£207 LSTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by DERBY & JACKSON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York W. H. TINSON, STEREOTYPER. GEO. RUSSELL & CO., FRIN TERA. PREFACE. WHEN a writer puts forth a book, the subject of which has pre-engaged public sympathy, he is more than ordinarily obligated to furnish such explanations regarding its origin and character, as may give it a claim to public confidence. The chief, if not the only recommendations of this work, will be found in the motives which suggested it, and in the truthfulness of its details. However well-founded may be my fears, that I shall fail of success in all other respects, I cherish the hope that in these I shall prove more fortunate. Satisfaction to the reader and justice to myself, equally require, then, that in presenting these sketches to the public, the considerations with which they originated, and the circumstances under which they were completed, should be briefly stated. At the death of General Morgan, his papers, correspondence, &c., went into the possession of his son-in-law, General Presley Neville. During the fifteen or twenty years which succeeded, many of these papers were lost or destroyed. What remained of them at the termination of this period, however, were collected, arranged, and bound into two large volumes, by the general's grandson, Major Morgan Neville, to whom, at the death of his father, they were left. When he died, these volumes became the property of his widow, who submitted them to my perusal, with the object of ascertaining whether the publication of a select portion of their contents would be advisable or not. This collection is a very valuable one, embracing as it does, letters hitherto unpublished, from Washington, Greene, Lafayette, Wayne, Gates, Jefferson, Hamilton, Henry, Rutledge, and many other distinguished men of the revolutionary era. It was with no little pleasure that I perused and re-perused these interesting relics of men and times associated with such glorious recollections. They furnish an epistolary history of the war, from the pens of its leading spirits; and abound in facts and circumstances, 303092 |