But in getting the best of the argument they called in all the people and wise men of other nations of the earth, and they, too, said that America had no cardinal points, and that the sun did not rise in the east and set in the west, and that the compass did not point either north or south.
Well, then, Captain Jeff Davis' side gave it up and quit, and they, too, went to saying that there is no north, no south, no east, no west.
Well, "us boys" all took a small part in the fracas, and Shep, the prophet, remarked that the day would come when those who once believed that the American continent had cardinal points would be ashamed to own it.

That day has arrived.

America has no north, no south, no east, no west; the sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains, the compass just points up and down, and we can laugh now at the absurd notion of there being a north and a south.
Well, reader, let me whisper in your ear.

I was in the row, and the following pages will tell what part I took in the little unpleasant misconception of there being such a thing as a north and south.
THE BLOODY CHASM In these memoirs, after the lapse of twenty years, we propose to fight our "battles o'er again." To do this is but a pastime and pleasure, as there is nothing that so much delights the old soldier as to revisit the scenes and battlefields with which he was once so familiar, and to recall the incidents, though trifling they may have been at the time.
The histories of the Lost Cause are all written out by "big bugs," generals and renowned historians, and like the fellow who called a turtle a "cooter," being told that no such word as cooter was in Webster's dictionary, remarked that he had as much right to make a dictionary as Mr.Webster or any other man; so have I to write a history.
But in these pages I do not pretend to write the history of the war.
I only give a few sketches and incidents that came under the observation of a "high private" in the rear ranks of the rebel army.

Of course, the histories are all correct.