Excerpt from Fourth Biographical Record of the Class of Fifty-Eight: Yale University; 1858-1897 MY classmates: - This Record was ready to present to you in August, but, thinking that a delay of a few months, just at the period when mail communication was being restored throughout the South, would add materially to the interest of the book, its publication has been delayed. Its preparation has developed much warm and kind feeling. My forebodings have been as uniformly disproved as the war prophecies of the London Timer. Where I thought to find indifference to class affairs, I have found deep interest, and where, after addressing a classmate two or three times for additional items, I have at length felt it necessary to enclose a stamp, and have expected to get a letter beginning Dear Sir, I have always received a cordial My dear Bacon, - and once received a stamp besides! It has been work but a work of love: and if the perusal of the book shall afford you a tithe of the pleasure that its compilation has afforded me, I shall feel amply repaid. It has perplexed me to decide what character to give the work in hand, and whether any particular character mu/(l be impressed upon the whole work. Mem bers of or candidates for the Happy Family have answered the circular in the comic vein exclusively, while others have taken the serious line; and while some have taken it for granted that I knew certain items, many, after sending me one date of birth, for instance, have sent me another, perhaps thinking that all those numbers might have been taken. Could I have inserted the letters in the first person, the record would have been more piquant; but many seem to contain much written in confi dence, - one covers six foolscap pages, and some answer the description of the Van kee, who was so short that he made a hole in the ground. 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.