The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1881-04-13
"AGArs,s" ANSWER.

Whitelaw Reid An-wers the Charges OF
General sherman. and seems TO Have the
Best of It.
NEW YORK, April THE Tribune says: Yes
terday's dispatches represented General sherman
saying at the Army OF the Tennessee meeting,
In Cincinnati I'm the course OF an effort 10 correct
popular judgment about Pittsburg Landing that
Mr.. whitelaw Reid's account of the battle was ut
terly untrustworthy, having been written at
Cairo and not on the field at all II seems lncred-
ibe that this report can be Just 20 General sher-
man. for he knew better. For more than once OF
late years, In friendly conversation, General sher-
man has himself appealed TO Mr.. Reid as an
lection TO particular points. Mr.. Reid
went up the tennessee River with
Generals Rawlins and Hillyer, OF General Grants
burg Landing aud Crump's Landing long before
the battle, and was more than once a guest IN
Lieutenant Colonel Kyie's Regiment OF General
he was seriously confined TO his bed at General
Lew Wallace's headquarters, at crump Landing.
There General Grant came In the evening aud
emy, of which he was not sure, It would probably
be made on the Crump Landing front The next
moring Mt. Reid was awakened by the firing az
from his sick bed, he made the
best of his way thither, arriving later
than he wished, but still, as early as the
throughout the disastrous day. He slept on the
bluff, under Beauregard's shells, throughout the
night. He witnessed the successful advance the
next day and that night slept with Colonel Kuef
Ter and others of General Lew Walace's staff, IN
one OF the tents, 20 the right OF Shiloh Church,
from which General Sherman's men had teen
driven the morning OF the day before He wrote
his account of the battle partly the field partly
In the Hospital on the boat going down the river
and partly in the cars between Cairo and Cincin-
natl. These are facts all perfectly known TO
scores of eyewitness. and of some of them II
Ii impossible that General Sherman should be
ignorant We prefer, therefore, 10 believe that
the dispatches have grossly misrepresented the
Generals remarks at Cincinnati IL not he
spoke hastily and without thought, and we shall
confidently expect from him that prompt and
public correction which a gentleman and soldier
owes
The general question as TO whether the Army
OF the Tennessee was surprised at the beginning
OF this battle Is eighteen years old. Naturally,
that army t.ikes one view of it, and the army
which the next day came 10 its rescue takes
another. Mr. Reid, as an eyewitness, had the
opinion generally held by the Army OF the
Cumberland He has never made any boast
about his story of the battle, which, IL is now
complained, has become the accepted account,
and he has no doubt that IL must contain many
errors He has not even seen IL for twelve years,
but he knows IL was an honest effort made at the
moment. 20 tell what one man could see OF the
battle, or learn In the twenty-four hours follow
ing IT. and I'm view of the temper with which IL Is
| assaied by small clique, he may be pardoned
for suspecting that on the points In dispute. the
trouble with Il Is thai 1t contains not too little
but too much truth.