Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Nuts for Future Historians to Crack
It was, indeed, fortunate for Reed, that Washington never saw that letter. But how could Mr. Irving quote a portion of so important a document, while he suppressed the material part! Indeed, we are tempted to believe that some other hand had supervised those pages, before they were presented to the public.
We conceive it to be the duty of an impartial his torian to collect facts, and present them to his readers, and he is guilty of falsifying history who suppresses them. His readers have the same right to all the evidence that bears upon important occurrence that he has, and though the author may give his views and conclusions, the reader is not of necessity compelled to agree with him. We for one, must beg leave to differ from Mr. Irving in his estimate of Reed's character, and we doubt not that every one reading his letter will sustain us in our opinion, that his conduct was false and treacherous in the extreme.
In order properly to appreciate the baseness of Reed's conduct, it is necessary to consider the circumstances under which it occurred. It was immediately after Washington had experienced the most trying reverses. Fort Washington had just been captured; over two thousand men had been taken prisoners, and his own eyes had beheld his men, partners of his toil, bayoneted and cut down while they begged for quarter. The Jerseys were overrun, and Philadelphia threatened by the enemy. Add to this, the accounts he received from Congress of the state of affairs at home, and it wanted but the discovery of such treachery to crush a spirit less mighty than his.
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.
