Читать книгу One of Morgan's Men - John M. Porter - Страница 9

The original typescript of Porter's war memoirs must have been prepared in the late nineteenth century; it was a literal transcription. A retyping of the original typescript was accomplished in 1927. It was this second typescript that was given to me to publish. It contained some errors that were quickly determined to be typists' mistakes. Most of those were misspellings of words that included extra letters or excluded letters, clearly indicating keystroke errors. Once those typographical errors were corrected, the manuscript still had some problems: there were errors of grammar; some sentences ran for nearly a page or more in length and were very complicated; there were run-on sentences, and some sentences were incomplete; there were numerous paragraphs that had multiple subjects and literally ran on for two or three pages; there was one missing page and another noticeable gap in the narrative for which substitutes and missing fragments were never found; and some individuals were improperly identified or their names were misspelled. Most individuals were identified by Porter only by their surnames, and there were many of them in the manuscript. It seemed as though Porter believed his descendants would know who all those individuals were. To anyone other than those who actually knew the people in the area where Porter lived and with whom he campaigned, the use of only surnames made the manuscript very difficult to read, understand, or even appreciate.

I could not edit the manuscript so much that Porter's wonderful means of expression would be lost. I had to make sure Porter told his own story as he wanted to tell it. The University Press of Kentucky and I called upon Professor James Ramage of Northern Kentucky University, John Hunt Morgan's biographer and a historian who was familiar with the Porter typescript, to provide guidelines for the editing of the manuscript. He graciously provided detailed written recommendations.

Following Ramage’s recommendations, I corrected all the misspellings and glaring errors in grammar. That included inserting, where necessary, commas, semicolons, and even periods. It also included the occasional inserting or changing of words to correct the grammar, such as adjusting the verb tense, inserting omitted articles and prepositions, and the like. I separated sentences that were too long and complicated, and disconnected overly lengthy paragraphs. I recrafted the last paragraph of the page before the one missing page and the first paragraph of the page following it, so the story would properly flow, and added two sentences to fill the gap of the second break in the narrative. It was not difficult, as the narratives on the pages before and after the missing page and before and after the second gap were very clear.

I then identified all the individuals mentioned by Porter by locating all of them in the census records of 1850, 1860, and even 1870 when necessary, as well as in the Porter and Hines family histories or in the extant military records, to make sure they were the persons actually referred to by Porter. All individuals mentioned were given their full names and, where appropriate, their correct military ranks held at the times referenced by Porter. I also spelled out abbreviations of titles, regimental numbers, and dates. I also added words to complete some sentences. In those cases, the context of the narrative made the completion of those sentences simple. There were some sentences I rephrased in order to make the meaning more understandable. I also corrected the spelling of names of persons and places where it was necessary.

I broke the manuscript down into fourteen chapters and then annotated it with endnotes so that the reader would be able to fully understand who the individuals Porter mentions were, what roads (keyed to present-day highways and roads) Porter was traveling, and the context in which the events Porter narrates must be placed. At the beginning of each chapter, I wrote an introduction that appears in italics in order that the reader might understand the context of each episode of Porter's narrative. Hopefully, these edited memoirs retain much of Porter's writing style but are given context, completeness, and readability.