COMPILED FROM

A SOLDIER BOY’S LETTERS TO “THE GIRL
I LEFT BEHIND ME”

1861–1864

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DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

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LAKEPORT, N. H.
PRIVATE PRINT OF MARTIN A. HAYNES
1916

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EDITION SIXTY COPIES
THIS IS NO.  
AND IS PRESENTED TO


WITH COMPLIMENTS OF
MARTIN A. HAYNES

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IN gathering material for a history of the Second Regiment, one ofmy sources of information was a big bundle of letters, even thenyellowing with age—my letters, covering a period of over three years,written to “The girl I left behind me.” These—with the eliminationof such strictly personal matters as concerned only the two of us—werecarefully copied, and the letters then given to the flames. Thirtyyears later, breaking the seals of that bundle of manuscript, I readwith indescribable interest my own story of more than half a centuryago. And the whim came upon me to put those scraps of war historyinto type and print a few copies, especially for members of the family.I can see an opening for only one regret. It will probably destroy anillusion of those four grandchildren—Marjorie and Warren, Martinand Eugene—as to their grandfather’s relative importance in the war,and while Grant and Sherman will be moved up one notch on the rollof those who put down the Great Rebellion, I will, very likely, haveto be content with third place.

There is lots of history here—minor history, to be sure—andwhile there is a sequence of events, it is not a connected story, noreven complete. A series of letters rarely is. They do not deal, likeSherman’s letters, in the grand strategy of campaigns, but they