perpetual worry
of the bivouac; of the martial achievements they performed, and some
they narrowly escaped performing; in a word, of the sum total of the
services they rendered to the Nation during those momentous Thirty
Days.

The statistics of the book have been compiled with care and fidelity.
The distances of that part of the line of march which lay in
Cumberland, Adams and Franklin counties, Pennsylvania, have been
measured off carefully on elaborate county maps, kindly loaned for the
purpose by Colonel Everdell. For the remainder of the route, no similar
guides being accessible, only approximate results were attainable. If
any one is disappointed to find these distances shorter than his own
rough estimates, he is reminded that the reckoning is made in those
tantalizing "Pennsylvania" miles--probably the longest on the
globe--with which we became so painfully familiar.

Having for the sake of the general reader scrupulously avoided
throughout the following narrative all allusions of a merely private or
personal interest, I should be wanting in good feeling, were I to let
this opportunity pass without paying my respects to those of my
companions in arms, to whom I am indebted for friendship, for kindness
and for sympathy. I am the more incited to make this acknowledgment
from the belief that I am not alone in cherishing such grateful
recollections--that many a heart will respond tenderly to all I shall
say.

Who of my company can soon forget the tender solicitude of Acting
Captain Shepard for his men--on the march, helping the weary by bearing
their burdens at the expense of his own strength, itself delicate; at
the bivouac, providing suitable care for the sick; and ever prompt to
spend himself for his command in a hundred delicate and unnoticed ways?
Or, the intelligent activity of Acting First Lieutenant Van Ingen, the
thorough disciplinarian and dashing officer; to whose energy and
forethought the company were primarily indebted, at the end of many a
hard day's march, for an early cup of hot coffee, and a bed of rails
which otherwise had been a bed of mud? Nor should I do justice to my
emotions did I fail to bear record to the prudence and sagacity of
Acting Second Lieutenant Hunter, whose dignity of character, finely
blended with genial humor, at once commanded the respect and secured
the attachment of his men; who was watchful against danger and cool in
the midst of it; who knew his duty as a soldier and l