To prepare his journals for future reading Gallison left many marginal notes, with additions, observations, and references to previous or subsequent entries being quite common.
One other interesting part of this manuscript preparation is his deletions. Broadly speaking, he left two kinds. One, transparent and frugal with ink, serves to delete an error that he didn’t want to forget completely. A blind alley in his work on Euclid and an unduly pessimistic theological note received that treatment in Volume A.
Present elsewhere are examples of the absolute obliteration. His intent was always that he should be the only reader of the journals. Nevertheless, context suggests that he occasionally left reports that might have been embarrassing to someone else were they to be discovered later. Those get a very different treatment, as what he gave to Uncle Sewall’s opinion in the summer of 1812. Federalists were talking increasingly openly about secession from the union, and Sewall or someone in his inner circle seems to have said something that would have led to censure after the War of 1812’s conclusion.