चड US 6289.31.15. HAI LIBRARY ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. ΤΟ HENRY STANLEY ALLEN, Esq., OF NEW YORK, THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, WITH SINCERE RESPECT AND REGARD, BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. ALTHOUGH General Sherman's military career has only reached its most interesting and brilliant period, grateful and admiring thousands will welcome an authentic outline of his history to the present time. The facts of his early life were obtained from those who knew him best. To Colonel Bowman, an appreciative friend of General Sherman, whose sketches of him in the U. S. Service Magazine were graphic and reliable, to the Army and Navy Journal and able correspondents, we are indebted for valuable material. The pen-portrait of the great commander, by Mr. Alvord, which has never before been published, will be read with special interest. The volume is not offered to the public as a complete biography, with all that might have been omitted carefully sifted from the essential statements, but the annals of a remarkable man, with incidents connected with his movements; affording the youth and all others, a general view of the nation's hero, from infancy to the unrivalled distinction he now holds. May the unpretending volume stimulate the youthful mind to virtuous and noble deeds, while it contributes to the more complete and voluminous memoirs which will be written in the peaceful future before us, for whose blessings of a perpetuated Union and civil liberty we shall owe a lasting debt of gratitude to General Sherman. |