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Whatever aids in illustrating the spirit of the late great struggle, through which the nation has so successfully passed, must be of interest to the American reader. The occurrences of the late rebellion will ever form a study for the free citizens of the Republic, of far deeper interest than those of any other event in the world's history; and few will be content with the perusal of mere outlines, or of battle descriptions, however vivid, but which are only repetitions, though of a magnified type, of what the world has witnessed at almost every decade, since the dawn of civilization; and hence they will search out details, and incidents, which will lead them into the spirit of a conflict, to which they are indebted for their national greatness, material prosperity, and civil and religious freedom; and those incidents may be as readily learned in connection with the career of the Private Soldier, as with that of the Major General.

The simple but touching narratives of one who has survived the horrors of a rebel prison; or the little hillock which covers the remains of one of the murdered victims of rebel cruelty, are far more perfect illustrations of the civilization of the ruling classes in the South, and the malignity of their character, than the whole career of the ablest of our commanders.

Thousands of incidents in the life of every soldier, were they recorded, would be invaluable in illustrating the history of the late war; but the mass of these will soon be forgotten, and the actors themselves fill unknown graves. Men who, in any other era, would be singled out, and known as heroes to a whole nation for their gallant deeds, will pass through life as but one of millions, and must rest content with a general tribute to the great mass.

We are now to have a national literature, as well as a national existence. American writers of romance and the drama, will no longer seek the antiquated regions of Europe for scenes and heroes; America has supplied all that is necessary to the most vivid of pictures; and no pen, even though the plot be fiction, need ever exaggerate in incidents or descriptions. He who tells the simple truth, narrates more of the strange and the heroic, than could be conceived by the fertility of a Dickens, or a Dumas.

The writer of this narrative, throughout, has adhered strictly to facts, without any attempt at embellishment. The wild chases after the Comanches; the stern duties of war; and the hardships of prison life, have left him little time to cultivate elegant diction, and as he has an abiding conviction that unvarnished truth is ever more acceptable than high wrought fiction, he is content with the simple narrative, which is spread before the reader in the pages which follow.

The Author.

Hillsboro, Ohio, June 21, 1865.

SCOUT AND RANGER.