Campaigns of General Custer in the North-west, and the final surrender of Sitting Bull

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The object of this first venture into authorship on the part of one vrho, until recently, engaged in the engrossing duties of active business life-has had but little leisure for literary pursuits-will be readily apparent to the reader on a perusal of its pages. It purports to be a faithful portrayal of Western life, as experienced by the old settlers at the isolated posts and military stations on the extreme frontier, together with a clear representation of facts concerning the treatment of the Indians of the plains, by the Military and Interior Departments of the Government.

The author, heretofore a stranger to the reading public, deems it not amiss to introduce himself to his readers by stating that, when the war of the [Rebellion broke out, in 1861, he was a conductor on the Missouri Pacific Railroad, having followed that profession since he was twenty-one years of age.

In 1862, just after the siege of Corinth, a request was made from the Army of the Tennessee for experienced men and officers to take immediate charge of the immense transportation. The writer proceeded to Corinth, Miss., and was assigned to duty at Jackson, Tenn., the lamented Major-General James B. McPherson being his immediate superior officer up to the siege of Vicksburg, when, in 1863, just before the surrender of that almost impregnable city, he was captured by the regular Confederate forces, under E. Kirby Smith, whose headquarters were at Shreveport, La. It was soon noised about his quarters that the prisoner had taken a prominent part in railroad management, and the transportation connected with the army under Grant, McPherson and Sherman, and it was decided to banish him so far out of the way that he would not be able to render any further service to the Union cause during the war.

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