War! what a dreadful word!  How sad a subject to read about, but how much worse to experience its horrors and dangers, and bear its necessities and privations. How vividly that short but momentous word recalls to the mind of those who have passed through the late war, the whistling of the Shells, the whiz of the bullets and the bursting of the bombs; of the sight of the wounded, dead and dying men; of homes desolated, familie’s exiled, of suffering and hunger, fire and rapine, when the fair cities and towns of our land were given to the torch and pillage, women and children robbed and murdered, aye!  many consigned to a fate where even death would have been a mercy. And, lastly, when peace once again returned to our stricken land, of the many sad households where the vacant chair at the family gathering denoted the absence of some loved member, who on some distant battlefield fills some unknown grave;  or the return of the soldier to his old homestead to find the same in ruins, its blackened chimney the only mark of the spot where formerly peace and [4] plenty dwelt, and his loved ones exiled and scattered, perhaps eating the bread of charity. Such were the scenes of the war and those who have witnessed any, or all, of them, will utter almost unconsciously the prayer: “Lord, preserve us from another war!”  Well may the coming generations profit by our sad and costly experience and strive over all things for peace, peace only brings prosperity.

Having thus prefaced my narrative with, as if it were, a picture of war, I will now proceed, though not without first mentioning that the same, with the exception of the dates thereof, is entirely from my memory.