r, is as bad as village gossip, and
in a fine volume of the "History of the Twenty-first Massachusetts
Regiment," I find it stated that the Kanawha division coming fresh
from the West was disposed to plunder and pillage, giving an
exaggerated version of the foregoing story as evidence of it. This
makes it a duty to tell what was the small foundation for the
charge, and to say that I believe no regiments in the army were less
obnoxious to any just accusation of such a sort. The gossip would
never have survived the war at all but for the fact that Colonel
Hayes became President of the United States, and the supposed
incident of his army life thus acquired a new interest. [Footnote:
This incident gives me the opportunity to say that after reading a
good many regimental histories, I am struck with the fact that with
the really invaluable material they contain when giving the actual
experiences of the regiments themselves, they also embody a great
deal of mere gossip. As a rule, their value is confined to what
strictly belongs to the regiment; and the criticisms, whether of
other organizations or of commanders, are likely to be the
expression of the local and temporary prejudices and misconceptions
which are notoriously current in time of war. They need to be read
with due allowance for this. The volume referred to is a favorable
example of its class, but its references to the Kanawha division
(which was in the Ninth Corps only a month) illustrate the tendency
I have mentioned. It should be borne in mind that the Kanawha men
had the position of advance-guard, and I believe did not camp in the
neighborhood of the other divisions in a single instance from the
time we left Leesboro till the battle of South Mountain. What is
said of them, therefore, is not from observation. The incident
between Reno and Hayes occurred in the camp of the latter, and could
not possibly be known to the author of the regimental history but by
hearsay. Yet he affirms as a fact that the Kanawha division
"plundered the country unmercifully," for which Reno "took
Lieutenant-Colonel Hayes severely though justly to task." He also
asserts that the division set a "very bad example" in straggling. As
to this, the truth is as I have circumstantially stated it above. He
has still further indulged in a "slant" at the "Ohioans" in a story
of dead Confederates being put in a well at South Mountain,--a story
as apocryphal as the others. Wise's house and well were