"No chapter in the history of our unhappy civil war, is so well calculated to enlist the sympathies of the people, as the one enumerating the sorrows of our brave soldiers who have been so unfortunate as to fall into the hands of the enemy, as prisoners of war. In the preparation of the present volume, we have had an eye, not so much to a literary production, as to a simple, truthful story of prison life; one which the survivors thereof should recognize as just, and the people of the country could accept as reliable and honest. The author has gone fully into detail of every-day life at Andersonville, as here was the spot where the climax of rebel barbarity was reached. It was the original design to have adopted a similar plan with reference to some other prominent Prisons, but on consultation with different parties who had been discharged from these various points, it was found to be substantially the same, and would therefore be only repetition. The short sketches which we give of these, will enable the public to form a correct idea of the general system of treatment applied by the rebels to our soldiers who fall into their hands as prisoners. The spirited and striking illustrations which were obtained expressly for these pages; the plans of prisons, &c., &c., are executed in a credible style, and form an attractive feature of the whole. As the author had only a short furlough of thirty days, it became necessary to obtain a person accustomed to such work to prepare the manuscript for the press, and attend to the reading of the proof. In changing the style of the journal to a running narrative, the langauge is often different from the original, but the facts are strictly observed"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).