Editing a Historical Manuscript: Jared Sparks, Douglas Southall Freeman, and the Battle of Brandywine

Abstract

W l rHEN Douglas Southall Freeman accused Jared Sparks of ''gross falsification in editing,1 he was only the latest in a long line of scholars to condemn the nineteenth-century historian. Sparks's editorial methods had been under attack since the 1850s, when he was charged with publishing no part of the correspondence [of George Washington] precisely as Washington wrote it.2 Sparks was indeed guilty of changing Old Put to read General Putnam,' and 'but a flea-bite to 'totally inadequate,' among other alterations, as well as silently omitting many passages entirely.3 Sparks retorted that such changes were necessary to correct 'obvious slips of the pen, occasional inaccuracies of expression, and manifest faults of grammar'' in letters often written hastily and not for publication; the omissions within letters were in keeping with his announced principle of publishing 'only a selection of the writings.4 Motives aside, Sparks's defense amounted to an admission of guilt, and a permanent cloud settled over his scholarly reputa-