Among the Union officers who escaped from Libby Prison at Richmond, on the night of the 9th of February, 1864, was my esteemed friend, General Harrison C. Hobart, then Colonel of the Twenty-first Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. His name is mentioned quite frequently in the preceding pages. Ten years after the war closed, he spent a few days at my house, and while there was requested to tell the story of his capture, imprisonment, and escape. My children gathered about him, and listened to his narrative with an intensity of interest which I am very sure they never exhibited when receiving words of admonition and advice from their father.

While my manuscript was in the hands of the publishers, it occurred to me that General Hobart's story would be as interesting to others as it had been to my own family, and so I wrote, urging him to furnish it to me for publication. He finally consented to do so, and I have the pleasure now of presenting it to the reader. It bears upon its face the evidence of its entire truthfulness, and yet is as interesting as a romance.