Excerpt from James S. Wadsworth of Geneseo: Brevet Major-General of United States Volunteers The documentary materials for writing the life of James S. Wadsworth are of the scantiest description. He was always a sparing letter-writer, and although during his service in the army he wrote regularly to members of his family, the letters have almost all, from one cause or another, suffered destruction. The story of his work in the Civil War, therefore - what he did in camp, on the field of battle, as military governor, and in politics - must be traced in the printed records that deal with that time. Abundant as these are, it has often been only after long Bearch that they have yielded up information about an individual who, in filling his proper place in the vast machinery of the army, gave all his thoughts to the duties before him and none to the spreading of them before men. In view of this meagreness of printed matter bearing on General Wadsworth's career and of such manuscript records as the members of his family have been able to place at my disposal, I have been particularly fortunate in the cordial assistance that has come to me from three surviving members of his staff. Brigadier-General John A. Kress (U. S. A. retired), Colonel Clinton H. Meneely, of Troy, New York, and Major Earl M. Rogers, of Viroqua, Wisconsin, have spared no pains either in giving me such memoranda and recollections as they had or in answering my many questions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.