The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1881-06-30
Sherman and JEFF Davis.

for the Union from the Southern stand
point, or look at Union armies and
their commanders through rebel specta-
cles, met with very little sympathy at
the meeting of the Society of the Army
of the Potomac. The speech OF General
Sherman was not only a rebuke to JEFF
Davis, but it was rebuke to all those
who, under the pretext of looking at
both sides of the war, are prone to
adopt the rebel version of the most i'm
portant and most dramatic chapters in
our war history.
Every man who is at all conversant
with the histories of the war published
in the last ten years knows that there
is in none of those taking proper rank as
histories any disposition to underrate
the work of the Confederate armies, or
to misrepresent either soldiers or com.
manders. In nearly all of the more
comprehensive works extracts are given
from the reports of both Union and
Confederate commanders, and maps
giving positions of troops and illustrat-
ing maneuvers are corrected by the
surveys made by officers on both sides.
A conscientious effort is made to de.
scribe the operations as they occurred,
that clear idea of the battles may be
conveyed. There is, as to main feat
ures, comparatively little disagreement
among those who have earned the
right to be known as the chroniclers
of the war, and the assumption that any
history written by q Union man is
necessarily unfair to the Confederates
is as unwarranted as the intimation
that the story can be impartially told
only by those who fought against the
Union.
As soon as access was obtained to the
| rebel records, these were freely used in
all accounts of the war, even where
they were manifestly colored in the in
terest of rebel armies. In describing
Sheridan's campaign in the Shenandoah
Valley, extracts from Early's reports
were used to show how particular
movements were regarded by the enc
my. In describing Thomas Nashville
campaign it has been the habit to give
Hood the benefit of his own declaration
of purposes and his own Interpretation
of his misfortunes. And so in every
great campaign of the war the case has
been made up tor the judgment of the
| public from the purely military stand
point. and with little disposition to
shield commanders or make light of the
shortcomings of troops.
IL 10 lGuC budb III bnO OLACldl IOPOl 70
of operations attempts have been made
| to make out cases to fit the exigencies
of occasions, as in the case of Hooker
at Charlottesville or Hood at Nash
| vile. but the historian has weighed
| these in comparison with other state
ments, and the accepted ideas of both
battles, as given in the popular histo-
ries, are fair to all parties. Even so
bitter partisan as Horace Greeley
! gave, in his 50 Conflict" story of the
war that few can object to, so far as
statement of facts is concerned. There
| is less difference of opinion among
! those who have studied the war records
| in a painstaking way than one would
imagine to read the animadversions OF
the reactionists of this day. 1t is not
going too far to say that the majority
of the people in the North have to-day
clearer idea of the great campaigns
than has JEFF Davis. This is because
they have been Interested in looking
on both sides and he has not. He has
not even weighed fairly the evidence
submitted by his own subordinates, and
has wilfully misrepresented those who
did more for the Confederate cause
than he did himself.
1t was fitting, then, that the General
| of the army should call attention to
mistakes personal to himself as well as
| which Davis book is written. 1t is not
often in Europe that the commander OF
one great army comes voluntarily to
the defense of the man who commanded
the army opposed to him. That Sher-
man does defend General Johnston
against JEFF Davis is worthy of note, as
an illustration of the spirit in which the
Union and Confederate soldiers have
studied the events of the war. And the
existence of this spirit is in itself re-
buke to that narrow, iconoclastic i'm
pulse which finds place among men who
care more for the qualification of their
personal revenges than for the reputa-
ton of soldiers.
Another rebuke is in the action of the
ex-Confederates at Chattanooga in
making arrangements to entertain the
Society of the Army of the Tennessee
at its meeting at that place. The battle
of Chicamauga was one of the greatest
mysteries of the war, as the battle of
Mission Ridge or Chattanooga was one
of the clearest engagements in outline
and detail. and yet there has been no
| great disagreement among soldiers as
to the character of either. The pedants
| who have fancied that battles were
| fought on a fifty-acre field, and who
take no account of directing mind
being pitted against directing mind,
as well as soldier against SOL
diers, can clear up the mystery of Chic
amauga and pick flaws even in the
| plans at Mission Ridge. The men who
| realize the difficulties under which bat
ties were fought, who have felt the de-
preston of defeat, or the elation of
victory, however, are willing to make
allowances and to revise their estimates.
But they are not willing that men like
| Davis shall put upon the events of the
war an Interpretation inspired by ha-
tired and colored by disappointed ambi-
ton.
No one will dispute that General
| Sherman is better qualified to speak of
events at Atlanta, Columbia, and other
| points than Davis or Hampton. There
| is no good reason, then, for insisting
that the people of the North are unfair
because they count the testimony of
| Sherman on disputed points better than
that of men who are not ranked as re-
| liable witnesses, even bv their own
| partisans. The people of this country,
differ as they may as to the merits OF
| our military men, are not interested in
breaking down the regulations of men
like Grant and Sherman, that reputa-
tions for men like JEFF Davis may be
built up. Sherman may have been
| mistaken a thousand times, but he is a
thousand times better Judge of the
closing events of the war than Davis
| Chicago Inter Ocean.
BC All the Democratic newspapers
of Virginia are forced to speak well of
the Anti-Bourbon candidate for Cover
nor. Colonel Cameron. The only thing