To General Anson Mills
from his friend
Nelson A. Miles
Lieut-General U. S. Army
PREFACE
Washington, D. C., December 12, 1917.
The record of important events in human affairs as they are placed upon the pages of history and drift into the shadows of the past, should be recorded with sacred fidelity. The historian who places accurate and important knowledge at the disposal of the present and future students and writers is a public benefactor for those not only of his own time, but for the generations that shall follow.
The achievements and failures, the evils and blessings, the benevolence and the injustice, the rights and wrongs, the ambitions, wisdom and intelligence, the happiness and nobility, as well as the distress and sacrifice of a race or people rightly recorded, forms an invaluable guide and chart for the innumerable throng that occupy the field of activities and in their turn pass on to be replaced by others.
Doubly fortunate is the one who takes an important and distinguished part in the important events of his time, and then can write an account of those events for the instruction and benefit of others. It is doubtful if any epoch in history was more important or freighted with more difficult or greater problems to be solved than those presented during the time just preceding, during and subsequent to our great Civil War.