Adam Badeau, Grant in peace: from Appomattox to Mount McGregor, a personal memoir

[333] knowledge, and that therefore my own experiences and such relations as I may have borne to the events I describe may seem unduly prominent. But in no other way can I tell what I witnessed or prove the trustworthiness of my reports. I give nothing at second-hand except upon such authority as cannot be gainsaid—the authority always of other witnesses. Only in this way can I offer the material for history which I venture to believe this volume will become.

And if at times I seem to disclose secrets which show that men are human, even men whom the country has wished to deify, I believe that in the end, when the greatest are seen to be made of flesh and blood, their countrymen will feel a keener and profounder sympathy with the real beings I describe than with any fanciful creations fit only for the stories of mythology. The very faults of great men ally them to us, and Grant himself wrote to me at this very time: ‘You give true history in regard to them and furnish the proof as you go along. While I would not wish to detract from any one, I think history should record the truth.’ I believe if he knows what I write now he approves my course.