What amusing history makers the Companions of the Loyal Legion of
Massachusetts and the Comrades of the Wisconsin History Commission are.
The State of Wisconsin enacted a law creating a History Commission, and
straightway it begins printing very costly books, which they claim to be
"histories of great battles of the Civil War," one of which "histories"
the Governor of Wisconsin sententiously says: "Is what the author saw, OR
THOUGHT HE SAW"; and because of its inaccuracy the chairman of that
History Commission contemplated correcting by himself, "writing notes
giving the more accurate view," but instead engaged a staff officer, who
really saw what he thought he saw, to write a book correcting the
inaccuracies that Chairman and Comrade Estabrook himself contemplated
doing; and in the meantime the Secretary and Editor of the Commission
"intends reprinting other rare Wisconsin Civil War material," regardless
of the supremely ridiculous opinions or errors of facts of the authors,
thereby continuing to hold the State of Wisconsin responsible for the
ridicule and expense that attach to such so-called histories, one of which
a distinguished officer of the Civil War pithily characterizes as
"inaccurate, misleading, indecent, venomous, scandalous and vainglorious."
* * * * *
CAPT. EDWARD THOMPSON, 69th.
CAPT. JOHN D. ROGERS, 71st.
JOHN W. DAMPMAN, 71st.
THOS. H. EATON, 72d.
FRANK WEIBLE, 72d.
WM. H. NEILER, 106th.
JAMES THOMPSON, 106th.
Committee on Publication.
Transcriber's Notes:
The following misprints have been corrected:
"Haskell'" corrected to "Haskell's" (page 3)
"nitche" corrected to "niche" (page 26)
"criticims" corrected to "criticisms" (page 41)
Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and
hyphenation have been retained from the original.