If he has painted the trials of the soldiers wife more highly colored than reality could permit, it has been because he desired to present his argument with greater force than he could otherwise have done; and yet, if we examine well the picture he presents; take it in its every part, and look on each one, we will find that it does not exaggerate a single woe.

We have seen far greater scenes of wretchedness than those narrated herein; scenes which defy description; for their character has been so horrible that to depict it, a pen mightier than a Bulwer's or a Scott's would be necessary.
The tale which the reader has just finished perusing is taken from scenes that _actually occurred_ during the present war--except, perhaps, that part which relates the tearing of the mother from the bedside of her dead child.

In every other respect all that is narrated in the foregoing pages are strictly true, and there are parties now in the South, who, when they read this work, will recognize in themselves, some of the characters represented herein.

The Author would rejoice, for the sake of humanity and civilization if the tale he has written was only a fiction of his own imagining; but did it not contain truths the work would never have been written.

No other object than that of calling attention to the vast misery and wretchedness which at the present time of writing abounds in the South, prompted the Author to pen the pages which you have perused.