NEW YORK:
BLELOCK & COMPANY,
19 Beekman Street,
1866.
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1866, by
GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for theSouthern District of New York.
Scrymgeour, Whitcomb & Co.,
Stereotypers,
15 Water Street, Boston.[Pg 6]
Inconsistency in hyphenation in this etext is as in the original book.
Who saw the war as vividly as he sang it; and whose aims for the peacethat has ensued, are even nobler than the noble influence he exertedduring the struggle, these chapters of travel are inscribed by hisfriend and colleague.[Pg 8][Pg 7]
In the early part of 1863, while I was resident in London,—the first ofthe War Correspondents to go abroad,—I wrote, at the request of Mr.George Smith, publisher of the Cornhill Magazine, a series of chaptersupon the Rebellion, thus introduced:—
"Few wars have been so well chronicled, as that now desolatingAmerica. Its official narratives have been copious; the greatnewspapers of the land have been represented in all its campaigns;private enterprise has classified and illustrated its severalevents, and delegates of foreign countries have been allowed tomingle freely with its soldiery, and to observe and describe itsbattles. The pen and the camera have accompanied its bayonets, andthere has not probably been any skirmish, however insignificant,but a score of zealous scribes have remarked and recorded it.
"I have employed some leisure hours afforded me in Europe, todetail those parts of the struggle which I witnessed in a civilcapacity. The Sketches which follow are entirely personal, anddwell less upon routine incidents, plans, and statistics, than uponthose lighter phases of war which fall beneath the dignity ofsevere history and are seldom related. I have endeavored toreproduce not only the adventures, but the impressions of anovitiate, and I have described not merely the army and itsoperations, but the country invaded, and the people who inhabit it.
"The most that I have hoped to do, is so to simplify a campaign[Pg 9]that the reader may realize it as if he had beheld it, travellingat will, as I did, and with no greater interest than to see howfields were fought and won."
To those chapters, I have added in this collection, some estimates ofAmerican life in Europe, and some European estimates of American life;with my ultimate experiences in the War after my return to my owncountry. I cannot hope that they will be received with the same favor,either here or abroad, as that which greeted their original publication.But no man ought to let the first four years of his majority slip awayunrecorded. I would rather publish a tolerable book now than a possiblygood one hereafter.[Pg 10]