Excerpt from History of the American War, Vol. 1: First Year of the War(1861-62) The author was induced to undertake the task of writing an account of the present war in America from the knowledge that he had possessed peculiar advantages in watching the progress of some of its events, both on the Federal and also on the Confederate side. Through the kindness of General M'Clellan, he was permitted to reside at the head-quarters of the Army of the Potomac during the campaign known as the Campaign of the Peninsula, which included the siege of Yorktown and subsequent battles up to the seven days before Richmond and retreat to the James River; whilst shortly afterwards, through the courtesy of both the Federal and Confederate authorities, he was permitted to enter and traverse the Southern States. He had thus an opportunity of acquiring some insight into the state of both parties. Still, he cannot pretend that the principal matter in the account is the result of personal observation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.