Thirteen months in the Rebel Army

As our last form was going to press we received the following note from a Minister of the Gospel of this city, whose name is widely known, and as widely respected, both in Europe and America. A.S. BARNES & BURR, Publishers. NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 1862.

Inscrutable "Dixie!" your "adversary has written a book," as damaging to Rebeldom as the Monitor to the Merrimac. The secrets of Rebel counsels and resources have been well concealed, while National plans have been penetrated by traitorous eyes and revealed by treasonable tongues. At last the vail has been uplifted, and we have more of valuable, reliable information, as to the internal condition of Jeff-dom and its armies, than has leaked out since the fall of Sumter.

"Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army" gave "An Impressed New Yorker" rare opportunities of knowing what is to be known outside of the Richmond Cabinet. Let a sharp-witted young man make his way from Memphis to Columbus and Bowling Green, and thence to Nashville, Selma, Richmond, and Chattanooga; put him into the battles of Belmont and Shiloh; bring him in contact with Morgan, Polk, Breckenridge, and a bevy of Confederate generals; employ him consecutively in the infantry, ordnance, cavalry, courier, and hospital services; then put a pen in his hand, and if his sketches of men and things in the land of darkness have not interest and value, pray what would you read in war-time?

The writer has been favored with the perusal of the proof-sheets of this remarkable book. Many of its incidents had had the charm of personal narration from the lips of the author; but it is only just to say, that the lucid, graphic style of the author gives all the vividness of personal description to the scenes and incidents of which he was an eyewitness. That so many and such varied adventures should have fallen to the lot of a single person, is passing strange; and that he should have survived and escaped to relate them, is, perhaps, yet stranger. That they were all experienced substantially as related, none will doubt, when the minute details of name, date, place, and surroundings are found to be sketched with palpable truthfulness.

The temper of the book is scarcely less noteworthy than its fund of incident and anecdote. Parson Brownlow's book and speeches are brimful of invective. He's a good hater, indeed. He claimed in his Academy of Music speech that, "If there was any thing on God's earth that he was made for, it was to pile up epithets against this infernal rebellion!" Chacun à son gout. Our young author has struck a harder blow at the Confederacy by his damaging facts, than if he had intensified them with the vocabulary of profanity and vituperation. There has been more than enough of bitter words, North and South; it is now a question of strength, and skill, and endurance. This book will teach us to respect the energy, while we detest the principles, of this stupendous rebellion.

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PREFACE.

A WORD TO THE READER.

I give to you, in the following pages, a simple narrative of facts. I have no motive to misrepresent or conceal. I have an honest desire to describe faithfully and truly what I saw and heard during thirteen months of enforced service in the Rebel army.

If I should seem to you to speak too favorably of individuals or occurrences in the South, I beg you to consider that I give impressions obtained when in the South. If my book has any value it lies in this very fact, that it gives you an interior view of this stupendous rebellion, which can not be obtained by one standing in the North and looking at it only with Northern eyes.

I have confidence in truth; and unwelcome truth, is none the less truth, and none the less valuable. Sure am I, that if the North had known the whole truth as to the power, the unanimity, and the deadly purpose of the leaders in the rebellion, the government would have been far better prepared for promptly meeting the crisis. Look then candidly at facts, and give them their true weight.