A moment yet the actor stops,
And looks around to bid farewell.
It is an irksome word and task,
And when he's laughed and said his say,
He shews, as he removes his mask,
A face that's anything but gay.
[Thackeray.
My task is almost done, and my pen runs over these few last lines with a feeling closely akin to regret. Regret that this, the last slight tie binding me, as one of their number, to those to whom these pages are dedicated, is broken with their completion; regret at my inability to do better justice to a subject which could well task an abler pen than mine. The labor of its compilation has been trifling and a labor of love. To the whole of my brother officers I return my best thanks for the assistance they have rendered me, both in furnishing me with the official statistics of their companies, and also for their personal reminiscences of scenes we have passed through together, as well as those from which I was absent.
In compiling this history I have, like Othello, simply tried to
—"deliver a round unvarnished tale,"