 With the novel, the author enters the project with no desire to keep within nonfiction; however, with memoirs authors begin with the intention to stay true, yet once history becomes either dark or boring they add fictional elements.Reardon uses the Battle of Gettysburg to demonstrate how popular memory of the Civil War changes.Now, the Battle of Gettysburg is seen as a unifying symbol and the end of the Civil War; however, that was not always how it was seen.