Excerpt from Rhode Island in the Rebellion A long preface is seldom read, and this shall be brief. It is right that the reader should know how the following letters came to be in print. The responsibility of the deed is less with the author than with many partial friends. They were written amid camp scenes and on the march, under circumstances unfavorable to literary composition, and were intended for private perusal alone. Portions of them appeared in the Providence Journal, and were received with a favor alike unexpected and gratifying. Numerous requests having been made that they should be gathered up as a Rhode Island contribution to the history of the War of the Rebellion, the author, with unaffected distrust of himself, has yielded to the judgment of others. At first, he designed to recast his correspondence, and give it the graver form of historic narrative, but time forbidding, he has exscinded unessential portions, added to it from parts "contraband" to the public at their date, and in notes drawn from official and other reliable sources, has given particulars of movements of which he was not an eye-witness. In the introduction is noted some points of great importance, viewed in their relations to subsequent events. In the Appendix will be found sketches of the Rhode Island infantry and cavalry regiments and batteries, besides other information that may hereafter be convenient for reference. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.