"Brother Against Brother" is the first of "The Blue and the Gray Army Series," which will include six volumes, though the number is contingent upon the longevity of one, still hale and hearty, who has passed by a couple of years the Scriptural limit of "threescore years and ten" allotted to human life. In completing the first six books of "The Blue and the Gray Series," the author realized that the scenes and events of all these stories related to life in the navy, which gallantly performed its full share in maintaining the integrity of the Union. The six books of "The Army and Navy Series," begun in the heat of the struggle thirty years ago, were equally divided between the two arms of the service; and it has been suggested that the equilibrium should be continued in the later volumes.

In the preface of "A Victorious Union," the consummation of the terrible strife which the navy had reached in that volume, the author announced his intention to make a beginning of the books which are to form the army division of the series. Soon after he had returned from his sixteenth voyage across the Atlantic, he found himself in excellent condition to resume the pleasurable occupation in which he has been engaged for forty years in this particular field. It seems to him very much like embarking in a new enterprise, though his work consists of an attempt to enliven and diversify the scenes and incidents of an old story which has passed into history, and is forever embalmed as the record of a heroic people, faithfully and bravely represented on hundreds of gory battle-fields, and on the decks of the national navy.

The story opens in one of the Border States, where two Northern families had settled only a few years before the exciting questions which immediately preceded organized hostilities were under discussion. Considerable portions of the State in which they were located were in a condition of violent agitation, and outrages involving wounds and death were perpetrated. The head of one of these two families was a man of stern integrity, earnestly loyal to the Union and the government which was forced into a deadly strife for its very existence. That of the other, influenced quite as much by property considerations as by fixed principles, becomes a Secessionist, fully as earnest as, and far more demonstrative than, his brother on the other side.

In each of these families are two sons, just coming to the military age, who are not quite so prominent in the present volume as they will be in those which follow it. "Riverlawn," the plantation which came into the possession of the loyal one by the will of his eldest brother, became the scene of very exciting events, in which his two sons took an active part. The writer has industriously examined the authorities covering this section of the country, including State reports, and believes he has not exaggerated the truths of history. As in preceding volumes relating to the war, he does not intend to give a connected narrative of the events that transpired in the locality he has chosen, though some of them are introduced and illustrated in the story.

The State itself, as evidenced by the votes of its Legislature and by the enlistments in the Union army, was loyal, if not from the beginning, from the time when it obtained its bearings. As in other Southern States, the secession element was more noisy and demonstrative than the loyal portion of the community, and thus obtained at first an apparent advantage. The present volume is largely taken up with the conflict for supremacy between these hostile elements. The loyal father and his two sons are active in these scenes; and the taking possession of a quantity of military supplies by them precipitates actual warfare, and the question as to whether or not a company of cavalry could be recruited at Riverlawn had to be settled by what amounted to a real battle.

To the multitude of his young friends now in their teens, and to the greater multitude now grown gray, who have encouraged his efforts during the last forty years, the author renewedly acknowledges his manifold obligations for their kindness, and wishes them all health, happiness, and all the prosperity they can bear.