Excerpt from Life of General George Gordon Meade, Commander of the Army of the Potomac

It becomes necessary for me, for self-protection, in writing this memoir, to include a statement without which I should place myself in a false position, through omitting mention of action over which I had no control. When, some years ago, I wrote the article, George Gordon Meade and Family, for Appleton's Cyclopedia, an interpolation, unauthorized by me, was made in it regarding the battle of Gettysburg, including the statement that General Meade had neglected to occupy Little Round Top. As I was not in any way responsible for this interpolation, I repudiated it as soon as it came to my knowledge, upon which the Messrs. Appleton promised that in future editions of the Cyclopaedia my name as the author of the article should be omitted. I have therefore since then regarded the matter as finally closed, and here make mention of it only for the imperative reason assigned.

Lest a doubt may arise in the minds of some persons as to whether recollections which revert to seven years of age are trustworthy, it should be remarked that that depends upon idiosyncrasy. Records show that, in certain cases, accurate memory of events of a simple order has reached three or four years anterior to the period mentioned. I know a person who, when a boy of five years of age, was carried one night to a window, whence he was shown the aurora-borealis, which, in after years, he declared, amid the jeers of his companions, to have been pink. He grew up, however, to learn from scientific statistics that his percep tion had not been at fault, for the aurora of the date cor responding with his age at that time is noted as pink. I shall not therefore shrink, when I could add to this mention of the early recollections of John Stuart Mill and others, from speaking with confidence of things which first ap peared upon my mental horizon at seven years of age.

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