Bob Reid of Wausau, Wis., said the stationery box full of letters had been handed down to his father, the general's great-nephew. Following his father's death, Reid received the box from his sister, whose husband had suggested they were boring and not worth keeping. The letters spent years in Reid's former home until surfacing as he packed to move.These letters have never been seen by historians.
I pray that this little reminder gives pause to those blowhard writers dealing out finalities, absolutes, and dead certainties in the pages of their narrative nonfiction.
Still missing: the correspondence of Irvin McDowell, Henry Halleck, and Joe Hooker.
