PREFACE.
During the last twenty-five years my work in verse has been mainly confined to illustrating the history of the United States, with occasional studies of local life and character. Of this, judging by notices of the press, and their appearance in compilations of a patriotic or martial nature, the metrical narratives of battles seem to have been most approved; and it occurred to me that a volume embracing my productions in that line of literary labor might meet with popular favor. My first intention was to take up every notable event, so that the book might be a complete metrical history, and I prepared partly the matter for the purpose, including the capture of theSerapisand the achievements ofOld Ironsides. But I found the volume would be inconveniently large, and I abandoned my plan reluctantly.
The historical sketches prefixed in the proper places will be found full, unless the details are faithfully given in the text, when the introductions are purposely made meagre. In either case they will be found to be accurate, the verses being, as I have styled them, “metrical narratives” rather than poems. In that form, I trust, they more readily impress on the mind of the reader a sense of the patriotism and courage of our forefathers, and give a notion of the nature of the struggle by which these States emerged from a dependent condition to take high rank among the peoples of the world. The story of each event being told in the first person, the style and language are intentionally marked by the peculiarities of the imaginary narrator. And in thisconnection it will be observed that, because of the nearness of the conflict, the battles of the late sectional war have been avoided, and the two incidents of that period touched on at the close are personal, and not likely to offend even the most sensitive.
T. D. E.Newark, N. J.,July30, 1885.
T. D. E.
Newark, N. J.,July30, 1885.