TIVELY THE AUTHOR WAS
STUDENT, PROFESSOR, PRESIDENT;
TO
THOUSANDS OF HIS PUPILS YET LIVING;
TO
HIS COMPANIONS OF THE LOYAL LEGION,
COMRADES OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC,
ALL SURVIVING OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS
UNION OR CONFEDERATE;
ALL WHO CHERISH THE MEMORY OF THE PATRIOT DEAD
AND ALL WHO HATE WAR,
THIS RECORD IS AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED

PREFACE

This narrative of prison life differs from all others that I have seen,
in that it is careful to put the best possible construction upon the
treatment of Union prisoners by the Confederates, and to state and
emphasize kindnesses and courtesies received by us from them.

For the accuracy of the facts stated I am indebted to a diary kept from
day to day during the whole of my imprisonment, and to the best
obtainable records. The exact language of conversations cannot of course
always be remembered, but I aim always to give correctly the substance.

I am aware that the opinions I express in regard to Sheridan's strategy
at the Battle of Winchester are not those generally entertained. But I
give reasons. His own account of the battle is sadly imperfect. To
capture but five guns and nine battle flags at a cost of four thousand
six hundred and eighty killed and wounded, and leave almost the entire
rebel army in shape to fight two great battles within a month, was not
the programme he had planned. Early said "Sheridan should have been
cashiered."

I shall be blamed more for venturing to question Lincoln's policy of
subjugation. He had proclaimed with great power and in the most
unmistakable language in Congress that "any portion of any people had a
perfect right to throw off their old government and establish a new
one." But now, instead of standing strictly on the defensive, or
attempting by diplomacy to settle the conflict which had become
virtually international, he entered upon a war of conquest.

I do not blame him for refusing to exchange prisoners, nor President
Davis for allowing them to starve and freeze. Both were right, _if war
is right_. It was expedient that thirty, fifty, or a hundred thousand of
us should perish, or be rendered physically incapable of bearing arms
again. The "deep damnation of the taking off" was due not to individual
depravity but to military necessity.