This material is housed at the Lincoln Library in Springfield, Illinois as part of the Crandall Collection.

Transcription

Grand Forks, N. D.
December 8th 1899

W. D. Crandall
Dear Comrade and Friend,

I enclose you a copy of a war-yarn that I think is something of a curiosity and is deserving at least a mention in the Historian. I would like your opinion of it. Mine is that it’s a huge fake, the fellow is “talking thru his hat” and a “shocking bad hat” at that, else I must have been asleep all thru that raid, and blind and deaf ever since, to never have seen or heard of such a performance in any way or shape. I think we went out from Rodney a couple, possibly 3 times, but the one that I recall the most vividly was the occasion of the fight at Coleman’s crossroads, July 4th 1864 & I’m pretty sure there were no beautiful maidens mixed up in that affair. Possibly the cavalry performed many prodigious feats that we of the infantry never caught on to, but a performance of that stripe would certainly have kicked up a talk that would have resounded far and near inside of 40 years afterwards.

My brother sent it to me, having observed the “Marine” feature of it, and recalling my connection with that notorious organization, have written him thanking very cordially for the curio. It should go in entire in our collection if ’tis a canard.

Well, the printer did splendidly with my effusion this time, but a boggle is inevitable somewhere. and so, however unaccountable, it struck one of my initials. The type imp seems to have a particular grudge against me, and works off almost every time some soul-harrowing gibberish without the least relation to chirography wither good or bad; for instance only last week, I wrote up an account of our family reunion on Thanksgiving day for our local press. There were boarders present that I didn’t care to include, so I wrote “confining the enumeration strictly to kith and kin, &c.” The composition, seconded by the proof reader, rendered it to stories of “Kitt and Kim.” Great Ceasar! if that don’t prove the existence of a personal Devil—an avenging nemesis, where will you find it?

I was glad to know that Gov. War Hist. had been overhauled and how much wondered just how much the Gov. had got hold of our doings. Tis very little that general histories have so far as I can learn. Of course our head officers—now becoming so few—know what reports were made, and if full, don’t seem to have been made public. I do devoutly hope to see a copy of the book, ere I depart. I’ll give $10 into the fund for an early publication. If a hundred or two others were to do the same, the child might be borned. I hope the diaries are doing their part in giving off and shedding forth evidence and proof that we lived, suffered, and died for our country.

I have just resubscribed for the National Tribune. I took it several years ago. They were making such liberal offers in…[unrelated to subject]

[Attached typed paper entitled, “A Civil War Episode”—“The Raid Upon Port Gibson and What Caused it.” —taken from the Washington Times.]

Here is a copy of the newspaper article that appeared in multiple papers with the exact same content in 1899—at least 45 years after the event described. I could find no mention of the event in newspapers at the time of the event or in the intervening years.

Pierce’s comments on the article republished in the Battle Creek Michigan Daily newspaper on 19 November 1899 include, “I’d like to know who ‘General B.—-‘ is. Also when the raid took place. Evidently it was quite soon after the surrender [of Vicksburg].”