History of the Fourth Illinois Volunteers in their relation to the Spanish-American War for the liberation of Cuba and other island possessions of Spain ...

Front matter

Sheli

UNSTED STATES OF AMERICA.

HISTORY

Dedication

in

MY DEVOTED WIFE,

AND

Introduction

In undertaking to publish a history of the Fourth Illinois Volunteers I realize from the first the disadvantages under which I must labor from my comparative brief membership in the organization. In order, therefore, to prevent as far as possible any. error of dates, facts or conditions, I at once sought relief from this embarrassment by soliciting help from those of the regiment who were more conversant with all the details connected with its history, and I now take this public way of tendering my most heartfelt gratitude to those who have either directly or indirectly rendered me assistance in this matter.

My effort and aim has been to secure and embody only facts and yet all facts of historic interest connected with the regiment in its career as United States Volunteers. That I have not been able to accomplish my desire in this respect, I fear will be discovered in the body of this book as I have been greatly disappointed in some, whose promises to aid in certain matters have failed to materialize in any helpful way, thus not only delaying the issue of the work, but as well reduced the number of cuts, biographies and facts of company history.

Still, with the hope that it may be worthy of your reception, not merely as a kind of souvenir of our campaign, but more, as a volume embodying history of faithful service, as well as real suffering, I submit it to the interested read-

I 6 INTRODUCTORY.

er. While the reader will find facts repeated in this volume, yet the different settings given them by different writers will enable the reader to get a glimpse at them from several angles.

We have not striven to produce flowers of rhetoric, or beautiful symmetrical periods that please and charm the cultured literati. Nor have we attempted to give all the laughable incidents and jokes that passed, the misconstruction of which might cast reflections where they would give pain. So likewise we have withheld facts that could have no historic value to the reader, but on the other hand might be wrested to the embarrassment or serious hurt of individuals in their social, civil or political relations. Considering the great disadvantages under which we have labored in collecting the facts of the volume, which we hope are sufficiently reliable to be trusted and appreciated, we commit them to the public in this more permanent form, without an apology, yet asking that our imperfections as discovered will be pardoned as unintentional. Areola, 111., June 30, 1899. Respectfully,

J. R. Skinner.