INTRODUCTORY.
I have been so often urged by old army comrades, as well as other friends, to publish the facts contained in the following pages in a convenient shape for preservation, that I have concluded to comply with their wishes, and now present them in this form. Many of the less important details have been omitted, as well with a view of preventing the story from becoming tiresome as of getting it within the limits of space it was intended it should occupy. While the experience was attended with trials and suffering, I wish to assure the reader that it was nothing more than was endured by hundreds of other boys who saw service in the War of the Great Rebellion. I would not go through it again for all the world, and yet I would not like to lose the satisfaction I enjoy in the knowledge of my success in overcoming so many seemingly insurmountable difficulties. It is a plain narration of facts, and is written without any effort to overdraw or embellish. I hand it over to the friends and comrades who have been urging me to publish it, in the hope that it will help to fill up an idle moment.
B. F. Hasson.