manuscripts in his possession, to which we have added all the material
we could acquire by industry or by purchase. It is with the advantage,
therefore, of a wide personal acquaintance with all the leading
participants of the war, and of perfect familiarity with the
manuscript material, and also with the assistance of the vast bulk of
printed records and treatises which have accumulated since 1865, that
we have prosecuted this work to its close.

If we gained nothing else by our long association with Mr. Lincoln we
hope at least that we acquired from him the habit of judging men and
events with candor and impartiality. The material placed in our hands
was unexampled in value and fullness; we have felt the obligation of
using it with perfect fairness. We have striven to be equally just to
friends and to adversaries; where the facts favor our enemies we have
recorded them ungrudgingly; where they bear severely upon statesmen
and generals whom we have loved and honored we have not scrupled to
set them forth, at the risk of being accused of coldness and
ingratitude to those with whom we have lived on terms of intimate
friendship. The recollection of these friendships will always be to us
a source of pride and joy; but in this book we have known no
allegiance but to the truth. We have in no case relied upon our own
memory of the events narrated, though they may have passed under our
own eyes; we have seen too often the danger of such a reliance in the
reminiscences of others. We have trusted only our diaries and
memoranda of the moment; and in the documents and reports we have
cited we have used incessant care to secure authenticity. So far as
possible, every story has been traced to its source, and every
document read in the official record or the original manuscript.

We are aware of the prejudice which exists against a book written by