Thanks again for your response. Those aiming to keep their handiwork straight use the straight edge, level and plumb line. A good historian will also collect testimony from both sides, just as if he had been appointed both prosecutor and advocate for the defense. The effort to relate first-hand experiences from participants is vital to the process of reaching the truth. A verdict isn't returned until all the testimony has been delivered.

Passion can make our writing more interesting. but it should not influence our judgement.

As an officer serving in Minty's command for much of the war, Capt. Joseph G. Vale must be treated as an important witness to events. IMHO much of Vale's account is questionable but cannot be dismissed out of hand. He believed his version of events to be correct, so it's worth reciting. If nothing else, we have the opportunity to examine what he wrote. Let's allow Vale to take the stand and give his testimony.

Take the case of Captain Freeman's death. Witnesses can be produced to reconstruct events near Franklin TN between 2:00 and 3:00 PM on April 10, 1863. They will refute Vale point by point. Rebuttal will also render some idea as to the kind of witness this officer might be.

As for Vale's account of the sharpened sabers, I've posted inquiries elsewhere on that topic. Hopefully someone else can produce something substantive. As you mentioned Col. Robert Minty, Brig. Gen. David Stanley and General Rosecrans discussed this. Based on his exchanges with the Secretary of War, Rosecrans should have been enthusiastic about any measure that would make his cavalry more effective. Please tell us what you learn about this.

Here's a related account from one Forrest biographer. Trenton was captured during Forrest's Christmas Raid of 1862 into west Tennessee --

Andrew Nelson Lytle, Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company, p. 139 --

Among the captured stores at Trenton was a regulation officer's blade. The General took it, tested it, and ran his finger along its dull edge, for like all officer's swords it was sharp only a short distance from the point. He took it over to a grindstone, and there with an orderly he ground it to a razor's edge. Someone who had been in the regular army protested that this was contrary to all military precedent.

"War means fighting, and fighting means killing," replied the General.

The grindstone turned over.

The obvious implication here is that Forrest approved the use of "enhanced" blades. I cannot imagine that he would have objected to the enemy's use of the same practice. If nothing else, Forrest was a fair and reasonable man.

By the same token, we should ask why Forrest and his men would take particular notice of Capt. Freeman's death, to the point of determining which Federal regiment was responsible. If Vale is to believed, dozens of Confederate officers died at every contact with Minty's command, so it would have taken some effort to remember which Yankee killed each one of them. On February 23, 1864, Forrest's brother Jeffrey died in action. Best I can tell, Forrest bore no special grudge against those responsible. Why should he have valued Freeman's life over that of his own brother's?

There has to be a reason. If Vale wants to introduce the subject of atrocities, which ones does he have in mind?

The forward to Lytle's book will mention several of the older sources for Forrest. I will respond will personal notes on that topic later.

Thanks again for your response. I appreciate your interest.