Excerpt from The Military History of the Virginia Military Institute: From 1839 to 1865 With Appendix, Maps, and Illustrations
The preparation of this strictly military history of the Virginia Military Institute has indeed been a work of love, and the author hopes the story may possess for others the absorbing interest it held for him.
This history may rightly be styled tradition sifted out and reduced to fact, for it has been written from the official registers, Superintendent's reports, proceedings of the Board of Visitors, "Rebellion Records," original field orders and correspondence, and other contemporaneous records, and little has been accepted save upon such authority, and nothing which has not passed the critical eye of Brigadier-General Scott Shipp, Superintendent-Emeritus, who has been closely connected with the Institute since September, 1856, and who has seen every class graduate except fifteen.
The "History of the Virginia Military Institute" by General Francis H. Smith, recently published, is so brief and incomplete that, while it afforded a valuable outline, it did not even hint at many interesting and valuable facts. It was but a preliminary draft to a more complete work which, unfortunately, General Smith did not live long enough to prepare.
With General Smith's history as an outline and General Shipp's guiding hand upon the author's pen, results were possible which might not otherwise have been accomplished. But then there were two others who contributed much of what is valuable in the work. Their names need only be mentioned in order to apprise the reader of the extent of their influence upon whatever of accuracy the narrative may possess. Captain B. A. Colonna, Cadet Captain of Company "D" in the Battle of New Market, and who served as a cadet in the Corps, from July, 1860, until the destruction of the Institute, possesses a fund of information unexcelled by that of any living member of the War Corps. This he placed at the disposal of the author.
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