This Narrative

affectionately inscribed to my loved ones;
my Wife and Children;

and written for their benefit to preserve to them a sort of record of my experiences during the Confederate War, does not purport to give all my sayings and doings in the eventful days of the struggle for “the Lost Cause,” but only such events as have, by more or less importance, fixed themselves in my memory. The reader must not expect to find contained therein deeds of bravery and daring like those of Hampton’s or Stuart’s, nor of the indomitable courage and fortitude of Lee and Jackson; the sphere in which the writer moved, among the thousands that served their country, was that of “only a private”, but in that humble position he strove to do his full duty to his God and his country; and though only assigned “to watch and wait” was none the less ready “to do or die”. The cause he has fought for is lost; the flag he has followed has fallen; but one satisfaction remains to him: the consciousness that through no fault of his, no duty left undone, was the unhappy end, the failure of all our most sanguine hopes, brought about. One duty yet remains: it is, in the words of the poet priest, Ryan, “to save from oblivion the memories and traditions of the Confederacy, they are too grand to be forgotten.” Partly with this view I have written these pages, and commit them to my children with the request, that they ever hold in reverence the cause their father fought for, for, “lost” though it be, it was none the less a just one. There is not a day, nor a deed, of the struggle for the same, of which we may feel ashamed. Therefore pass down its memories — they should live forever.

“Dear Southern land! this heart is given
   ’Till death, to thine and thee;
When I forget thy cause - may Heaven
   Cease to remember me!”

Anthony W. Riecke

Charleston S.C. Dec. 20^th 1879