and not a single instance can be shown in which any officer, reporting upon what had been done under his own command, has tortured facts to his own advantage, claimed unmerited credit for his men, or exaggerated or underrated the valor or the strategy of the enemy. Such materials, however impartial, are not sufficient -the historian has to compare them with accounts of the same events written by opposite commanders, and has further to examine the immense mass of information conveyed in the communications from the numerous and intelligent corps of able writers and impartial observers, commonly known as war correspondents. The value of this latter information can scarcely be too highly estimated. The war correspondence of American journalism, throughout the dreadful four years of national affliction, was often diffuse and desultory, being almost invariably written in extremest haste and under very frequent circumstances of discomfort and difficulty, but it was earnest, graphic, and full of interest, relating many incidents of action, and portraying numerous traits of character, observed and noted on the instant, which would otherwise never have been made public. The competition between the writers. ensured a great degree of accuracy, for one account might be said to test the truthfulness of another. The deep loyalty and personal gallantry of the war correspondents was sur passed only by their ability and alacrity. As a class, they may be said to have been created by the Mexican war of 1845-47: they matured in the war of the Crimea, in 1853-55; but their efficiency was most powerfully evidenced in our own civil war of 1860-65. |