The author deems his subject a consecrated theme. And he rejoices that he could labor at his task amid the consecrated memories of dear old Richmond, where he has had the assistance and the smiles of encouragement from the noble women who continue to keep guard over Hollywood and Oakwood Cemeteries, the Soldiers' Home, and the Home for Confederate Women, and keep vestal watch in the Confederate Museum. Not a line is written in sectional prejudice or tainted by a touch of hate. The author was a Confederate soldier. He hates sham, injustice, falsehood, and hypocrisy everywhere, but he loves his fellow men, and still bears the old soldier's respect and warm hand for the true soldiers who fought on the other side. The barbarities of bummers and brutal commanders must be repudiated by us all that the honor of true soldiers like McClellan, Rosecrans, Thomas, and Buell, on the one side, and Lee, Jackson and Johnston on the other, may stand forth in its true light. When our broad-brained and big-hearted President Roosevelt has just stepped down from the White House to tell on Capitol Hill at Richmond and at the feet of the monuments of Lee and Jackson, his great admiration for the Confederate soldiers and the Confederate women, it is time for us all to take a fresh look at their heroic lives. J. L. UNDERWOOD. KELLAM'S HOSPITAL, _Richmond, Va., April 1st, 1906_. CHAPTER I SYMPOSIUM OF TRIBUTES TO CONFEDERATE WOMEN MRS. VARINA JEFFERSON DAVIS From her invalid chair in New York the revered and beloved wife of the great chieftain of the Confederacy writes a personal letter to the author of this volume, from which he takes the liberty of publishing the following extract. There is something peculiarly touching in this testimonial which will be prized and kept as a precious heirloom throughout our Southern land: HOTEL GERARD, 123 West Forty-fourth Street, New York. _October 25, 1905._ MY DEAR MR. UNDERWOOD: * * * I do not know in all history a finer subject than the heroism of our Southern women, God bless them. I have never forgotten our dear Mrs. Robt. E. Lee, sitting in her arm chair, where she was chained by the most agonizing form of rheumatism, cutting with her dear aching hands soldiers' gloves from waste pieces of their Confederate uniforms furnished to her from the government shops. These she persuaded her girl visitors to sew into gloves for the soldiers. Certainly these scraps were of immense use to all those who could get them, for I do not know how many children's jackets which kept the soldiers' children warm, I had pieced out of these scraps by a poor woman who sat in the basement of the mansion and made them for them.