Who has kindly perused these sketches, I would say, as they have already attained length and breadth not anticipated from the beginning, I will withhold the sequels to many of them for, perhaps, another volume of reminiscences.

Were I possessed of the Sam Weller genius and versatility, and the happy faculty of making the reader wish I had written more, I would throw open the doors of the store-house of my war memories, a structure as capacious as the “Southern Confederacy” and canopied by the firmament, and invite the public to enter and share with me the treasures hidden there. The coruscations of wit and the profound displays of wisdom by many who donned Confederate grey and went forth in manhood’s prime to battle for the principles of their country, would employ the minds and feast the intellect of the most erudite. There are living, glowing pictures hanging upon the walls which delineate the mysteries of humanity in all its varied forms, and, by example, demonstrate that we often spurn with holy horror that which is better far than that which we embrace with all the fervor of affection. I would resurrect the loftest patriotism from the most humble graves in the Southern land, and prove by heroic deeds and noble acts that valor on the battle-field was as often illustrated by the humble soldier whose name has not been preserved in “storied urn,” as by the gallant son of chivalrous ancestors who commanded the applause of an admiring multitude. I would place by the side of those greatest of chieftains, Robert E. Lee, and our impregnable “Stonewall” Jackson and Albert Sidney Johnston, many of our soldiers “unknown to fame,” in faded grey jackets and war-worn pants, and challenge the world for the difference. I would dwell with loving interest upon the innumerable sad, sweet faces of the mighty throng of bereaved mothers, sisters and aunts, out of whose lives all light had gone, and who, though hopeless, uttered no words of complaint against our cause or its leader, but toiled on with unswerving faith and souls that borrowed the lustre of heaven. All these sad things in my gallery I would clothe in living form and glowing color. And, saddest of all, I would live over with them that melancholy period when the very few, comparatively, that were left of the noble defenders of our principles, came back, not with buoyant step and victor crown, but with blighted hopes and despondent mien to desolated homes and decimated families. Under the new regime I would tell of despair and suicide, of hope, energy and success; I would tell how I have lived in this gallery—its silent occupants my companions and friends, my inspiration to useful deeds. There is not a day that I do not arouse by muffled tread the slumbering echoes of this past, and look upon the cherished souvenirs of the patriotic friends now roaming the beautiful gardens of Paradise, or sleeping the mystic waiting of the resurrection. I ponder upon their lives, their ambitions, their disappointments, and it requires no effort of the imagination to animate those dead forms and invest them with living attributes. And daily, in imagination I weave for them a laurel crown that shall grow greener and greener as the cycles of Time speed on to Eternity.