WITH LEE IN VIRGINIA

A Story Of The American Civil War.

by G.A. Henty




PREFACE.

My Dear Lads:

The Great War between the Northern and Southern States of
America possesses a peculiar interest for us, not only because it
was a struggle between two sections of a people akin to us in race
and language, but because of the heroic courage with which the
weaker party, with ill-fed, ill-clad, ill-equipped regiments, for four
years sustained the contest with an adversary not only possessed of
immense numerical superiority, but having the command of the
sea, and being able to draw its arms and munitions of war from all
the manufactories of Europe. Authorities still differ as to the rights
of the case. The Confederates firmly believed that the States
having voluntarily united, retained the right of withdrawing from
the Union when they considered it for their advantage to do so.
The Northerners took the opposite point of view, and an appeal to
arms became inevitable. During the first two years of the war the
struggle was conducted without inflicting unnecessary hardship
upon the general population. But later on the character of the war
changed, and the Federal armies carried wide-spread destruction