ferent impressions
of the battle in which both participated. Two equally truthful accounts
might vary greatly in their details. What one saw, another might not
see, and each could judge correctly only of what he, himself, witnessed.
This fact accounts, in part, for the many contradictions, which are not
contradictions, in the "annals of the war." The witnesses did not occupy
the same standpoint. They were looking at different parts of the same
panorama. Oftentimes they are like the two knights who slew each other
in a quarrel about the color of a shield. One said it was red, the other
declared it was green. Both were right, for it was red on one side and
green on the other.

On such flimsy pretexts do men and nations wage war. Why then wonder if
historians differ also? In the "Wilderness," each man's view was bounded
by a very narrow horizon and few knew what was going on outside their
range of vision. What was true of the "Wilderness" was true of nearly
every battle fought between the union and confederate forces. No picture
of a battle, whether it be painted in words or in colors, can bring into
the perspective more than a glimpse of the actual field. No man could
possibly have been stationed where he could see it all. Hence it came to
pass that many a private soldier knew things which the corps commander
did not know; and saw things which others did not see. The official
reports, for the most part, furnish but a bare outline and are often
misleading. The details may be put in by an infinite number of hands,
and those features that seen separately appear incongruous, when blended
will form a perfect picture. But it must be seen, like a panorama, in
parts, for no single eye could take in, at once, all the details in a
picture of a battle.

In the winter of 1855-56, while engaged as assistant factotum in a
general lumbering and mercantile business in the pine woods of Northern
Michigan, one of my functions was that of assistant postmaster, which
led to getting up a "club" for the New York Weekly Tribune, the premium
for which was an extra copy for myself. The result was that in due time
my mind was imbued with the principles of Horace Greeley.

The boys who read the Tribune in the fifties were being unconsciously
molded into the men, who, a few years later, rushed to the rescue of
their country's flag. The seed sown by Horace Greeley, and others like
him, brought forth a rich crop of loyalty, of devotion and
self-sac