Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1901-08-10
ERRORS IN WAR HISTORIES,
Fr0nent Educator Says school
children Are BeIag Taught
Things That Are False

Gen. II. V. Boynton, president of
the school board of the District of
Columbia, and notably weli-informed
IN the history of the civil war, offered
resolution in the beard not long
ago. which was unanimously adopted,
suspending four histories from use
In the public schools of the district
until certain inaccuracies found in
them are corrected. These mistakes
due TO carelessness or misapprehen-
sion, gre set forth by Gen. Boynton
IN pamphlet OF seven pages con-
tanning series of terse paragraphs.
The number and seriousness of the
errors are surprising, says the st.
Louis Globe-Democrat, and suggests
that general overhauling of his
tories relating to the civil war would
De timely. From this detailed show
ing 1T would seem that the authors
OF such books make a hastv synonsis
OF campaigns from course of desul-
tory reading without going TO the Of
nciai records for verification. The
Official reports of the war have been
published at great expense by the
government, but as they form a large
library in themselves the school his
torians evidently have not mastered
their contents.
In the course of his specifications
Gen. Boynton points out that McClel-
Ian was not relieved during Ponies
campaign; that Hooker did not and
could not carry the vertical walls of
the crest of Lookout mountain: that
Sherman was $50 miles, not 200 miles.
from Rosecrans when the battle of
Chickamauga was fought; that Grant
did not order any charge on Mission
airy Ridge; that Bragg did not resign
after the battle: that most of the
union army at Chickamauga did not
flee in confusion to Chattanooga, for
the number driven back was less than
5000 in $4,000; that instead of all DO
sitions being marked at Gettysburg,
only one confederate organization in
25S has placed n monument there,
and that one division, not Sherman's
whole army, stormed Fort McAllister.
Though the official figures of losses
in the battles of the civil war are OF
file, these histories are often thou
sands out of the way. Some impor
tant campaigns are not even men
TONED. One book dismisses the battl
of Franklin, Tenn, in a line or two.
though the confederate loss there
was $3.50, including 10 generals killed,
wounded and captured.
The authors of the foregoing school
histories are Barnes, Montgomery,
Johnston and McMaster. Gen. Boyn-
ton submitted to his board a special
paper on Fiske's history, and that is
now under examination. Mr.. Fiske
states that only the left wing under
Thomas remained to contest the bat
tie of Chickamauga. Gen. Boynton
says that no less than seven divisions
belonging to the center and right re-
manned with Thomas to the end.
There are in the book errors amount
ing to $4,000 men in stating the losses
of both armies at Gettysburg. One
statement is that after Bragg's de-
feat in 1868 "the confederacy was
practically cut down TO the four
states of Georgia, the two Carolinas
and Virginia" But the union army
in 1864 was larger than ever before
and there was severe fighting in
every southern state, It seems clear
that a careful school history of the
civil war is yet TO be written.