The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South
Alexander Kelly McClure, Ed.

[66] would not be complete without an expression of regret that due justice was not done his services and his memory by those who best knew both-his immediate commander, and those in authority at Washington. Yet, in spite of the brief and imperfect record that has been made, his name is still affectionately cherished by his old comrades of the regular army; by all who served with him in his successive commands; by the veterans of his own First Corps; by the volunteers and militia who felt his force and will and military qualities, even in their brief term of service under him. To their united loyal efforts and assistance, and to the persistent energy of a few of his old officers, is due the statue of Reynolds; noble it stands on Cemetery Hill, looking over Gettysburg, and out beyond to the long line of wooded country through which he moved with his troops, and to the little knoll where he fell in the very front, and almost at the first onset. It is right that his memorial should thus command the field, for his influence made itself felt through the long days of that great battle, and its final success was largely due to the plans he had made and the operations he had conducted.

The history of Gettysburg yet remains to be written. So barren is the official record that a very gallant officer of the old First Corps said once that he often wondered if he had really been there, for he looked in vain at the official reports for any mention of his command, and yet Dick Coulter was never in action without leaving his mark. There have been hot and angry disputes, and an amount of angry recrimination and plain talk between very prominent general officers as to their respective shares in the credit of the battle, and there have been learned essays on the strategy and grand tactics of the operations that made part of the campaign of Gettysburg, by men who never set a squadron in the field, but the whole story still remains to be told. Perhaps the Count of Paris may put the record straight, for his history of our great civil war seems likely to be the best, and to serve as the last resort, beyond which there will be no appeal. Be that as it may, the subject is one that ought to be properly and exhaustively treated, and it would be well if the entire and complete set of official reports from officers of all grades and arms of service engaged in the battle, could be published from the archives at Washington. If we cannot get an official history of the war, such as the German and French staff have already supplied for their campaign, let us have at least the sources of history, the reports that give the story as it was told at the time. Reynolds is in no need of posthumous fame, but the country ought to know what such a man did, and then it could the better judge of what it lost in a life so prematurely cut short in its service.