My Dear Reader: Among the many publications which the late war has drawn forth, I present you with something which you have never read, nor which has ever been in print, until the issue of this little book. The sketches contained herein have been carefully revised and made as brief as possible, with the object of bringing before you the privations and hardships of the rank and file. A few of the amusing incidents of life in the army are also chronicled, as they occurred in Camp, on the March, or on the Battlefield. Papers on compulsory education, the pulpit and the press, farm life, and one on the merits of America's two grandest men (George Washington and Abraham Lincoln) will also be found herein.

Thomas J. Ford.

Milwaukee, May, 1898.