Excerpt from Life With the Thirty-Fourth Mass: Infantry in the War of the Rebellion
Years ago I was honored by my associates of the Regimental Association with a request to prepare for publication a history of the 34th Massachusetts Infantry. Various causes combined to delay the execution of what thus became a duty. What seemed easy to be done was found to be, in reality, difficult to do. All the official and many private papers connected with the organization and early service of the Regiment were destroyed, or lost, in the hurried evacuation of Martinsburg and Harper"s Ferry, consequent upon the advance of the Rebel Army under Early, in the summer of 1864. The members of the Regiment were confidently relied upon to furnish material facts and incidents connected with our service, more especially during the period when my own enforced absence deprived me of opportunity of personal observation. The residence of many of the men, however, was unknown; - many, probably, to whom circulars were addressed, were not reached at all; - and of those who were reached, most made no response. Necessity, therefore, compelled me to draw more largely from my own "Diary," and letters written to personal friends, than under other circumstances would be excusable. I am, however, under very great obligations to Major Willard, Capts. Elwell and Soley, and more especially to Lieut. Judd, for aid, without which the work would not have been completed, even in its present form; - and for which did I not make this public acknowledgment, I should be ungrateful, indeed. I have appended to the public life of the Regiment, at the risk of seeming egotism, a narrative of my own individual experience while a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, and also during the long and anxious days of my successful escape. For this, the requests of valued friends among the old members of the Regiment must be my excuse.
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