I say this with real reluctance, for my relations with Mr.Gilmore personally have been pleasant.

I was at the outset prepossessed in favor of his books; but as soon as I came to study them I found that (except for what was drawn from the printed Tennessee State histories) they were extremely untrustworthy.

Oral tradition has a certain value of its own, if used with great discretion and intelligence; but it is rather startling to find any one blandly accepting as gospel alleged oral traditions gathered one hundred and twenty-five years after the event, especially when they relate to such subjects as the losses and numbers of Indian war parties.

No man with the slightest knowledge of frontiersmen or frontier life could commit such a mistake.

If any one wishes to get at the value of oral tradition of an Indian fight a century old, let him go out west and collect the stories of Custer's battle, which took place only a dozen years ago.