Government. So far as was practicable, he has endeavored to allow the
chief characters in that Conspiracy-as well as the Union leaders, who,
whether in Executive, Legislative, or Military service, devoted their
best abilities and energies to its suppression--to speak for themselves,
and thus while securing their own proper places in history, by a process
of self-adjustment as it were, themselves to write down that history in
their own language. If then there be found within these covers aught
which may seem harsh to those directly or indirectly, nearly or
remotely, connected with that Conspiracy, he may not unfairly exclaim:
"Thou canst not say I did it." If he knows his own heart, the writer
can truly declare, with his hand upon it, that it bears neither hatred,
malice, nor uncharitableness, to those who, misled by the cunning
secrecy of the Conspirators, and without an inkling or even a suspicion
of their fell purposes, went manfully into the field, with a courage
worthy of a better cause, and for four years of bloody conflict,
believing that their cause was just, fought the armies of the Union, in
a mad effort to destroy the best government yet devised by man upon this
planet. And, perhaps, none can better understand than he, how hard, how
very hard, it must be for men of strong nature and intense feeling,
after taking a mistaken stand, and especially after carrying their
conviction to the cannon's mouth, to acknowledge their error before the
world. Hence, while he has endeavored truly to depict--or to let those
who made history at the time help him to depict--the enormity of the
offence of the armed Rebellion and of the heresies and plottings of
certain Southern leaders precipitating it, yet not one word will be
found, herein, condemnatory of those who, with manly candor, soldierly
courage, and true patriotism, acknowledged that error when the ultimate
arbitrament of the sword had decided against them. On the contrary, to
all such as accept, in good faith, the results of the war of the
Rebellion, the writer heartily holds out the hand of forgiveness for the