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Title: Chancellorsville and Gettysburg
Campaigns of the Civil War - VI

Author: Abner Doubleday

Release Date: March 7, 2007 [EBook #20762]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHANCELLORSVILLE AND GETTYSBURG ***

Produced by Ed Ferris

CHANCELLORSVILLE
AND GETTYSBURG

_CAMPAIGNS OF THE CIVIL WAR.--VI._

CHANCELLORSVILLE
AND
GETTYSBURG

BY
ABNER DOUBLEDAY
BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL, U.S.A., AND LATE MAJOR-GENERAL U.S.V.;
COMMANDING THE FIRST CORPS AT GETTYSBURG.

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
743 AND 745 BROADWAY
1882

COPYRIGHT BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1882

TROW'S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
210-213 _East 12th Street_

NEW YORK

PREFACE.

In writing ths narrative, which relates to the decisive campaign
which freed the Northern States from invasion, it may not be out
of place to state what facilities I have had for observation in
the fulfilment of so important a task. I can only say that I was,
to a considerable extent, an actor in the scenes I describe, and
knew the principal leaders on both sides, in consequence of my
association with them at West Point, and, subsequently, in the
regular army. Indeed, several of them, including Stonewall Jackson
and A. P. Hill, were, prior to the war, officers in the regiment
to which I belonged. As commander of the Defences of Washington
in the spring of 1862, I was, owing to the nature of my duties,
brought into intimate relations with the statesmen who controlled
the Government at the time, and became well acquainted with President
Lincoln. I was present, too, after the Battle of Gettysburg, at
a very interesting Cabinet Council, in which the pursuit of Lee
was fully discussed; so that, in one way and another, I have had
better opportunities to judge of men and measures than usually fall
to the lot of others who have written on the same subject.

I have always felt it to be the duty of every one who held a
prominent position in the great war to give to posterity the benefit
of his personal recollections; for no dry official statement