Georgia Scenes

THE following sketches were written rather in the hope that chance would bring them to light when time would give them an interest, than in the belief that they would afford any interest to the readers of the present day. I knew, however, that the chance of their surviving the author would be increased in proportion to their popularity upon their first appearance; and, therefore, I used some little art in order to recommend them to the readers of my own times. They consist of nothing more than fanciful combinations of real incidents and characters; and throwing into those scenes, which would be otherwise dull and insipid, some personal incident or adventure of my own, real or imaginary, as it would best suit my purpose; usually real , but happening at different times and under different circumstances from those in which they are here represented. I have not always, however, taken this liberty. Some of the scenes are as literally true as the frailties of memory would allow them to be. I commenced the publication of them, in one of the gazettes of the State, rather more than a year ago; and I was not more pleased than astonished to find that they were well received by readers generally. For the last six months I have been importuned by persons from all quarters of the State to give them to the public in the present form. This volume is purely a concession to their entreaties. From private considerations, I was extremely desirous of concealing the author, and, the more effectually to do so, I wrote under two signatures. These have now become too closely interwoven with the sketches to be separated from them, without an expense of time and trouble which I am unwilling to incur. Hall is the writer of those sketches in which men appear as the principal actors, and Baldwin of those in which women are the prominent figures. For the “Company Drill” I am indebted to a friend, of whose labours I would gladly have availed myself oftener. The reader will find in the object of the sketches an apology for the minuteness of detail into which some of them run, and for the introduction of some things into them which would have been excluded were they merely the creations of fancy. I have not had it in my power to superintend the publication of them, though they issue from a press in the immediate vicinity of my residence. I discovered that, if the work was delayed until I could have an opportunity of examining the proof sheets, it would linger in the press until the expenses (already large) would become intolerable. Consequently, there may be many typographical errors among them, for which I must crave the reader’s indulgence. I cannot conclude these introductory remarks without reminding those who have taken exceptions to the coarse, inelegant, and sometimes ungrammatical language which the writer represents himself as occasionally using, that it is language accommodated to the capacity of the person to whom he represents himself as speaking