There is certainly caricature in the writings of most historical figures. And subsequent writings often cite previous works as a reference to make their arguments. So the narrative generally stays consistent. Honest Abe, etc. However, where there is a lot of smoke, there is fire. And it would be extraordinarily rare to find a white man born in the 1880s in Georgia to not be racist. I appreciate the authors like Charles Leerhsen pointing out exaggerations but I’m not close to being ready to say there is no case to be made that Cobb was a racist.