diligently fostered and nurtured in the young, and public opinion has
been voiced and energized in the statutes of many States, and in the
educational machinery of many municipalities. Over vast numbers of
schoolhouses in our land floats the American flag, the symbol of the
Union and the principles that underlie it.

The flag, the banner now of a reunited nation, means something more than
the sentiment of loyalty to the Union as the home of freedom; for it
implies the duty of defending the honor of that flag, the representative
idea of all we hold dear in Fatherland. In the East and the West a
considerable proportion of the high schools make military tactics a part
of their educational course. Companies, battalions, and regiments of
young men in their teens parade the streets of some of our cities,
showing in what manner the military spirit is kept alive, and, at the
same time, how the flag floating over our educational institutions,
which means so much more than ever before to our people, is to be
defended and perpetuated in the future.

The author of the six volumes of "The Blue and the Gray Series," as well
as of "The Army and Navy Series," the latter begun in the heat of the
war thirty years ago, earnestly believes in keeping active in the minds
of the young the spirit of patriotism. In the present volume, as in
those which have preceded it, he has endeavored to present to his
readers, not only a hero who is brave, skilful, and ready to give his
life for his country, but one who is unselfishly patriotic; one who is
not fighting for promotion and prize-money, but to save the Union in
whose integrity and necessity he believes as the safeguard and substance
of American liberty.

Peace has reigned in our land for nearly thirty years, and the