had when election day came.
For fact and for opinion, if you knew the contributors, statements and
editorials by them were entitled to as much weight as similar public
expressions in any other form. You get to know Greeley and you learn to
recognize his style. Now, an editorial from him is proper historical
material, taking into account always the circumstances under which he
wrote. The same may be said of Dana and of Hildreth, both editorial
writers for the _Tribune_, and of the Washington despatches of J. S.
Pike. It is interesting to compare the public letters of Greeley to the
_Tribune_ from Washington in 1856 with his private letters written at
the same time to Dana. There are no misstatements in the public letters,
but there is a suppression of the truth. The explanations in the private
correspondence are clearer, and you need them to know fully how affairs
looked in Washington to Greeley at the time; but this fact by no means
detracts from the value of the public letters as historical material. I
have found newspapers of greater value both for fact and opinion during
the decade of 1850 to 1860 than for the period of the Civil War. A
comparison of the newspaper accounts of battles with the history of them
which may be drawn from the correspondence and reports in the Official
Records of the War of the Rebellion will show how inaccurate and
misleading was the war correspondence of the daily journals. It could
not well be otherwise. The correspondent was obliged in haste to write
the story of a battle of which he saw but a small section, and instead
of telling the little part which he knew actually, he had to give to a
public greedy for news a complete survey of the whole battlefield. This
story was too often colored by his liking or aversion for the generals
in command. A study of the confidential historical material of the Civil
War, apart from the military operations, in comparison with the
journalistic accounts, gives one a higher idea of the accuracy and
shrewdness of the newspaper correspondents. Few important things were
brewing at Washington of which they did not get an inkling. But I always
like to think of two signal exceptions. Nothing ever leaked out in
regard to the famous "Thoughts for the President's consideration," which
Seward submitted to Lincoln in March, 1861, and only very incorrect
guesses of the President's first emancipation proclamation, brought
before his Cabinet in July, 1862, got into newsp