Several of the papers following are original contributions especially prepared for this book. The authors of these papers are indicated hereafter. For all expressions of opinion, for all comments, notes and inferences, not specifically attributed to somebody else, I alone am responsible. To all who have aided me to make this series authoritative and definitive, my most grateful thanks are hereby heartily expressed. I trust that in thus striving to preserve the records of those stirring times I have done history and posterity a service. The majority of those who fought on the plains have passed away. Many of the surviving participants in the adventures described are growing old. In a short time it would have been impossible to have secured the information here presented unless some one else had gone about it as I have. With intervals devoted to other duties, I have been over a year and a half engaged in this congenial task. I have written literally hundreds of letters, to learn, or to verify, a fact, an incident, or a conclusion. It is interesting to call attention to the fact that information has been freely and generously given to me from every source whence I have asked it save three, one of which is noted in the appendix. The series of historical books of which this forms the fourth seems to have won a permanent place for itself. The number of copies which found a welcome last year was greater than the number of the year before, although there was no new volume issued last fall to call renewed attention to the series. These books are generally spoken of by the title of the first published, “American Fights and Fighters.” It has been deemed proper, therefore, to adopt that name, which is sufficiently explicit and descriptive, as the generic name of the series. Hereafter all the books that have appeared, and those that are yet to appear in this series, will bear that general name, with the addition of a distinctive subtitle in each instance. The covers of the earlier books, accordingly, have been changed to read as follows: 1. American Fights and Fighters, Colonial. 2. American Fights and Fighters, Revolutionary—1812. 3. American Fights and Fighters, Border. As I have stated, it is my hope to continue this series of books until I have covered all the wars that have been fought upon the American Continent since Columbus’s day.