Note 15 — ABBREVIATIONS. (continued 3)

For nearly a score of years after the Civil War while in the Sixth U. S. Cavalry, I, as well as all other officers, had to map the wild country over which we scouted for hostile Indians on the plains between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. We used the prismatic compass bearings and odometer measurements, at the same time sketching the country passed over, showing all springs, rivulets and streams, their bank formations, all divides, buttes, mountains, etc., with elaborate notes, and sent the same to the Engineer Officer of the Department, from which all public maps have since been made of that country now largely in use. This in a measure had made me expert in treating such matters as well as battlefields. Never having seen a map that was correct of the locality about Winchester regarding Sheridan's battlefield in the first assault on Sept. 19, 1864, or the position of the enemy's infantry, artillery, etc., and as so many writers wrongly describe this assault, I concluded before having my diary typewritten for publication to visit this part of the battlefield in order to give a fairly correct description of it; and the one herein is as accurate as can be given without the use of the prismatic compass, odometer, etc.