PREFACE. Why do I write this book? To add my tribute to the memory of my hero husband and the noble men who followed him through the trials, dangers and hardships of a four years' war. The impulse which moves me is love, and I have endeavored that nothing should be written unworthy of that motive. If anything expressed or implied shall give pain to any, whether he wore the gray or the blue, it is contrary to the purpose or the wishes of the author contrary to the chivalrous soul of the soldier and patriot, George E. Pickett, whose courage and constancy this work is intended to commemorate. In the compilation of this record the reader must know that I could not bring personal witness to the events described. They are based upon the official and other reports of eye-witnesses and participants. In treating of the maneuvers and engagements herein mentioned, I have excluded every disparaging statement which the facts of history and justice to all participants would possibly permit. I have purposely avoided reading histories of the conflict by authors on both sides, and based my own narrative upon original material, to avoid the possibility of traveling over ground already covered by others. Upon the battle-field I visited last year grew a wonderful wealth of white daisies, piled drift upon drift like the banks of snow that glitter in the light of the winter sun. So blossom the flowers of peace and love and hope in the hearts which yet fondly cherish the memory of the longgone days of darkness and of blood. Though the dream nation about which clustered so many beautiful visions will never take its place among the courts and powers of the world; though the ideal which led the South through efforts of heroism not surpassed in all the records of the world will never be crystallized into that reality known to mortal eyes, yet in that higher realm of thought, where the ideal is the true real, it dwells in transcendent glory which transmutes into a golden veil of light the war-clouds by which it was enshrouded. That dream nation did not crumble into ruins and fade away into naught. The setting sun reflected from its gleaming minarets makes more radiant the light by which our united country marches on its way to national glory The bells in its towers ring out a pæan to swell the grand symphony which circles the world. The gallant sons of heroic fathers who fell on battlefields of North and South now stand together to defend our common country. Side by side North and South are marching against the foe; step by step they keep time to the mingled notes of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Dixie," blending into the noblest battle-hymn that ever thrilled the heart of soldier to deeds immortal. Three phases of loyalty sway the Southern heart today- loyalty to memory, loyalty to present duty, loyalty to hope. There is no rivalry among these phases of the same noble sentiment. Together they work for the evolution of a regenerated nation. He who is untrue to the past is recreant to the present and faithless to the future. LASALLE CORBELL PICKETT. WASHINGTON, D. C., August 15, 1898. |