ale of over four hundred thousand copies; larger by many thousands than
that most extensively circulated and deservedly popular book, "Uncle
Tom's Cabin," had ever attained to, inclusive of its sale in Europe.

The first book written and published by Willard Glazier is of a
character to surprise us, when we consider the antecedents of the writer
up to the date of its publication, December, 1865. Enlisting in the
ranks of a cavalry regiment at the age of eighteen, during the exciting
period of the civil war; a participant in many of its sanguinary
battles; captured by the enemy and imprisoned under circumstances of the
greatest trial and discouragement, his position and surroundings were
not a very promising school for the training of an author. The book he
produced is, in our judgment, not unworthy of comparison with the
immortal work of Defoe, with this qualification in our author's favor
that "Robinson Crusoe" is a fiction, while Glazier's is a true story of
real adventure undergone by the writer and his comrades of the Union
army.

His style in narrating his adventures is admirably adapted to the
subject; while the simple, unpretentious manner in which he describes
the terrible scenes he witnessed, and passed through, enlists the
reader's interest in the work, and sympathy for the modest writer
himself. By the publication of this book, Glazier stamped his name upon
his country's roll of honor, and at the same time laid the foundation of
his fortune.

As a specimen of his easy flowing style we give part of the opening
chapter of "Capture, Prison-Pen and Escape:"

"The first battle of Bull Run was fought July twenty-first, 1861, and
the shock of arms was felt throughout the land, carrying triumph to the
South, and to the North dismay. Our proud and confident advance into
'Dixie' was not only checked, but turned into a disastrous rout. The
patriotic but unwarlike enthusiasm of the country, which had hoped to
crush the rebellion with seventy-five thousand men, was temporarily
stifled. But the chilling was only like that of the first stealthy drops
of the thunder-gust upon a raging fire, which breaks out anew and with
increased vigor when the tempest fans it with its fury, and now burns in
spite of a deluge of rain. The chill had passed and the fever was
raging. From the great centres of national life went forth warm currents
of renovating public opinion, which reached the farthest hamlet on our
frontiers. Every true