The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Memories of Fifty Years, by William H.
Sparks

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Title: The Memories of Fifty Years
Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest

Author: William H. Sparks

Release Date: May 20, 2005 [eBook #15872]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEMORIES OF FIFTY YEARS***

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THE MEMORIES OF FIFTY YEARS:

Containing

Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished
Americans, and Anecdotes of
Remarkable Men;

Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring
during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly
Spent in the Southwest

by

W. H. SPARKS

Philadelphia:
Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.
Macon Ga.: J. W. Burke & Co.
Stereotyped by J. Fagan & Son.
Printed by Moore Bros.

1870

TO

MY BROTHER AND NEPHEW,
THE HONORABLE OVID GARTEN SPARKS,
AND
COLONEL THOMAS HARDEMAN,
OF MACON, GEORGIA.

This Volume is Dedicated

BY THEIR AGED AND AFFECTIONATE RELATIVE, TRUSTING
THEY WILL ESTEEM IT, WHEN HE SHALL HAVE
PASSED TO ETERNITY, AS SOME EVIDENCE
OF THE AFFECTION
BORNE THEM BY

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

In the same week, and within three days of the same date, I received
from three Judges of the Supreme Court, of three States, the request
that I would record my remembrances of the men and things I had known
for fifty years. The gentlemen making this request were Joseph Henry
Lumpkin, of Georgia; William L. Sharkey, of Mississippi, and James G.
Taliaferro, of Louisiana.

From Judge Sharkey the request was verbal; from the other two it came
in long and, to me, cherished letters. All three have been my intimate
friends--Lumpkin from boyhood; the others for nearly fifty years.
Judge Lumpkin has finished his work in time, and gone to his reward.
Judges Sharkey and Taliaferro yet live, both now over seventy years of
age. The former has retired from