A WORD TO THE READER.


I give to you, in the following pages, a simple narrative of facts.
I have no motive to misrepresent or conceal. I have an honest desire
to describe faithfully and truly what I saw and heard during
thirteen months of enforced service in the Rebel army.

If I should seem to you to speak too favorably of individuals or
occurrences in the South, I beg you to consider that I give
impressions obtained when in the South. If my book has any value it
lies in this very fact, that it gives you an interior view of this
stupendous rebellion, which can not be obtained by one standing in
the North and looking at it only with Northern eyes.

I have confidence in truth; and unwelcome truth, is none the less
truth, and none the less valuable. Sure am I, that if the North had
known the whole truth as to the _power, the unanimity, and the
deadly purpose_ of the leaders in the rebellion, the government
would have been far better prepared for promptly meeting the crisis.
Look then candidly at facts, and give them their true weight.

As I am under no obligation, from duty or honor, to conceal what I
was compelled to see and hear in the South, I tell it frankly;
hoping it may be of value to my bleeding country, I tell it plainly.
I have no cause to love the Confederate usurpation, as will fully
appear, yet I refrain from abusive and denunciatory epithets,
because both my taste and judgment enjoin it.

For the accuracy of names, dates, and places, I rely wholly upon