Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
HIGGINS & BRADLEY,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the
Southern District of New York.
[PREFACE.]
This work makes no pretensions to absolute originality being partially a compilation, with incidents in the life of the Author, who was an actor in many of the scenes narrated. He has striven to be judicious in selecting, from the most authentic sources, only that which would be interesting, at this crisis, to the general reader.
Some extracts are given entire; in other cases, long passages have been abridged and condensed.
Information from a vast variety of sources has, in many instances, been put together, and presented in a new and more graphic form.
Minute details, as far as practicable, have been avoided; whilst the whole ground has been, more or less, completely surveyed. The Author has sought to make a popular volume, which might be read with pleasure, and be permanently serviceable as a book of reference.