Memories

MNEMOSYNE The Goddess of Memory. (From a photograph by Washburne.)
THE BOYS WHO WORE THE GRAY,
WHETHER THE LOFTY OR THE LOWLY; EQUALLY TO THE SURVIVING HEROES WHO STAND BEFORE THE WORLD IN THE LIGHT OF A GLORY NEVER SURPASSED, AND TO THE MARTYRS WHOSE PATRIOT BLOOD AND SACRED GRAVES HAVE FOREVER SANCTIFIED THE LAND THEY LOVED,
THESE MEMORIES
ARE RESPECTFULLY AND LOVINGLY DEDICATED.
For several years my friends among Confederate soldiers have been urging me to write up and publish what I know of the war. By personal solicitation and by letter this subject has been brought before me and placed in the light of a duty which I owe to posterity. Taking this view of it, I willingly comply, glad that I am permitted to stand among the many witnesses who shall establish the truth, proud to write myself as one who faithfully served the defenders of the Cause which had and has my heart's devotion. I have tried to give a faithful record of my experiences, to nothing extenuate nor aught set down in malice, and I have told the truth, but not always the whole truth. A few of these Memories were originally written for the Southern Bivouac , and are here republished because my book would have been incomplete without them.
I am very inexperienced in the business of making books, but relying with confidence upon the leniency of my friends, and feeling sure that I have no enemy who will savagely rejoice that I have written a book, I make the venture.

INTRODUCTORY.
Among those who early espoused the Southern Cause, few, perhaps, were more in earnest than my husband and myself. Our patriotism was at the very outset put to a crucial test. The duties of a soldier and a civilian became incompatible. Being in ill health, it was thought best that I should go to my mother at the North for awhile. My husband, after preliminary service with the Minute Men and the State troops, as a member of Company A, Crescent Rifles, was, with this company, regularly mustered into the Confederate service in April, 1861, and left for Pensacola, Florida, where the Crescent Rifles, with the Louisiana Guards, Orleans Cadets, Shreveport Guards, Terrebonne Rifles, and Grivot Guards, were organized into the Dreux Battalion. It was then supposed that the affair would be settled in ninety days.