In the year 1901, I addressed a letter to the Shiloh Battlefield Commission, at the invitation of its chairman, stating the substance of the personal recollections herein given, with a view to the correction of some very serious errors in its official blue print maps. In this letter I referred to between thirty and forty official reports of field organizations engaged in the battle, all showing that the errors complained of existed; but from that day to this no notice whatever has been taken of the letter. I had not then the slightest idea that the commission intended to constitute itself the official historian of the Battle of Shiloh—for certainly the law of its appointment contemplates no such thing. But, during the year 1903, there appeared from the press of the Government Printing Office, Washington, an innocent looking work bearing on its title page the following: “Shiloh National Park Commission. The Battle of Shiloh, and the Organizations Engaged. Compiled from the Official Records by Major D. W. Reed, Historian and Secretary, under the Authority of the Commission, 1902. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1903.” There follows, on a subsequent page, a preface addressed by the Chairman of the Commission— “To Shiloh Soldiers”—in which, referring to the intent of the statute establishing the Shiloh National Military Park to perpetuate the history of the battle on the ground where it was fought, he expresses the desire of the commission that “this history” (meaning this publication) “shall be complete, impartial, and correct,” etc. He then states, that, “to ensure this accuracy, _all reports have been carefully studied and compared. The records at Washington have been thoroughly searched and many who participated in the battle have been interviewed._... It is, therefore, desired that the statements of the book be earnestly studied by every survivor of Shiloh and any errors or omissions be reported to the commission with a view to the publication of a revised edition of the report.”