That's kinda the point. Maybe it is fiction, maybe it isn't fiction. Thing is, the book wasn't about the Civil War, per se. The book was simply about a guy's journey through life, with the Civil War being a fractional part of it. With the Civil War portion not presenting as good or evil, but as just one chapter of a guy traipsing through the countryside and there being a couple of battles. It was published almost a half century after the war when the old man had been in California for decades. So....afraid of lingering animosity about saying a flag bearer had been killed and there had been a battle at Moore's Mill? And a part of his Moore's Mill portion essentially mirroring Mudd's work word-for-word on the subject? Read it sometime. This isn't a work that generates animus. Just head-scratching on internet boards 120 year after it was published.