Excerpt from The Campaign in Virginia and Maryland: June 26th to Sept, 20th, 1862; Cedar Run, Manassas, and Sharpsburg The writing of history is always a delicate, and generally a thankless, task. It is, then, only with diffidence that the present volume is offered for the perusal of the public; for on any question of historical fact, still more Of criticism, there may, and indeed must, be two opinions. Hence, in the latter department at least, that of comment, no care, however scrupulous, no investigation, however thorough, can prevent some people disagreeing with the views put forward. The most the historian can effect is to present to the reader all the available facts, and then leave him to form his own judgment. Such a procedure does not exclude comment, but renders it suggestive and stimulating rather than final. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.