I close these slight and inadequate sketches of a memorable time with the words of my first sentence. The history of the great war is yet to be written, and can scarcely be fairly and impartially written by this generation. But it is our imperative duty to ourselves and to our dead to begin at once to lay up the costly material for the great work. Every man should contribute freely according to his ability, gold and silver, precious stones, iron and wood; and with this motive, I have ventured to present such an outline of events in the last ninety days as circumstances would permit me to gather. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 21: There was then, as now, no money in the country, and this was the largest cash donation ever received by the University.] [Footnote 22: It is stated upon good authority, and is confidently believed, that there was not a single regiment in the entire Confederate service in which could not be found one or more old students of Chapel Hill.] APPENDIX. I. "_More than a seventh of the aggregate number of graduates are known to have fallen in battle._" This was written in October, 1863. When the war was closed, the proportion was much greater. It is hardly consistent with the slight character of these sketches to enter deeply into questions of constitutional law, involving the rights of belligerents and insurgents in time of civil war. I had no intention of attempting more than a plain, unvarnished statement of facts; with some hope, I confess, that a faithful narrative of the losses and the sufferings of the vanquished might do something at least toward arousing a generous remorse and regret in the breasts of the victors. This volume will produce an effect altogether contrary to what is intended if it serves only to prolong the remembrances which excite sectional animosity. The records of our literary institutions all over the South will be found especially valuable in making up the estimate of our losses on the battle-field; for they will show unerringly that it was the _best_ blood of the South that was poured out like water; that her educated young men were the first to offer themselves in what they deemed a glorious cause, and were among the first to fall. And North-Carolina, in particular, may point with pride to her University for an example of patriotic devotion unsurpassed by any other institution in the South.