This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... INTRODUCTION. It is well known that for twenty years I have resisted urgent appeals of surviving comrades to write a history of the First Alabama Regiment. Even now I yield my consent to undertake this sketch only after fully realizing that unless I write it, the regiment will be left without any record, and that it will be better for the regiment to have a poorly written record than none whatever. I am fully aware of my incompetence to do the subject justice; and the insistence of Col. I. G. W. Steedman, the distinguished commander of the regiment during the war, and of Thomas M. Owen, the able and active Director of the Department of Archives and History, are to a large degree responsible for the final appearance of the work. The following personal allusions are necessary in order to gratify the natural desire of readers to know the opportunities I have had by experience and observation for ascertaining the facts and incidents here recorded. I was an original member of the "Perote Guards," organized at Perote, Bullock (then Pike) county, in 1859, and composed mostly of students of the Perote Institute and of young business men of the town; left Perote with the company Feb. 12, 1861, and the next day was mustered into the service of Alabama at Girard by a Captain Thom; was organized with the company into the First Regiment Alabama Volunteers at Barrancas, Fla., about a month later, which regiment, by consent of men and officers, was transferred to the Confederate service about April 1, 1861; remained with the regiment until its surrender with the Army of Tennessee, April 27, 1865, at Greensboro, N. C.; participated in every battle and campaign of the regiment except the march from Lovejoy Station, Ga., to Tuscumbia, Ala., in the fall of...