If you desire it, I will endeavor to
visit you, and in a friendly manner "fight our battles o'er again,"
and endeavor to convince you that you have always been mistaken as
to the manner in which my part in the "Meridian campaign" was
performed. But I will never rest until the wrong statements
regarding it are fully and fairly corrected. Yours truly,
WILLIAM SOOY SMITH
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES
St. Louis, Missouri, July 11, 1875.
General J. D. WEBSTER, Chicago, Illinois
DEAR GENERAL: General W. Sooy Smith feels aggrieved and wronged by
my account of his part in the Meridian campaign, in my "Memoirs,"
pages 394, 395, and properly appeals to me for correction. I have
offered to modify any words or form of expression that he may point
out, but he asks me to completely change the whole that concerns
him. This, of course, I will not do, as his part was material to
the whole, and cannot be omitted or materially altered without
changing the remainder, for his failure to reach Meridian by
February 10th was the reason for other movements distant from him.
I now offer him, what seems to me fair and liberal, that we submit
the points at issue to you as arbitrator.
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