Joseph E. Johnston was a mass of contradictions. Brave under fire, yet often mysteriously absent from the firing-line. Fiercely loyal to his government, yet treacherous and deceitful to his colleagues. Probably the best-educated general in America, yet incapable of writing a clear sentence, or as it transpired, a truthful one. His long-awaited memoirs turned out to be not only unreadable, but a pack of lies.

One sensitive issue was rank. The Confederate president Jefferson Davis (a regular soldier who had wanted to be General-in-Chief, and somewhat resented being kicked upstairs) had ranked Johnston only fourth out of five of his newly-created full generals, for which he never forgave Davis.

In command at the war’s first major battle (Manassas, July 1861), Johnston found himself in an odd position. Despite being Virginia born and bred, he was unfamiliar with the terrain, unlike his subordinate general, Pierre Beauregard from faraway New Orleans, who knew every fold in the hills. For this reason, Johnston sensibly deferred more authority to him than would be usual.

When Manassas turned out to be a spectacular confederate win, there was enough gushing praise showered on both generals to satisfy anyone’s vanity. So why Johnston would have felt the need to diminish Beauregard’s contribution is a mystery. It certainly puzzled General Gustavus Woodson Smith, who had worked closely with both officers in the months following the battle, and was shocked at the liberties Johnston had taken in his memoirs. This slim volume was the result.

Smith is no stylist, and the book is not for everyone. Published in 1892 (one year after Johnston’s death and one year before Beauregard’s, whether or not by design), it would have carried a lot more weight in its day, when every brigade commander would have been a household name, and every bridge across every stream would have been familiar to a thousand battlefield tourists. Today, you would need to be a pretty keen Civil War scholar to make sense of the detail of the various contradictory reports. But it is not without interest to observe the war in its infancy, spotting names, then still unknown, that would soon go on to make legends. And of course, to be reminded that truth is the first casualty of war.