Excerpt from Men of West Virginia, Vol. 1 Having brought to a successful termination the task of compiling and editing the sketches contained in these two volumes of the Men of West Virginia, we desire, in presenting the work to our patrons, to make a few remarks, necessarily brief, in regard to the value and importance of biographical works of this nature. We agree with Ralph Waldo Emerson that Biography is the only true History, and also are of the opinion that a collection of the biographies of the leading men of a State or Nation would give a more interesting, as well as authentic, history of their country than any other that could be written. 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.