The letters of which these volumes are mainly composed were written, all of them, on the spur of the moment, many of them under circumstances of extreme haste and difficulty. In revising them, however, I have thought it best to leave them much as I originally wrote them, omitting only such portions as had, if any, solely a passing interest. I trust that these pages, faulty as they are in many ways, will be found to represent fairly the momentous struggle which it was my lot to witness.