lor and atmosphere necessarily
has been left to the imagination. It is a picture that he would present,
rather than a dry recital of dates and places, or a mere table of
statistics. The importance of these things need not be lessened by
seeking to give them an attractive form.

The writer must confess, also to an ambition to contribute something,
albeit but a little, toward giving to the Michigan cavalry brigade the
place in history which it richly earned; so that it may receive in its
due proportions the credit which it deserves for the patriotic and
valiant services rendered on so many battle fields. And especially does
it seem to be to him a duty to do this for the regiment in which it was
his privilege and good luck to serve.

This ambition, however, was nearly stifled, soon after its birth, by an
experience very galling to the pride of a well meaning, if sensitive and
fallible historian.

It was something like twenty years ago that a paper on the battle of
Cedar Creek, prepared with conscientious care and scrupulous fidelity to
the facts as the writer understood them, was mailed to General Wesley
Merritt, with the request, couched in modest and courteous phrase, that
he point out after having read it any inaccuracies of statement that he
might make a note of, as the article was intended for publication.

The distinguished cavalry officer replied, in a style that was bland,
that he had "long since ceased to read fiction;" that he no longer read
"even the Century war articles;" that an officer one month would give
his version of things which another officer in a subsequent number of
the same magazine would stoutly contradict; and that he was heartily
tired of the whole business.

General Merritt was, however, good enough to give in detail his reasons
for dissenting from the writer's account of a certain episode of the
battle, and his letter lent emphasis to the discussion in one of the
early chapters of this volume concerning men occupying different points
of view in a battle. This particular matter will be more fully treated
in its proper place. One must not be too sure of what he sees with his
own eyes and hears with his own ears, unless he is backed by a cloud of
witnesses.

Moreover this was notice plain as holy writ, that no mere amateur in the
art of war may presume, without the fear of being discredited, to have
known and observed that which did not at the time come within the scope
of those who had a r