|THE "History of the Great Rebellion," as some have called it, or of "The American Conflict," as others have called it, has been written over and over--by Greeley, by McClusky, by Abbott, by Kattell, by Pollard, and by others--and it is not my intention to write it again: but I Purpose, as Macaulay says in the first two words of that wonderful History of England in which, by the magic of his pen, he has made facts, which, until then, had lain only in the brains of old women, in the traditions of old men, in forgotten newspapers, and in neglected pamphlets, come forth in all the habiliments of life; some grinning with merriment, and others frowning with despair--some as angels of heaven, and others as demons of hell--I Purpose, throughout the whole of this volume, to write of the sayings and doings of those who, in the great war between the United States and the "Southern Confederacy," stood in the side wings, or _behind_ the scenes, as proprietors, as stockholders, as lessees, as stage managers, as prompters, as scene-shifters, as curtain-droppers, as wire-pullers, and without whom the acts _before_ the scenes could not have been, and would not have been, enacted. Many, yea, most of those who attended to their various parts behind the scenes, while those in front were attending to theirs, have gone to their long homes. Like the hero of a hundred battles-- "They sleep their last sleep and have fought their last battle, No sound can awake them to glory again;" yet a few remain, scattered throughout the North, scattered throughout the South, in cities, in towns, in offices, in workshops, in negro huts; and from these, and such as these, we have gathered and now propose to put on record, the _inner_ or _secret_ history of the greatest war of the nineteenth century--a war in which more men were engaged, more deeds of valor done, more lives lost, and during which there was more of masterly diplomacy exercised, on both sides, than in any war which has occurred since the days of the Roman empire. Eighteen years ago! Only three words, uttered in a single breath and seeming but as yesterday, when looking backward, and yet where is the tongue that can tell, or the pen that can write all that has transpired within that time?