BURLINGTON:
FREE PRESS PRINTING CO.
PRINTERS, BINDERS, STATIONERS.
1908.
DEDICATION.
TO THE PATRIOTS AND COMRADES
OF ONE OF VERMONT'S MOST GALLANT REGIMENTS,
THE TENTH VERMONT VOLUNTEER INFANTRY.
MAY ITS STATE PRIDE,
FIDELITY, esprit de corps AND SPLENDID RECORD IN
THE CIVIL WAR SERVE AS AN EXAMPLE AND
INSPIRATION TO COMING GENERATIONS.
[PREFACE]
The following Diary covering the interesting period of the Civil War from January 1, to December 31, 1864, and a portion of 1865 to the surrender of General R. E. Lee at Appomattox Court House, Va., was kept by the Author at the age of twenty-two when an officer of the Tenth Regiment Vermont Volunteer Infantry, Third and First Brigade, Third Division, Third and Sixth Corps respectively, Army of the Potomac, and is a brief war history as seen by a young soldier literally from the front line of battle during General U. S. Grant's celebrated campaign from the Rapidan River to Petersburg, Va., and Gen. P. H. Sheridan's famous Shenandoah Valley campaign in the summer and fall of 1864. During this time the Author passed from the grades of Second to First Lieutenant and Captain, and commanded in the meantime in different battles five or more companies in his regiment which afforded an excellent opportunity to make a fairly interesting general diary of the fighting qualities of his regiment and especially of the companies which he commanded during that most interesting period of the Civil War when the backbone of the Rebellion was broken, which, together with Sherman and Thomas' cooperations led to the surrender of General R. E. Lee at Appomattox C. H. April 9, 1865.
For thirty-eight years the diary remained closed, and indeed had been forgotten by the Author until he accidentally ran across it one day in an old chest, when on leave of absence in Vermont, where it had been placed after the war by someone for safe keeping, the Author in the meantime having been an officer in the regular army many years and honored with the degree of B. S. by his Alma Mater on account of his supposed accomplishments in military science after many years of hard service, a large portion of which was on the frontier among the Indians whose civilization was finally largely brought about through his recommendation to educate all the Indian children throughout the United States, about 1877-9, when he was considered an expert on the Indian question both by the War and Interior Departments.