Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)

STUDIES - M. Thomas Inge: Sam Watkins and the Fictionality of Fact

M. THOMAS INGE SAM WATKINS AND THE FICTIONALITY OF FACT The name Samuel Rush Watkins is not one you will find entered in the major encyclopedias of the South or the Civil War, nor will you find in indexed in most of the extensive historical chronicles of that event in American history. He was a bit forgetful when it came to names and dates in his one published book, which historian Bell Irvin Wiley said had a number of limitations and deficiencies. The fact of his working solely from memory caused him to make some errors of detail ... His prejudices sometimes led to distortions ... Watkins sometimes reports as direct quotations long excerpts from prayers and speeches which he admittedly did not write down at the time and he could not have remembered after twenty years. Some of the instances which he relates have the flavor of tall tales....

1 Also Roy P. Basler has taken note of Watkins's "minor inaccuracies in the recording of names and recollections of precise dates..."

2 Yet when 1 Bell Irvin Wiley, "Introduction," "Co. Aytch." Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment; or, A Side Show of the Big Show (Jackson, Tenn.: McCowat

—Mercer Press, 1952) 11—23 (quotations on pp. 17, 19). ^ Roy P. Basler, "Introduction," "Co. Aytch": A Side Show of the Big Show (New York: Collier, 1962) 5—9 (quotation on p. 9). 47