IN this story the author has aimed to furnish true pictures of scenes in the great civil war, and not to produce sensational effects. The incidents of the book are real ones, drawn in part from the writer's personal experiences and observations, as a soldier of the Union, during that war. He is also indebted to many comrades for reminiscences of battle and prison life. The perilous escape of Jed and Dick, from Andersonville down the Flint and Appalachicola Rivers, to the Gulf of Mexico, is in substance the narrative of a comrade whom the writer knew at Andersonville, and afterwards met when the war had closed. The descriptions of the prison are especially truthful, for in them the author briefly tells what he himself saw.There is not a description of battle or camp scene in the book that is not as faithful to the reality as the author can make it, and he believes that these sketches will be recognized as true, by the veterans of the war who may chance to read them to their boys and girls. If it be objected that boys of the age of Jed and Dick were too young for soldiers, the writer will say, that few realize how young were the men who fought the battles of the Republic. In many regiments the average age of those in the ranks was less than twenty-one years, and it was not unusual to see boys of fifteen and sixteen carrying muskets, enduring the hardships, and bearing the scars of battle. The writer has attempted to portray a soldier's life as boy soldiers saw it; and if he has failed therein, he has failed in his purpose of conveying to the youth of to-day a reflection of that patriotic and self-sacrificing spirit which restored to us the blessings of peace, "one country and one flag."