On reviewing the diary with the eye of an expert, it was found so uniquely interesting on account of the many dramatic situations simply given in a youth's unpretentious way that, from the fact it contained so much of interest to the surviving men whom the Author was honored in and fortunate enough to command during such a historic period, and especially to the kinsmen of those who have passed along to the higher life, he concluded to publish it in full. It is not pretended that it is based on any official general orders but is solid fact and experience simply told by a young soldier who stood up to the rack in the front line of battle and took uncomplainingly whatever was in store for him, steadily refusing to accept whatever was offered which would remove him from the line of battle to a safer place at home or in the rear because he not only preferred to occupy a place in the front line of battle in command of men, which he considered the most honorable place for a soldier in the army at such a time, but because he had grown sincerely attached to the brave men in the different companies and detachments he commanded which comprised the whole regiment and some in others who not infrequently by reason of superior physical endurance and courage led and inspired him in some of the most noted battles of ancient or modern times. A diary was kept during a portion of 1865 to the close of the war, but its whereabouts if preserved are unknown to the Author; so that in 1865, only a few of the most strikingly dramatic scenes and battles are given in the addenda as the curtain was falling on the greatest civil conflict of modern times, one of the most impressive of which was General Grant's magnificent bearing as he rode at a goodly pace, silently with his retinue, along among his men inside the enemy's works after they had been captured by the celebrated fighting Sixth Army Corps which he had specially selected, as it was said at the time, to break the enemy's line at the point where it was broken in front of Petersburg, on the morning of the memorable Second of April, 1865. This and other startling and unexpected scenes crowded each other so closely the following week they are indelibly photographed on the mind of the writer never probably to be forgotten so long as time shall last; and they are _not_ overdrawn as no pen is sufficiently graphic to anywhere near do the subject justice.