Washington, D.C.
Dear Brother: In my letter a few days since, I referred to a letter of Hon. Thad. Stevens. I meant, of course, Hon. A. H. Stephens of Georgia. I now enclose a copy of that letter under cover of a note to Col. R. N. Scott, in charge of the General Records. I want you to read that letter carefully and then send it to Scott to be preserved among the archives. Such letters contain more real truth than official papers. It was from such papers that I gained the most valuable information of the actual condition of facts. Hundreds of similar letters reached me, and I fear we were not careful enough in their preservation.
They make up the unwritten history or traditions of the war, one of the principal objects of the Grand Army of the Republic.
SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 365
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