TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number],and the footnotes have been placed at the end of the book.
The cover image was created by the transcriberand is placed in the public domain.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.These are indicated by a dotted gray underline.
(Original cover)MY DIARY
NORTH AND SOUTH.
BY
WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET.
1863.
[The right of Translation is reserved.]
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS
TO
RICHARD QUAIN, M.D.,
These Volumes are Dedicated
IN TESTIMONY
OF
THE REGARD AND GRATITUDE
OF
THE AUTHOR.
A book which needs apologies ought never to havebeen written. This is a canon of criticism so universallyaccepted, that authors have abstained of latedays from attempting to disarm hostility by confessionsof weakness, and are almost afraid to say aprefatory word to the gentle reader.
It is not to plead in mitigation of punishment ormake an appeal ad misericordiam, I break through theordinary practice, but by way of introduction andexplanation to those who may read these volumes,I may remark that they consist for the most partof extracts from the diaries and note-books which Iassiduously kept whilst I was in the United States, asrecords of the events and impressions of the hour. Ihave been obliged to omit many passages which mightcause pain or injury to individuals still living in themidst of a civil war, but the spirit of the original ispreserved as far as possible, and I would entreat myreaders to attribute the frequent use of the personal[vi]pronoun and personal references to the nature of thesources from which the work is derived, rather thanto the vanity of the author.
Had the pages been literally transcribed, withoutomitting a word, the fate of one whose task it was tosift the true from the false and to avoid error in statementsof fact, in a country remarkable for the extraordinaryfertility with which the unreal is produced,would have excited some commiseration; but thoughthere is much extenuated in these pages, there is not,I believe, aught set down in malice. My aim hasbeen to retain so much relating to events passingunder my eyes, or to persons who have become famousin this great struggle, as