Preface

I have written this story of my army life at the urgent and ceaseless request of my children.

For whenever I allude to those early days, and tell to them the tales they have so often heard, they always say: "Now, mother, will you write these stories for us? Please, mother, do; we must never forget them."

Then, after an interval, "Mother, have you written those stories of Arizona yet?" until finally, with the aid of some old letters written from those very places (the letters having been preserved, with other papers of mine, by an uncle in New England long since dead), I have been able to give a fairly connected story.

I have not attempted to commemorate my husband's brave career in the Civil War, as I was not married until some years after the close of that war, nor to describe the many Indian campaigns in which he took part, nor to write about the achievements of the old Eighth Infantry. I leave all that to the historian. I have given simply the impressions made upon the mind of a young New England woman who left her comfortable home in the early seventies, to follow a second lieutenant into the wildest encampments of the American army.

Hoping the story may possess some interest for the younger women of the army, and possibly for some of our old friends, both in the army and in civil life, I venture to send it forth.

POSTCRIPT (second edition).

The appendix to this, the second edition of my book, will tell something of the kind manner in which the first edition was received by my friends and the public at large.

But as several people had expressed a wish that I should tell more of my army experiences I have gone carefully over the entire book, adding some detail and a few incidents which had come to my mind later.

I have also been able, with some difficulty and much patient effort, to secure several photographs of exceptional interest, which have been added to the illustrations.

January, 1911.