1862 May 15 Lynchburg, Va.

[from the diary of William M. Blackford, former diplomat, editor and banker in Lynchburg, Va., with five sons in the Confederate Army]

Thursday 15  Another day of cold rain
-giving every assurance of its being the" long season in May".  I think
much of the soldiers on the field.
very unwell--Mr Botts & Mr Pollard
-some of my old friends Gen Botts, of
Frdg and Wm Pollock, of Rumford[?]
called to see me--I invited them to
spend the evening with us and they
promised to do so--but failed to convince[?]
Young Botts is threatened with blindness
Read in Q: Rev. of April '61, an article
on the "[?] pearls of History"  very
well calculated to awaken faith in
all history--I never had much and
the more I read history the more skepti
-cal I become--Indeed I have adop
ted the theory, that the mere truth
is not very important, to point a
moral or adorn a tale" provided the
facts are generally recd  [?] has
blown up all levys pleasant stone
and given us nothing in their place
until lately, historians did not
aim at the truth--they put themselves
to no trouble to ascertain facts by in
vestigation and collating of authorities
Voltaire admitted that when by a
little embellishment of fancy he could im
part interest to a narration he never
failed to do it--Hume would not take
the trouble when writing on an im
portant event in his history, to rise
from his seat and verify a date or
fact by consulting a Book on the op
posite side of the Admirals Library
Lamartine's history is as much of
a romance as any he has written
mot historians have a theory to maintain
and to do this they make facts confirm
The article in question shows that
most of the fine sayings of great men
were either not spoken or are imita
ted or borrowed from some one else
Talleyrand, whose witty and sarcas
tic remarks are so often quoted, had
a collection of anecdotes, mots &c in
22 vols. and his nephew says it is
the only book he ever read regularly.
He selected the best and [?] [?]

[?], or perhpas render, occasion for
passing them off as his own with all
the air of complete spontaneity.  It
is well known Sheridan kept his
[?] [?] [?] prepared for
paper for use.  He was apparently
the most ready & brilliant of men &
yet really required long time to prepare
his jokes & his speeches--Every line
of his long speech on the trial of Has-
tings was written out & committed
to memory.
In the afternoon, late, came a des-
patch saying the Iron clad steamer
Galena had with two others, attack
en the battery at Wilton and after
an action of three hours had been
forced to haul off--the Galena hav
ing been set on fire.  this is theory
as far as it goes.

MSS 4763