Even in the service records the transcriber’s personal opinion played a part, how much we will never know.
I was reading the record cards of Peter Creed Flournoy to find a court martial record for someone else that I knew was there. The transcriber apparently was a big fan of Flournoy's because he kept either circling or underlining his name.
The person I was searching for was court martialed for stealing General McIntosh’s watch from his dead body. His punishment was “public reprimand and two months pay stopped.”
There were remarks that “in my opinion” the sentence is too light. Whose remarks those were I don’t know. It was signed “Loyd.”