Reminiscences of the Civil War [VINTAGE 1981] [1981 COLLECTOR'S LIBRARY OF THE CIVIL WAR REPRINT of the 1903 Charles Scribner's Sons FIRST EDITION] [UNCIRCULATED EX-GENEOLOGY DEPARTMENT LIBRARY REFERENCE COPY]

Fine unread condition black faux leather boards with embossed front cover illustration, gold front cover lettering, and gold spine lettering. Includes List of Portrait Plates; Introduction by General John B. Gordon and Index. Also includes a traditional gilt decorated five double-hubbed spine, gilt page edges on all three sides, and a bound-into-the-volume red satin ribbon page marker. Illustrated with black-and-white photographic plates and color decorated front and rear endpapers . "For Reference: Not to be taken from this room" sticker neatly affixed to upper edge of inner front board, three library stamps and a black marker crossing out the ISBN label. Unread condition UNCIRCULATED "For Reference" Not to be taken from this room" Geneology Department copy. "For many years I have been urged to place on record my reminiscences of the war between the States. In undertaking the task now, it is not my purpose to attempt a comprehensive description of that great struggle, nor an elaborate analysis of the momentous interests and issues involved. The time may not have arrived for a full and fair history of that most interesting period in the Republic's life. The man capable of writing it with entire justice to both sides is perhaps yet unborn. He may appear, however, at a future day, fully equipped for the great work. If endwed with the requisite breadth and clearness of view, with inflexible mental integrity and absolute freedom from all bias, he will produce the most instructive and thrilling record in the world's deathless annals, and cannot fail to make a contribution of measureless value to the American people and to the cause of free government throughout the world. Conscious of my own inability to meet the demands of so great an undertaking, I have not attempted it, but with an earnest desire to contribute Something toward such future history these reminiscences have been written. I have endeavored to make my review of that most heroic era so condensed as to claim the attention of busy people, and so impartial as to command the confidence of the fair-minded in all sections. It has been my fixed purpose to make a brief but dispassionate and judicially fair analysis of the divergent opinions and ceaseless controversies which for half a century produced an ever-widening alienation between the sections, and which finally plunged into the fiercest and bloodiest of fratricidal wars a great and enlightened people who were of the same race, supporters of the same Constitution, and joint heirs of the same freedom. I have endeavored to demonstrate that the courage displayed and the ratio of losses sustained were unprecedented in modern warfare. I have also recorded in this volume a large number of those characteristic and thrilling incidents which illusrate a unique and hitherto unwritten phase of the war, the story of which should not be lost, because it is luminious with the noblest lessons. Many of these eincidents came under my own observation. They marked every step of the war's progress, were often witnessed by both armies, and were of almost daily occurrence in the camps, on the marches, and between the lines; increasing in frequency and pathos as the war progressed, and illustrating the distinguishing magnanimity and lofty mahhood of the American soldier. It will be found, I trust, that no injustice has been done to either section, to any army, or to any of the great leaders, but tha the substance and spirit of the following pages will tend rather to lifft to a higher plane the estimate placed by victors and vanquished upon their countrymen of the opposing section, and thus strenggthen the sentiment of intersectional fraternity which is essential to complete national untiy." - J.B. Gordon, from the Introduction.…