Excerpt from Regimental History of the First New York Dragoons: Originally the 130th N. Y. Vol; Infantry; During Three Years of Active Service in the Great Civil War

The preparation of this history has been carried forward with mingled feelings of pleasure and pain. In my really laborious search after historic material I have been singularly carried back, and have lived over those three eventful years of our regimental service. Like the successive presentations of a moving panorama, their scenes have vividly seemed to pass in review. Names of comrades, with their forms and faces, are recalled after the lapse of more than a third of a century, as if but yesterday. The battlefield with its movements of troops, the roar of cannon and rattle of small arms, the ringing commands of officers, the groans of the wounded and dying soldiers, are again living realities.

Looking back over a period of thirty-eight checkered years I behold a magnificent regiment, with full ranks of patriotic young men, taking their departure for the, front. Three years later a portion return as battle-scarred veterans, some with a missing limb or serious wounds, and all more or less injured, and life shortened by the exposures and hardships incident to army experience. To-day we gaze upon the fragments that survive. We are but the rear guard, the main body having crossed the dark river and pitched their shining tents "where glory guards with solemn rounds the bivouac of the dead."

In this connection a word as to why the history has been written so long after the ending of the war, will be in place. Aside from the excellent little pamphlet prepared by Lieut. J. N. Flint, at the close of the war, we have no record of our splendid service as a regiment, although nearly every survivor has felt the desire for a more complete history.

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