Senator Zachariah Chandler was deep in the confidence in the Civil War era and knew many things he thought it unwise to indulge. From his biography: “The secret history of these exciting days teeming with incident and concealing many startling revelations, has yet been but sparingly written; it is doubtful if the veil will ever be more than slightly lifted.”

Senator Wade, his colleague once said to a reporter who wanted to write some inside history: “There is no use in telling what we know unless we tell the whole truth, and if I tell the whole truth I shall blast too many reputations.”