4479 THE SOLDIER'S FRIEND; BEING A THRILLING NARRATIVE OF GRANDMA SMITH'S FOUR YEARS' EXPERIENCE AND BY MRS. S. E. D. SMITH. REVISED BY REV. JOHN LITTLE, AND DEDICATED TO THE REBEL SOLDIERS. MEMPHIS, TENN: PRINTED BY THE BULLETIN PUBLISHING COMPANY. 1867. Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by MRS. S. E. D. SMITH, In the Clerk's office of the District Court for the District of West Tennessee. BULLETIN PUBLISHING COMPANY, BINDERS, No. 222 Second street. DEDICATION. TO ALL TRUE PHILANTHROPISTS, AS WELL AS ALL TRUE PATRIOTIC LOVERS OF TRUE VALOR; AND ALL WHO CAN SYMPATHIZE WITH SUFFERING AND THE DISAPPOINTED, THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. PREFACE. The following work is unlike anything else ever offered to the public. In all the wars which compose so large a a portion of the History of this world, there was never a book written in such a place as a hospital, and by such a person as an uneducated, but Christian Matron. The authoress, gives, in language which fictitious writers would fain counterfeit, the scenes and incidents connected with warfares which are usually left behind the curtain. Perhaps the world would not so fondly relish the glories of war, if this vail were lifted, so as to exhibit the various phases of human suffering, protracted, or relieved as circumstances may enable or disable the various officers of the hospital. This book, should it be issued from the press, goes not forth, in a vindictive spirit to advocate a cause that has been forever abandoned, bnt which, during the services of the author, was thought to be a just one; but the object is to hold a light within the darkest recesses of the soldiers' bloody march down the road of carnage. Let the reader forget every other feature of the work but the one last mentioned above, and he will pray that there should never be another war. PARVUS. |