Four Years a Scout and Spy

It was with much difficulty that I was induced to give to the public a narrative of my experience as a scout and spy. It was the intense interest with which the people have listened to my narratives, whenever I have related them, and their earnest entreaties to have them published, that have prevailed upon me to do so.
I entered the army from purely patriotic motives. I had no vain ambition to gratify, but simply a desire to sustain and perpetuate the noble institutions that had been purchased by the blood of our fathers. I valued the cause of liberty as well worth all the sacrifice that it might cost to save it. I saw at once that the conflict was to be one involving great principles, and that in the end Truth and Justice must prevail.
The part that I have borne in putting down the great rebellion is the one that naturally fell to me by the force of circumstances, and entirely unsolicited. My relation in the affairs of life seems to have been such as to have just adapted me to that part that fell to my lot to act.
I have, without doubt, been indiscreet at times. Who has not? But the reader must remember that he who goes from the peaceful pursuits of life, for the first time, to engage in the art of war, does so with a lack of experience. Soldiering was not my trade. War is demoralizing in its tendency. This fact, I trust, will very much lessen any feelings of prejudice that may arise, in the course of these narratives, from passages clothed with the rough-and-tumble of army life.
Rough language and blunt manners are characteristics of war, because its tendency is to destroy the finer feelings of our natures. Some of the language used is of that character, and it would fail to be a truthful representation of the reality if rendered less so. The incidents that I have narrated are all of them facts that have occurred in my experience, and, without further apology, I submit them to an indulgent public.