LVI
In connection with my work for the Harpers it fell to my lot to revise and edit a good many books. Among these were such books of reference as Hayden's Dictionary of Dates, which I twice edited for American readers, putting in the dates of important American affairs, and, more importantly, correcting English misinterpretations of American happenings. For example, under the title "New York" I found an entry, "Fall of O'Kelly," with a date assigned. The thing probably referred to John Kelly, but the event recorded, with its date, had never occurred within the knowledge of any American. There were many other such things to cut out and many important matters to put in, and the Harpers paid me liberally—after their fashion in dealing with men of letters—for doing the work. In the course of it I had to spend a considerable amount of their money in securing the exact information desired. In one case I applied by letter to one of the executive departments at Washington for exact information concerning a certain document. For answer I received a letter, written by a clerk, doubtless, but signed by a chief of bureau, embodying a copy of the document. In that copy I found a line thrice repeated, and I was unable to make out whether the repetition was in the original or was the work of a copying clerk asleep at his post. I wrote to inquire, but the chief of bureau replied that he had no authority to find out, wherefore I had to make a journey to Washington at the expense of Harper and Brothers, to ascertain the facts. I came out of that expedition with the conviction, which still lingers in my mind, that the system that gives civil service employees a tenure of office with which their chiefs have no power to interfere by peremptory discharge for inefficiency or misconduct, as the managing men of every successful business enterprise may do, is vicious in principle and bad in outcome.
The Way at Washington
That and other experiences in dealing with executive departments at Washington have made an old fogy of me, I suppose. At any rate they have convinced me that the government's business could and would be better done by half the force now employed, if that half force worked under a consciousness of direct responsibility, each man to an immediate chief who could discharge him for incompetency or inattention. Furthermore, my experience with clerks in the departments at Washington convinces me that the method of selection and promotion by competitive examination, results almost uniformly in the appointment and in the promotion of inferior and often incompetent men. Certainly no great bank, no great business enterprise of any kind would ever consent to such a method of selecting or promoting its employees—a method which excludes from consideration the knowledge every chief of bureau or department must necessarily have of the qualifications of his subordinates. The clerk who repeated that line three times in making an official transcript of an official document had been for several years in the public service, and I suppose he is there yet, if he isn't dead. How long would a bookkeeper in a bank hold his place after making a similar blunder? But then, banks are charged with an obligation to remain solvent, and must appoint and discharge employees with due reference to that necessity. The government is not subject to that requirement, and it recognizes a certain obligation to heed the vagaries of the theorists who regard themselves as commissioned—divinely or otherwise—to reform the world in accordance with the suggestions of their own inner consciousness and altogether without regard to the practical experience of humankind.
Mainly, however, the books I was employed to edit were those written by men whose connection with affairs of consequence rendered their utterances important, but whose literary qualifications were small. When such works were presented to the Harpers, it was their practice to accept the books on condition that the authors of them should pay for such editing as was necessary, by some person of literary experience to be selected by the Harpers themselves.
In every such case, where I was asked to be the editor and see the book through the press, I stipulated that I was to make no effort to improve literary style, but was to confine myself to seeing that the English was correct—whether elegant or otherwise—and that the book as it came from the hands of its author should be presented with as little editorial alteration as was possible. I assumed the function of correcting errors and offering advice, not of writing the books anew or otherwise putting them into the literary form I thought they should have. Even with this limitation of function, I found plenty of work to do in every case.
A Historical Discovery
It was under a contract of this kind that I undertook to see through the press the volumes published under the title of "The Military Operations of General Beauregard in the War between the States."
The work bore the name of Colonel Alfred Roman, as its author, but on every page of it there was conclusive evidence of its direct and minute inspiration by General Beauregard himself. It was with him rather than with Colonel Roman that negotiations were had respecting my editorial work on the book. He was excessively nervous lest I should make alterations of substance, a point on which I was the better able to reassure him because of the fact that my compensation was a sum certain and in no way dependent upon the amount of time or labor I should give to the work. I succeeded in convincing him that I was exceedingly unlikely to undertake more of revision than the contract called for, and as one man with another, I assured him that I would make no alteration of substantial consequence in the work without his approval.
In editing the book I made a discovery which, I think, is of some historical interest. Throughout the war there was something like a standing quarrel between General Beauregard and Mr. Jefferson Davis, emphasized by the antagonism of Mr. Davis's chief adviser, Judah P. Benjamin to General Beauregard. Into the merits of that quarrel I have no intention here to inquire. It does not come within the purview of this volume of reminiscences. But in editing General Beauregard's book I discovered an easy and certainly correct explanation of the bitterest phase of it—that phase upon which General Beauregard laid special stress.
Sometime after the battle of Shiloh, General Beauregard, whose health was seriously impaired, decided to take a little furlough for purposes of recuperation. There was neither prospect nor possibility of active military operations in that quarter for a considerable time to come, so that he felt himself free to go away for a few weeks in search of health, leaving General Bragg in temporary command but himself keeping in touch with his army and in readiness to return to it immediately in case of need.
He notified Mr. Davis of his intended course, by telegraph. Mr. Davis almost immediately removed him from command and ordered General Bragg to assume permanent control in that quarter. Mr. Davis's explanation, when his act was challenged, was that General Beauregard had announced his purpose to be absent himself "for four months," and that he, Mr. Davis, could not regard that as anything else than an abandonment of his command. General Beauregard insisted that he had made no such announcement and had cherished no such purpose. The thing ultimately resolved itself into a question of veracity between the two, concerning which each had bitter things to say of the other in public ways.
A Period Out of Place
In editing General Beauregard's book, I discovered that there was really no question of veracity involved, but merely an error of punctuation in a telegraphic despatch, a thing very easy at all times and particularly easy in days of military telegraphing when incompetent operators were the rule rather than the exception.
The case was this: General Beauregard telegraphed:
"I am leaving for a while on surgeon's certificate. For four months I have delayed obeying their urgent recommendations," etc.
As the despatch reached Mr. Davis it read:
"I am leaving for a while on surgeon's certificate for four months. I have delayed," etc.
The misplacing of a punctuation mark gave the statement, as received by Mr. Davis, a totally different meaning from that which General Beauregard had intended. In explaining his action in removing Beauregard from command, Mr. Davis stated that the General had announced his purpose to absent himself for four months. General Beauregard denied that he had done anything of the kind. Hence the issue of veracity, in which the text of the despatch as sent, sustained General Beauregard's contention, while the same text as received, with its error of punctuation, equally sustained the assertions of Mr. Davis.
With the beatitude of the peacemakers in mind, I brought my discovery to the attention of both parties to the controversy, in the hope at least of convincing each that the other had not consciously lied. The attempt proved futile. When I pointed out to General Beauregard the obvious origin of the misapprehension, he flushed with suppressed anger and declared himself unwilling to discuss a matter so exclusively personal. He did discuss it, however, to the extent of pointing out that his use of the phrase "for a while" should have enabled Mr. Davis to correct the telegraph operator's error of punctuation, "if there really was any such error made—which I am not prepared to believe."
In answer to my letter to Mr. Davis, some one wrote for him that in his advancing years he did not care to take up again any of the matters of controversy that had perplexed his active life.
I have never since that time made the smallest attempt to reconcile the quarrels of men who have been engaged in the making of history. I have learned better.
So far as Mr. Davis was concerned there was probably another reason for unwillingness to consider any matter that I might lay before him. He and I had had a little controversy of our own some years before.
In one of those chapters of "A Rebel's Recollections," which were first published in the Atlantic Monthly, I made certain statements with regard to Mr. Davis's conduct at a critical moment. Mr. Davis sent his secretary to me—or at any rate some one calling himself his secretary came to me—to assure me that the statements I and others had made concerning the matter were without foundation in fact, and to ask me not to include them in the forthcoming book.
I replied that I had not made the statements thoughtlessly or without satisfying myself of the correctness of my information; that I could not, therefore, consent to omit them from the book; but that if Mr. Davis would send me a categorical denial of them over his own signature, I would publish it as a part of my text.
This proposal was rejected, and I let the matter stand as originally written. I had in my possession at that time a letter from General Robert E. Lee to John Esten Cooke. It was written in answer to a direct question of Mr. Cooke's, and in it General Lee stated unequivocally that the facts were as Mr. Cooke understood them and as I had reported them. But General Lee forbade the publication of his letter unless Mr. Davis should at any time publicly deny the reports made. In that case he authorized the publication "in the interest of truthful history."
Mr. Cooke had placed that letter in my hands, and had Mr. Davis furnished me with the suggested denial, it was my purpose to print that and General Lee's letter in facsimile, leaving it for every reader to choose between them. To my regret Mr. Davis declined to put his denial into writing, so that General Lee's letter, which I returned to Mr. Cooke, has never been published, and now never can be.
A Futile Effort to Make Peace
On another point I found General Beauregard more amenable to editorial suggestion, though reluctantly so. In discussing his defense of Charleston with utterly inadequate means—a defense everywhere recognized as the sufficient foundation of a military fame—his book included a chapter or so of masterly military criticism, intended to show that if the commanders on the other side at Charleston had been as alert and capable as they should have been, there was no time when they could not have taken Charleston with ease and certainty.
I pointed out to him that all this was a discrediting of himself; that it attributed to the enemy's weakness a success which military criticism attributed to his own military and engineering strength, thus stripping him of credit at the very point at which his credit was least open to dispute or question. I advised the elimination or material alteration of this part of the book, and after due consideration he consented, though with sore reluctance, for the reason that the modification made involved the sacrifice of a very brilliant essay in military criticism, of which any writer might well have been proud, and which I should have advised any other writer to publish as a distinguished feature of his work.
To descend from large things to small ones, it was in seeing this work through the press that I encountered the most extreme case I have ever known of dangerous interference with copy on the part of the "intelligent compositor," passed by the "alert proofreader." The printing department of the Harpers was as nearly perfect, in its organization and in the supervision given to it by the two highly-skilled superintendents of its rival composing rooms, as any printing department well can be. And yet it was there that the error occurred.
Of course I could not read the revised proofs of the book "by copy,"—that is to say with a helper to read the copy aloud while I followed him with the revises. That would have required the employment of an additional helper and a considerably increased payment to me. Moreover, all that was supposed to be attended to in the composing rooms so that revised proofs should come to me in exact conformity with the "copy" as I had handed it in. In reading them I was not expected to look out for errors of the type, but solely for errors in the text.
In reading a batch of proofs one night—for the man of letters who would keep his butcher and grocer on good terms with him must work by night as well as by day—although I was in nowise on the alert to discover errors of type, my eye fell upon an error which, if it had escaped me, would forever have ruined my reputation as an editor. Certain of General Beauregard's official despatches, quoted in the book, were dated "Fiddle Pond, near Barnwell C. H., South Carolina," the letters "C. H." standing, of course, for "Court House"—the name given to rural county seats in the South. The intelligent compositor, instead of "following copy," had undertaken to interpret and translate the letters out of the depths of his own intuitions. Instead of "Fiddle Pond, near Barnwell C. H.," he had set "Fiddle Pond, near Barnwell, Charleston Harbor," thus playing havoc at once with geography and the text.
The case was so extreme, and the liberty taken with the text without notice of any kind, involved so much danger to the accuracy of the work that I had no choice but to report the matter to the house with a notification that unless I could be assured that no further liberties of any kind would be taken with the text, I must decline to go further with the undertaking.
This cost a proofreader and a printer or two their employments, and I regretted that, but they deserved their punishment, and the matter was one that demanded drastic measures. Without such measures it would have been dangerous to publish the book at all.
Loring Pacha
One other ex-Confederate general with whom this sort of editorial work brought me into association was Loring Pacha—otherwise General W. W. Loring, a man of extraordinarily varied experiences in life, a man of the gentlest temper and most genial impulses, who had been, nevertheless, a fighter all his life, from boyhood up. His fighting, however, had all been done in the field and professionally, and he carried none of its animosities into private life. I remember his saying to me once:
"Of course the war ended as it ought to have done. It was best for everybody concerned that the Union should be restored. The only thing is that I don't like the other fellows to 'have the say' on us."
Loring became a private soldier in the United States Army while yet a boy. He so far distinguished himself for gallantry in the Florida War that he was offered a Presidential appointment to West Point, which he declined. He was appointed to a lieutenancy in the regular army, where he won rapid promotion and gained a deal of experience, chiefly in fighting Indians and leading troops on difficult expeditions across the plains of the far West. In the Mexican War he was several times promoted and brevetted for conspicuous gallantry, and he lost an arm at one of the gates of the City of Mexico, as he was leading his regiment as the head of the column into the town, seizing an opportunity without orders. On that occasion General Scott visited him in hospital and said to him:
"Loring, I suppose I ought to court-martial you for rushing into that breach without orders; but I think I'll recommend you for promotion instead."
In the Confederate Army Loring became a Major-General, and a few years after the close of that struggle he was invited by the Khedive of Egypt to become his chief of staff. After a military service there which extended over a number of years, he returned to America and wrote a book founded upon his experience there and the studies he had made in Egyptian manners, history, archæology, and the like. I was employed to edit that book, which was published by Dodd, Mead & Co., I think, and in the course of my work upon it Loring became not only a valued personal friend, but an easy-going intimate in my household. At first he came to see me only for purposes of consultation concerning the work. Later he used to come "just because he wanted to," he said. His visits were made, in Southern fashion, at whatever hour he chose, and he took with us whatever meals were served while he was there.
In conversation one day I happened to ask Loring something about the strained relations that frequently exist between commanding officers in the field and the newspaper war correspondents sent out to report news of military operations. I think my question was prompted by some reference to William Swinton's criticisms of General Grant, and General Grant's peremptory dealing with him.
"I don't know much about such things," Loring answered. "You see, at the time of the Mexican War and of all my Indian campaigns, the newspapers hadn't yet invented the war correspondent. Then in the Confederacy everybody was a soldier, as you know, and the war correspondents carried muskets and answered to roll calls. Their newspaper work was an avocation, not a vocation. You see I am learning English under your tuition."
This little jest referred to the fact that a few days before, in running through the manuscript of a lecture he was preparing, I had changed the word "avocation" to "vocation," explaining to him the difference in meaning.
Concerning War Correspondents
"Then in Egypt we were not much troubled with war correspondents—perhaps they had the bowstring and sack in mind—but I have an abiding grudge against another type of correspondent whom I encountered there. I mean the tourist who has made an arrangement with some newspaper to pay the expenses of his trip or a part of them in return for letters to be sent from the places visited. He is always an objectionable person, particularly when he happens to be a parson out of a job, and I always fought shy of him so far as possible, usually by turning him over to my dragoman, to be shown about and 'stuffed' as only a dragoman can 'stuff' anybody. You see the dragoman has learned that every Western tourist in the East is hungry for information of a startling sort, and the dragoman holds himself ready to furnish it without the smallest regard for truth or any respect at all for facts. On one occasion one of these scribbling tourists from England visited me. One of the Khedive's unoccupied palaces had been assigned to me for my headquarters, and I was exceedingly busy with preparations for a campaign then in contemplation. Stone Pacha and I were both up to our eyes in work, trying to mobilize an army that had no mobility in it. Accordingly I turned the tourist over to my dragoman with orders to show him everything and give him all the information he wanted.
"The palace was divided as usual. There was a public part and a part called the harem—which simply means the home or the family apartments. During my occupancy of the place that part of it was empty and closed, as I am a bachelor. But as the dragoman showed him about the tourist asked to see that part of the palace, whereupon the dragoman replied:
"'That is the harem. You cannot gain entrance there.'
"'The harem? But I thought Loring was an American and a Christian,' was the astonished reply.
"'He was—but he is a pacha, now,' answered the dragoman with that air of mysterious reserve which is a part of his stock in trade. Then the rascal went on to tell the tourist that I now had forty wives—which would have been a shot with the long bow even if I had been a born Mohammedan of the highest rank and greatest wealth.
"When I heard of the affair I asked the dragoman why he had lied so outrageously and he calmly replied:
"'Oh, I thought it polite to give the gentleman what he wanted.'
Sidenote: A Scribbling Tourist's Mischief-Making]
"I dismissed the matter and thought no more of it until a month or so later, when somebody sent me marked copies of the Manchester Guardian, or whatever the religious newspaper concerned was called. The tourist had told the story of my 'downfall' with all the horrifying particulars, setting forth in very complimentary phrases my simple, exemplary life as an American soldier and lamenting the ease with which I and other Western men, 'nurtured in the purity of Christian family life,' had fallen victims to the lustful luxury of the East. I didn't give the matter any attention. I was too busy to bother—too busy with plans and estimates and commissary problems, and the puzzles of transportation and all the rest of the things that required attention in preparation for a campaign in a difficult, inaccessible, and little known country. I wasn't thinking of myself or of what wandering scribes might be writing about me in English newspapers. But presently this thing assumed a new and very serious aspect. Some obscure American religious newspaper, published down South somewhere, copied the thing, and my good sisters, who live down that way, read it. It isn't much to say they were horrified; they were well-nigh killed by the revelation of my infamy and they suffered almost inconceivable tortures of the spirit on my account. For it never entered their trustful minds to doubt anything printed in a great English religious paper over the signature of a dissenting minister and copied into the American religious journal which to them seemed an authoritative weekly supplement to the holy scriptures.
"I managed to straighten the thing out in the minds of my good sisters, but I have never ceased to regret that that correspondent never turned up at my headquarters again. If he had I should have made him think he had fallen in with a herd of the wild jackasses of Abyssinia."