This history of the American Civil War, written by contemporary journalist Geo Alfred Townsend, begins: "Few ware have been so well chronicles, as that now desolating America. Its official narratives have been copious; the great newspapers of the land have been represented in its campaigns; private enterprise has classified and illustrated its several events, and delegates of foreign countries have been allowed to mingle freely with its soldiery, and to observe and describe the battles, and there has not probably been any skirmish, however insignificant, but a score of zealous scribes have remarked and recorded it."