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At the solicitation of some of my comrades, the pages of this book were for the most part compiled from a diary which I kept during most of the two years I served with them, and which was written amid the scenes it attempts to describe. To furnish them a faithful account of the principal scenes through which they passed during this period, including sketches of the operations in which they were engaged, and of which our Regiment formed a part; a record of what they saw, and did, and suffered, such as I thought they would like to read in future days, has been my object in presenting it in this shape. As it was written for my comrades, to them I dedicate it; and in giving it to the public, I have only to say that if it suits them, it suits me. With regard to facts which have since become history, to which I have had occasion to refer, I may have committed some errors and inaccuracies; my book was not written in the library of the historian, but in the tent of the soldier, and with few exceptions without other information than such as observation and report could supply. In speaking of prominent officers under whom we served, I have not forgotten that some of them are still my superior officers, and that it in nowise comports with my duties as a soldier to assume to be their historian or critic. But the time has come when the conduct of those who have passed into civil life may be criticized by those who were their inferiors in the military service. Of such I have endeavored to speak honestly but plainly, remembering that they dealt plainly with us.

I am under obligations to Col. Scott, 32d Iowa, Lieut. Chas. P. Brown, A. A. Q. M., Fort Pickering, W. B. Lakin, Esq., College Hill, Ohio, for valuable favors and assistance. I trust that time will afford me opportunities of paying them in a better manner than by this public acknowledgment.

And now I give these pages to the public, with the single regret that the deeds of men who have so many titles to honor and gratitude could not have been better recorded and by a more worthy hand.

S. D. THOMPSON,

Fort Pickering, Memphis, Tenn., March, 1864.

RECOLLECTIONS.