This Corporal's Story was not written for the printer. It was the product of a patriotic desire to place before a soldier's immediate family a record showing what was done and endured by private soldiers during the war for the maintenance of the Union. The manuscript was permanently bound into a volume of Calf and morocco, and was to be an heirloom. It was the authors hope that his children and their descendants might find the work a valued keepsake, and might gather from it incentives to loyalty and patriotism.
By chance the manuscript volume came into my hands, and I read it. I showed it to a friend, who at once suggested that it should be published; and these printed pages are the result. I am glad to say that the manuscript volume is preserved, and may yet fulfil its original mission.
Corporal Charles Wright, as may be inferred from the tone of his story, was one of the many men who entered the army from the highest possible motives. As his company commander, I can truly say that the same patriotic zeal which brought him into the service animated him to an unswerving fidelity in every detail of a soldiers duty throughout his entire army life. I make these statements to show the stranger who may read this volume something of what sort of man the author is, and what was the motive in producing this work.
No one will make the mistake of expecting from this modest book anything of the secrets of strategy and grand tactics, or of the inner history of great battles and campaigns, such as the generals and other commanding officers have written. It does not aim to reach those features of army history. But still it has a place in army history that has not been too much crowded.
