The Portland daily press., 1898-05-17

tu1S Nuiuul6. IutiI GduGAO eA'NS
the greatest value They are personal
recollections of the most interesting ana
absorbing experiences that ever came lhoo
the lives Of the writer's. And more imam
that, they arc words of intimate reclta-
ton from, friend to friends In the Tree
dom of companionable associations. oh
this account they furnish the traest Klnd
OF history, for the events and eplsooes
here recalled are clothed 10 the garp OF
living reality, born rs they are out OF the
favorable soil of friendly solicitation.
Every paper has reality of its own.
zach presents picture OF the original
episode adj asted 10 the course OF future
events, by maturer Judgment and more
than generation of weighing in the
memory, but preserving at the same time
all those little details of individual i'm
preston which make a book of this kind
SO clear, so real and of such unique value
The papers cover each year OF the war
and carry the reader from northern Yer
mont and PASSPORT to Mobile and the Red
River expedition of 1864. 1.-THE Boys of
81" by General Conner gives picture oil
unusual value of just how the war en-
tered into the life of the youths who re-
sponded to the first call of President Lin
coin. Major Charles II. Boyd gives in
his Incident on the Coast of Maine in
1861" an account Of something done in
Passamaquoddy Bay, including belliger-
ent picnic party, in which ships were
CAPTURED and the first Confederate flag
seen in those waters. Gettysburg is re-
hearsed again by Lieutenant and Adju-
tant Charles W. Roberts, who tells his
part in the battle, his misfortune, his
kind treatment as wounded soldier and
then glimpse he had of it all after
twenty-five years. by Brevet Brigadier
General Thomas W. Hyde, who gives his
recollections and incidentally many opin
ions of generals engaged and comparison
of Gettysburg and Waterloo; and the
work of the Seventeenth Maine is recalled
by the first part of paper by Captain
George W. Verrill. The second part of
Captain Verrill's paper takes the Seven
tenth Maine to the Wilderness, the
earnestness and excitement and hard
fighting of which are again brought out by
"An Experience in the Battle of the VIII
derness,' by Brevet Major Holman S.
Melchsr. Lieutenant Henry N. Fairbanks
tells briefly the story of four battles in
"The Red River Expedition of 1854. >
Commander Oliver A. Batcheller, y.
S. NJ, gives an unusually interesting &C
count of Farragut's naval fight in Mobile
Bay, in which fight he himself was an
officer on the Monongahela. Perhaps
nothing during the war appeals more to
our sympathy than the sad prison life.
Five of these papers treat of imprison-
ment. "Tweny two Hours Prisoner of
War in Dixie" by Brevet Major General
Henry G. Thomas is indeed far more Of a
comedy than tragedy and the strange
ly complicated story of My Capture and
What Came Of 1t" by Brevet Major Hen
ry S. Burrage, wherein, as the result OF
an attempt TO exchange newspapers, he
was captured, and by unique chain
circumstances held prisoner, part of the
time at Libby, dismissed from the SER
vice for disobediencs of orders, finally re-
stored to rank and released, appeals m re
to Jur sense of justice than pity. Blu
the sad stories in ''Our Escape from
Camp Sorghum by Lieutenant Charles
o. Hunt, 'tIn Six Prisons by Brevet
Brigadier General Charles P. Mattocks,
personal Observations and Experient es
in Rebel Prisons, 1864, 1885," by Major
Akner R. Small, bring us face to face
with the possible horrors of warfare. 4h
other side of suffering in war is given by
Major and Surgeon Seth G. Gordon in
his "reminiscences of the Civil War from
a Surgeons Point of View" Major Sid
ney W. 1hax ter's "a Remarkable Recon
Nuisance" gives an attractive incident
in the fortunes of the Army of the Poto
mac in the fall of 1868. Showing how
the army closed around Richmond at the
last, there is the brilliantly planned, but
unfortunate BATTLE of the Crater" by
enccs Of one who followed "With the Sew
enth Maine Battery" by Brevet Major
William B. Lapham, located at Fort
He'll; and the longest paper in the book,
"The Military Operations on the White
Oak Road, Virginia, March 81, 1865. by
Brevet Major General Joshua L. Cham
berlain. This last ranks with any his
torical papers written concerning our
war, gives in detail the work of day
and night of the Fifth Corps Of the army
and purports to set right certain inni-
dents in that campaign that have been
wrongly recorded in our national reports
- The Darkest Hour" by Brevet Eriga-
dier-General Charles Hanlin gives the
sad story of President Lincoln's assassi-
nation in Ford's Theatre in Washington,
and the excitement in Washington at the
time.
Papers like these record as nothing else
can just what men do and what they
think when in actual service. The occu-
patlons of prison life. the ingenuity to
prevent capture or to preserve valuables,
the building of tunnels for escape or de-
struction of the enemy, the frightful
mortality in q battle like Gettysburg
n CE0N e. x,ta