[187] season and during the war excitements that have just been engaging the attention of all our people. The result is not intended as a complete history of the conditions named. It could, necessarily, only be a part of the history of those conditions.
In designing this paper, I had hoped to make it more complete by using contributions from surgeons of the Confederate army and navy, and druggists engaged in business during the period, so far as they were living, and from papers to be loaned me by them. Out of scores of letters addressed to living men of this character, I received but few replies. In obtaining some of the matter, railway trips had to be taken, and much of it was collected at considerable expense and labor. When it is remembered that the conditions that are suggested here lasted for a period of nearly four years, then the sufferings and the achievements and heroism of seven millions of people are in a measure made manifest.
If I have succeeded in recalling by way of suggestion some facts that in the present may be of use, or in the future may be evolved into utility, I will have been rewarded for my outlay and my efforts.
The war of 1861-1865 is now but a memory. The heroes of both sides—those ‘tented’ on ‘fame's eternal camping ground’ and the survivors—are now dear to a reunited people, who, proud of the common victories of their fellow-countrymen at Manilla and Santiago, and rejoicing in the vigor of American arms and the glory of American ideals, stand expectantly waiting and hopefully facing the great future in store.
