possible
to know my old comrades as I knew them, and value them at their true
worth. My narrative is a true account of that soldier life, and
illustrates the stuff of which those men of the Army of Northern
Virginia were made. The story illustrates this in a graphic and
impressive way, because it is a simple and homely story of how they
lived, and what they did--showing what they were. It is an honorable
testimony to the character, and worth, as patriot soldiers, of my old
comrades--borne by one who saw them display their courage, and
endurance, and devotion in heroic conduct, in every possible way,
through the long strain, and stress of war--to the end.

I believe there is interest and value, to the true understanding of
history, in such narratives of personal witnesses to the men, and
things, and conditions of that past, which reflected so much glory on
the manhood of our American race; which sterling quality, of high
soldierly worth, has just been shown again, in the present generation of
our race, when American soldiers, drawn from the North, South, East and
West have stood, shoulder to shoulder, in the one American line, under
the Star-Spangled Banner, and fighting for the freedom of the world. Our
splendid American men of today are what they are, and have done what
they did, because the blood of their sires runs in them; because they
are "the same breed of dogs" with the American soldiers, who, on both
sides, in the bloody struggle of the Civil War, bore them so bravely in
the days gone by.

This narrative only paints the picture, and gives a sample of the
Anglo-Saxon American soldier of the generation just gone; it shed lustre
upon our race. This generation has done the same--all honor to both!

=A Summary=

Let us Americans, at all cost, keep pure the Anglo-Saxon blood, to which
this America belongs, of right; let us as a nation, Americans all, work
and dwell together in true comradeship, and let our nation walk in just
and right ways, for our country. Then, indeed, our heart's aspiration
shall be fulfilled.

"And the Star-Spangled Banner _forever_ shall wave
O'er the land of the free--and the home of the brave."

As a preface to the sketch of the active campaign, I have given some
account of our life in the winter quarters camp, the winter before, from
which we marched to battle when the Spottsylvania Campaign opened.

FROM THE RAPIDAN TO RICHMOND

CHAPTER I

SKETCH OF CAMP LIFE TH