THOUSANDS of books have been written about the Civil
War; and more about the armies than about, the navies
and the civil interests together. Yet, even about the
armies, there are very few that give a just idea of how
every part of the war was correlated with every other
part and with the very complex whole; while few-
er still give any idea of how closely the navies were
correlated with the armies throughout the long
amphibious campaigns.

The only works mentioned here are either those con-
taining the original evidence or those written by ex-
perts directly from the original evidence. And of
course there are a good many works belonging to both
these classes for which no room can be found in a
bibliography so very brief as the present one must be.

The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies,
128 vols. ( 1880- 1901), and Official Records of the
Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the
Rebellion, 26 vols. ( 1894-), form two magnificent col-
lections of original evidence published by the United
States Government. But they have some gaps which
nothing else can fill. Battles and Leaders of the Civil
War ( 1887-89.) written by competent witnesses on
both sides, gives the gist of the story in four volumes

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