Recently one or two histories of the times and careers of Robertson and Sevier have been published by “Edmund Kirke,” Mr. James R. Gilmore.  They are charmingly written, and are of real service as calling attention to a neglected portion of our history and making it interesting.  But they entirely fail to discriminate between the provinces of history and fiction.  It is greatly to be regretted that Mr. Gilmore did not employ his powers in writing an avowed historical novel treating of the events he discusses; such a work from him would have a permanent value, like Robert L. Kennedy’s “Horseshoe Robinson.”  In their present form his works cannot be accepted even as offering material on which to form a judgment, except in so far as they contain repetitions of statements given by Ramsey or Putnam.  I say this with real reluctance, for my relations with Mr. Gilmore personally have been pleasant.  I was at the outset prepossessed in favor of his books; but as soon as I came to study them I found that (except for what was drawn from the printed Tennessee State histories) they were extremely untrustworthy.  Oral tradition has a certain value of its own, if used with great discretion and intelligence; but it is rather startling to find any one blandly accepting as gospel alleged oral traditions gathered one hundred and twenty-five years after the event, especially when they relate to such subjects as the losses and numbers of Indian war parties.  No man with the slightest knowledge of frontiersmen or frontier life could commit such a mistake.  If any one wishes to get at the value of oral tradition of an Indian fight a century old, let him go out west and collect the stories of Custer’s battle, which took place only a dozen years ago.  I think I have met or heard of fifty “solitary survivors” of Custer’s defeat; and I could collect certainly a dozen complete accounts of both it and Reno’s fight, each believed by a goodly number of men, and no two relating the story in an even approximately similar fashion.  Mr. Gilmore apparently accepts all such accounts indiscriminately, and embodies them in his narrative without even a reference to his authorities.  I particularize one or two out of very many instances in the chapters dealing with the Cherokee wars.

Books founded upon an indiscriminate acceptance of any and all such traditions or alleged traditions are a little absurd, unless, as already said, they are avowedly merely historic novels, when they may be both useful and interesting.  I am obliged to say with genuine regret, after careful examination of Mr. Gilmore’s books, that I cannot accept any single unsupported statement they contain as even requiring an examination into its probability.  I would willingly pass them by without comment, did I not fear that my silence might be construed into an acceptance of their truth.  Moreover, I notice that some writers, like the editors of the “Cyclopedia of American Biography,” seem inclined to take the volumes seriously.