Suffice it to say that, at least somewhere along the line, it appears that every last survivor of the episode on both sides attempted to a) capitalize on their exploits for years or even decades; b) inflate their role in the episode for posterity/ego's sake, and c) naysay other accounts of the episode. Further, some authors, then as now, don't seem to let the facts get in the way of a gripping story in order to sell books.

Leafing through both the various accounts (often filled with bombastic prose that would be laughable coming out of even a presidential candidate today) and the accounts about the accounts of the incident left me with a quite jaded and cynical approach to all the "I Was There" accounts of not only the "General" incident, but almost any Civil War recollections. I hasten to remember my father's advice that "those that do the most talking about their war exploits saw the least action or combat, and vice versa."

Were there, for lack of a better term, "letters home" from any of these people who actually experienced this? Those would seem to be the most honest and accurate portrayals, I would imagine

The major account often cited was by William Pittenger, who by many accounts was simply a small player in the raid itself, but got the chance to tell his tale (possibly with some embellishment?) in his book Daring and Suffering, a History of the Great Railroad Adventurers (Philadelphia, 1863; enlarged ed., New York, 1887).