The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tree of Appomattox, by Joseph A. Altsheler

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Title: The Tree of Appomattox

Author: Joseph A. Altsheler

Release Date: February 4, 2006 [EBook #17677]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE TREE OF APPOMATTOX
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAR'S CLOSE

by JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER

This book, now in the public domain in the USA, was originally:

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Copyright, 1944, By Sallie B. Altsheler

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

APPLETON-CENTURY-CROFTS, INC.

NEW YORK

FOREWORD

"The Tree of Appomattox" concludes the series of connected romances
dealing with the Civil War, begun in "The Guns of Bull Run," and
continued successively through "The Guns of Shiloh," "The Scouts of
Stonewall," "The Sword of Antietam," "The Star of Gettysburg," "The Rock
of Chickamauga" and "The Shades of the Wilderness" to the present volume.
It has been completed at the expense of vast labor, and the author has
striven at all times to be correct, wherever facts are involved. So far,
at least, no historic detail has been challenged by critic or reader.

More than half a century has passed since the Civil War's close. Not
many of the actors in it are left. It was one of the most tremendous
upheavals in the life of any nation, and it was the greatest of all
struggles, until the World War began, but scarcely any trace of partisan
rancor or bitterness is left. So, it has become easier to write of it
with a sense of fairness and detachment, and the lapse of time has made
the perspective clear and sharp.

However lacking he may be in other respects, the author perhaps had an
advantage in being born, and having grown up in a border state, where
sentiment was about equally divided concerning the Civil War. He was
surrounded during his early youth by men who fought on one side or the
other, and their stories of camp, march and battle were almost a part of
the air he breathed. So he hopes that this circumstance has aided him to
give a truthful col